The kidnap epidemic

The real and present danger that kidnapping for ransom poses in this country was dramatized in the past fortnight by the almost simultaneous kidnapping of Mrs. Margaret Emefiele, wife of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and former Minister of Environment Mrs. Laurentia Laraba Malam who was seized together with her husband, […]

The real and present danger that kidnapping for ransom poses in this country was dramatized in the past fortnight by the almost simultaneous kidnapping of Mrs. Margaret Emefiele, wife of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and former Minister of Environment Mrs. Laurentia Laraba Malam who was seized together with her husband, Pius. While Mrs. Emefiele was seized in Delta State on September 30, Mrs. Malam was kidnapped near Jere in Kaduna State on October 4.
Hot on the heels of those two incidents came the invasion of Junior Model College in Igbonla, Egbe, Lagos State last week. Kidnappers took away the Vice Principal and four students. While the tragic drama of the Lagos school kidnap is still unfolding, Emefiele and Malam were released after millions of naira was paid as ransom. Two days ago the Police paraded nine suspects believed to have been involved in Mrs. Emefiele’s kidnap. This is commendable, but far too many kidnappers got away with their crimes and their loot. In fact, most kidnap cases go unreported in the media. In many parts of the country, in urban as well as rural areas, people live in constant fear of being kidnapped. Most of our highways are infested with kidnappers clad in police and military uniforms.
Many have hoped that kidnappers will be on the run with the coming of Ibrahim Kpotun Idris as Inspector General of Police, given the new IGP’s record as a tough crime buster.  Maybe Idris is yet to plant his feet firmly in the ground because kidnapping syndicates seem to be waxing stronger and their criminal economy is booming with millions of naira ransom payments every week.  Kidnappers have declared war on the rich as well as the poor, so all Nigerians live in dread of them right now.
It was doubly depressing that at the parade of Mrs. Emefiele’s kidnappers, two serving soldiers, Lance Corporals Musa Maidabara and Edwin George, were named as ringleaders while another dismissed soldier, Ernest Anthony Uduefe, played an active role in the crime. The impressive ethnic mix of the gang that collected N80 million ransom also punctured earlier beliefs that ethnic Fulani gangsters were the crime’s only perpetrators.  Among the gang that kidnapped Mrs. Emefiele were criminals of Benue, Edo, Adamawa, Sokoto, Nasarawa, Niger, Delta, Gombe and Borno origin. This shows that kidnappers reflect the federal character of Nigeria and are a clear and present danger to all.
We call of the Nigeria Police to declare war on kidnapping and to mobilize both human and material resources to tackle the menace headlong. With effective crime mapping, it is possible to isolate the areas where the crime is prevalent, especially on Kaduna-Abuja, Kogi-Edo-Delta and Lagos-Ogun-Edo highways. In order to achieve this objective, the police must beef up its intelligence gathering network through community policing, recruitment of special marshals and close cooperation with telecommunications companies to make it easier to track down locations from where kidnappers make calls while negotiating ransom payments. It baffles Nigerians that in spite of available technology, kidnappers use mobile phones to negotiate and receive ransom payments in millions of naira without being detected and arrested by security agents. Along this line, we call on the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) to prevail on mobile phone operators to provide Nigerians with simple toll-free numbers which can be used by victims to alert security agencies when in danger of being kidnapped.
It is also necessary to ask security agencies to purge themselves of criminal elements who cooperate and provide cover for kidnappers. As long as policemen and soldiers belong to criminal gangs, it is easy for kidnappers to have access to police and army uniforms and weapons. Kidnapping has reached epidemic proportions in Nigeria. It is contributing to the country’s economic adversity by making many people reluctant to travel in pursuit of their livelihoods. The Federal Government must respond in kind.