Chimamanda Adichie Reveals How Her Father Was Kidnapped

In her latest writing for the New York Times, award-winning writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reveals how her father was kidnapped. 

In her words: 

“My father was kidnapped in Nigeria on a Saturday morning in early May. My brother called to tell me, and suddenly there was not enough breathable air in the world.”

She described how he got his doctoral degree at Berkeley in the 1960s on a scholarship from the United States Agency for International Development and later on became Nigeria’s first professor of statistics.

She also shared how she would sometimes record his Igbo proverbs and how he would spend hours bent over Sudoku.

Describing the kidnap incident she wrote:On the morning he was kidnapped, he had a bag of okpa, apples and bottled water that my mother had packed for him. He was in the back seat of his car, his driver at the wheel, on a lonely stretch between Nsukka, the university town where he lives, and Abba, our ancestral hometown. He was going to attend a traditional meeting of men from his age group. A two-hour drive. My mother was planning their late lunch upon his return: pounded yam and a fresh soup. They always called each other when either traveled alone. This time, he didn’t call. She called him and his phone was switched off. They never switched off their phones. Hour after hour, she called and it remained off. Later, her phone rang, and although it was my father’s number calling, a stranger said, “We have your husband.”