Kidnappers have engaged the Nigerian state in a test of will. So far, they have had the upper hand as they go berserk in virtually all the states of the federation. A dare-devil kidnapper, Chukwudi Onwuamadike, with a network across the country, was nabbed at his Magodo, Lagos residence, along with six members of his gang on Saturday. He has been a fugitive since 2013.
But twice, police personnel were caught off guard in the state where, in one school, 10 pupils and their vice-principal have been kidnapped within the last seven months. The vulnerable school, Lagos State Model College at Igbonla, in Epe, had six of its pupils taken away by a kidnapping gang of about 15 two weeks ago. The victims remain in their den because the N100 million ransom on demand has yet to be paid. Their disconsolate parents stormed Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s office on Wednesday, to ask the government to exert its power for their children to regain their freedom.
Along the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway, kidnappers stopped commercial vehicles and marched 20 passengers into the bush on Thursday, just as five siblings were abducted at the gate of the family residence at Osubi, Okpe area of Delta State, the previous day.
Incidents like these are countless, suggestive of the fact that nobody is safe. Victims cut across all ages, affecting both the rich and the poor. Kidnappers do not just fleece victims millions of cash, evident in Onwuamadike’s confession that he received $1 million each from four victims, they also kill when they collect amounts they consider insufficient. This was the case with a medical doctor, Stanley Uche, in Aba, whose relations paid N30 million. They rape women, act as hired assassins, and as armed robbers.
Many states have recognised this evil as the worst form of insecurity in the land. As a result, 15 states, including Rivers, Lagos, Delta, Imo, Edo, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Kano, Bayelsa, Enugu, Benue, Kaduna, have imposed capital punishment for the offence, according to a media report, with the hope that it would be a deterrent. Others are Bauchi, Kogi, Cross River, and the Federal Capital Territory. Unfortunately, this has yet to pay off.
As a deep national concern, it dominated discussions at a recent security summit in Abuja, organised by the police, where lamentations of inadequate personnel and equipment were not in short supply. Part of police strategic response to the epidemic, says the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, is the setting up of Police Intelligence Unit that will coordinate the tracking of criminals – robbers and kidnappers. He has already launched these units in Abuja and Owerri. Special Tracking Units, he said, will be set up in Port Harcourt (Rivers State) to cover the entire South-South and South-East zones, while the centre Lagos will take care of the South-West zone. He swanked that the Abuja unit has been able to resolve about 90 per cent cases of kidnapping.
Police statistics on kidnapping are scary. In 2015 alone, 886 cases occurred in the country, with Rivers and Lagos states leading with 294 and 142 cases respectively. Other states with awful figures were Ebonyi 79; Ekiti 56; Ogun 52; Benue 41; Adamawa; 38 and Taraba 24.
While the criminals should be tracked, the ultimate solution to the menace is taking preemptive measures. This is what the provision of adequate equipment and state-of-the-art technology will go a long way in achieving. States’ lack of seriousness in prosecuting such criminal cases has not helped matters either.
Governors are, therefore, reminded that there is a limit to brinkmanship. Those of them not willing to sign death warrants on kidnappers in states where capital punishment exists should stop complaining about the scourge. Their loathsomeness explains why kidnappers are not deterred by the hollow punitive legislative declarations in 15 states. However, implementing the law will drive home the message that there are consequences for indulging in such criminality. The Onwuamadike case, therefore, provides a litmus test for the Ambode administration.
As murderers, the kidnappers should be treated with equal measure. In December last year, an actress, Aisha Alli-Balogun, was kidnapped in Lagos along with her two-year-old daughter, Faridah. The mother was killed, but they held on to the baby girl until ransom was paid. The testimony of Mike Ozekhome, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who was in a kidnappers’ den in 2013, that 13 captives, including children, were held in one room in a thick bush with “death sentence (inscription) hung on us,” shows how gruesome an encounter with them can be – better imagined than experienced.
Nigeria is ranked fifth in kidnapping globally, behind Mexico, India, Pakistan and Iraq, according to Control Risk, a United Kingdom-based consultancy that tracks such cases. Our membership of this notorious league should deeply worry Abuja. There are proven cases that soldiers and police men are involved in kidnapping, which often make their operations military-like and fatal. For instance, soldiers were implicated in the abduction of Margaret, the wife of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, last year. This, therefore, calls for total self-cleansing by the security agencies and maximum penal clampdown on their operatives who connive with the criminals or are directly involved.
But for benevolent fate, prominent citizens like Olu Falae, Elechi Amadi, Kamene Okonjo, mother of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Peter Adomokhai, Iyabo Anisulowo, Pete Edoche and Ozekhome, could have been needlessly killed by kidnappers.
All hands should be on deck to bring this savagery to an end. It is a seal of a lawless and disorderly society. It has scared not a few foreign investors away, and killed many local businesses. The police have to embrace high-tech, involve communities and other strategic initiatives to make their response telling. Instructively, kidnapping draws attention to the imperative of state police and community policing, which Abuja has been shying away from.
