The sociology of kidnapping in Nigeria
Growing up in Ibadan, parents left no stones unturned in warning us about the menace of kidnapers – called gbomogbomo in Yoruba parlance. Everyday stories of lucky survivors were told to our hearing to all the more underscore the need for us to be conscious of stranger danger – though they didn’t quite capture it […]
Growing up in Ibadan, parents left no stones unturned in warning us about the menace of kidnapers – called gbomogbomo in Yoruba parlance. Everyday stories of lucky survivors were told to our hearing to all the more underscore the need for us to be conscious of stranger danger – though they didn’t quite capture it as apt. Prayers were specially offered in religious gatherings by parents entrusting their kids into God’s hands lest one day any child got hypnotised by the diabolic touch of kidnappers and then led to their slaughter thickets for money-making rituals.
The kidnapper was more loathed than a villain in a gothic fiction. He, by reason of metaphor, was a paedophile who robbed children of their chaste innocence. No one compared with him in the love for filthy lucre. He was an epidemic whose morbidity rate was high among children.
As I reminisce on the many cases of kidnapping that form a trope in my childhood narrative, a particular instance comes with vivid remembrance. My brother and I were in the wee hours of a Saturday morning woken by the cacophony of an angry mob pursuing a man. The only thing he had on was an unbuttoned shirt bellowing like a flag to the aerial whims of the wind whilst he ran. He had nothing else on. I surmised he had been caught in the very act of adultery but hours later, I heard he was a gbomogbomo and when he was caught in some neighbourhood farther afield, was burnt alive by the frenzied mob.
Kidnapping within the last decade took a more brazen dimension all across the federation. From the fluvial habitats of the Niger Delta to the hubs of Lagos, many Nigerians of proletariat and aristocratic backgrounds have been kidnapped either to be held hostage until been ransomed by moneyed relatives or to be killed for some mysterious money-making rites in some obscure thickets. I’ve oftentimes tried to understand how human blood can mint money; the type that is common in Nollywood blockbusters; but always failed to piece it all together. However, this ogun owo – money ritual – culture is generally believed to be real, especially in the South West. The nouveaux riches are even sometimes sceptically stereotyped as money ritualists for no just cause. So is the extent to which people believe that a very fast way to wealth is the sacrificing of human life to a greedy god.
The question we perhaps should ask is what has stoked the flames of kidnapping in the society today. What has exploited the purported moral backdrop upon which our ethoses are built? The simple answer is the pecuniary instinct in the vast majority of youths today. The fact is that the system has failed them and they think the only way around it is to resort to get-rich-quick schemes like kidnapping, cybercrime, etc damning all consequences. This ideology is so steeped in the youth demographic today. Little wonder then we Segun Wire articulated his ambition when he said “walai talai mofe cha che.”
Nigeria has a culture that deifies the rich and so everyone is questing for wealth one way or another. Even in religious gatherings, people pray in stentorian tones to God asking for money. There is a consensus among Pentecostal churches today that material riches serve as testament to God’s blessings and if anyone is poor, it only means they are yet to grasp the intricacies of dealing with God. Everything in Nigeria tells you just have to be rich. Who better understands it more than kidnappers?
Kidnapping is just a by-product of a faulty system and should be addressed holistically. We might decry the stock-in-trade of Evans and his ilk but nothing changes if we do not decry the very culture that breeds them.
Olaniyi Olayemi Luke, [email protected]