Everyone, it seems, is now a target of kidnappers. Young or old, male or female, the poor or the rich, Nigerians are living at the mercy of sadistic criminals raking in filthy lucre by stealing people. Hence, the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has called for a national security summit to deal with the bestiality and other criminal acts like robbery and herdsmen killings. On the surface, the idea of a roundtable appears to be well-intentioned, but it takes much more than that to curb the menace and guarantee public safety.
Basically, the IG blames “the paucity of funds and inadequate personnel” for the failure to halt the growing cases of kidnapping. This is partly true. The police remit is to protect 170 million Nigerians, but they received N321 billion, N308 billion and N323 billion as total budgetary allocations in 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively. This is inadequate.
As a result, state governments (and corporate organisations) are investing heavily in police operations in their domains. Lagos State spent N4.5 billion to acquire armoured personnel carriers, bulletproof vests, uniforms, rifles, ammunition and 200 patrol vehicles in 2015. So, the conundrum is not necessarily about funding, but also the inability of the police to creatively apply themselves to the job at hand.
The Nigeria Police Force, with a staff strength of between 330,000 and 370,000, is short-handed, according to Idris. The IG claims the ratio of 1:400 for policeman to civilian population is below the United Nations recommendation. However, with 10,000 new officers currently undergoing recruitment, the police are on the right path. Yet, the Achilles’ heel of the police is the irrational deployment of their workforce. A former IG, Solomon Arase, lamented that “100,000 officers carry handbags for wives of moneybags and politicians.” Nothing has changed with Idris. These officers should be protecting the public, not only the VIPs.
By virtue of this, kidnapping, a phenomenon that was largely confined to the Niger Delta region, has spread significantly beyond the oil producing states. Now, kidnapping is a criminality that thrives in every state. Peter Breunji, a German professor of archaeology, and his associate, Johannes Buringer, were abducted on the field in Janjele, Kagarko Local Government Area on February 22. They spent four days in captivity with the kidnappers who demanded a N60 million ransom. In Lagos, Dayo Adekoya, the secretary of the Isheri North Estate Residents Association, was also abducted in February by a 20-man gang. The abductors shot dead three private guards in the operation.
Buoyed by the hefty ransom they collect and lack of consequences for their action, kidnappers are on the loose. Farmers and residents of Epe staged protests to the Lagos State House of Assembly in February to intimate the authorities of widespread kidnapping in the area. Things are so bad there that soldiers now escort them to their farms. It is a similar scenario in Ikorodu, which has witnessed high-profile abductions, including the one at the Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary in 2016. In February, kidnappers stole five pupils and three teachers of the Nigerian Turkish College, Isheri, Ogun State, holding them hostage in the creeks before their release.
The list of victims is infinite. But spare a thought for Catherine Chukwu, 65, who was kidnapped by a gang of six on January 18 in Ivo Local Government Area, Ebonyi State. Though the police denied that ransom was paid, her body was exhumed last week after the gangsters killed and buried her in a shallow grave. She is not the only one to have been murdered in similar horrific circumstances. Kidnappers have invaded towns, state capitals and remote villages throughout the country, stealing pupils returning from school in the afternoon and workers leaving early for work. Uncertain of who the next victim might be, the air of fear is indeed palpable. Some states like Anambra and Imo have enacted strong anti-kidnapping laws, but it took the military to flush kidnappers out of Abia State in 2012 where they were out of control.
What could be done? First, the IG has to man up. His predecessors have been postponing the difficult decision of withdrawing officers attached to politicians and moneybags. At this rate, Idris has no excuse not to implement the withdrawal. This will free up more personnel to be deployed to special anti-kidnapping squads that should be created urgently all over the country. For instance, the police stepped up patrols in 2016 after the kidnapping of a teenager in Oxford, England. A 2011/12 report by British NGO, Action Against Abduction, said because of police action, 42 per cent of abduction attempts were unsuccessful.
A decentralised squad will aid the quick response needed against kidnappers in all parts of the country. The gangs in Lagos and Ogun states are hiding in the creeks in Ikorodu and Arepo. In collaboration with the Nigerian Navy, the Nigerian Air Force, and the Marine Police, the teams should make their lairs uncomfortable for them. Every police area command should be equipped with a special unit that will concentrate on cracking and preventing kidnapping with the aid of technological gadgets. Communities, through their associations, should be incorporated into intelligence gathering.
The government should stop toying with security. Colombia was once labelled the “kidnap capital” of the world, recording 3,572 abductions in 2000. But when the police moved decisively against the gangs, only 282 cases were listed in 2010. This is the way out. As a federation, policing should be decentralised. The United States, Germany, Canada and Australia – all federal jurisdictions – have a devolved policing environment. Nigeria needs to follow suit.
