HE’LL never forget the taste of the rice with chilli sauce his kidnappers gave him to eat. And he’ll always remember how it felt to hold a rope in his hands – a rope they threatened to hang him with.
For eight days Nick Greyling, a sound engineer at M-Net TV channel SuperSport lived through a nightmare in Nigeria. He was kidnapped by a rebel movement, assaulted, starved and constantly told he was going to die.
He’s traumatised, the 46-year-old father of three says at his home in Westdene, Johannesburg. “But with help from God I think I’m handling it well.”
For the umpteenth time he strokes his wife Lorna’s feet on his lap as if to reassure himself the person who prayed so hard for his release is really with him at last.
He remembers everything in the finest detail – from the moment a Nigerian in an army uniform knocked on the window of the bus and motioned for him to get out when he realised something strange was happening to the final tense moments of his release.
“It remains like a film playing in my head. Especially the past few days,’’ Nick says. And, no, he’ll never, ever set foot in Nigeria again.
Read the full article in the 25 March issue of YOU