by By Alexander Ekemenah
Introduction
What started as a child’s play around 2005 at the beginning of militancy in the Niger Delta has now assumed worrisome national dimension. It has now become a clear and present danger to national security in terms of safety of individuals, their freedom of movement without fear of the men of the underworld.
Kidnapping has been on a progressive increase in the country. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), there were reported cases of 277 kidnappings in Nigeria in 2007; 309 in 2008; 703 in 2009; 738 in 2010; 600 in 2012; and 574 in 2013. About 630 people were reportedly abducted between May 2016 and May 2017.
Crime Statistics on reported offences reflected that a total of 125,790 cases were reported in 2016. Offence against property has the highest number of cases reported with 65,397 of such cases reported. Offence against persons recorded 45,554 cases reported while offence against lawful authority and local acts recorded the least with 12,144 and 2,695 cases recorded respectively. Lagos State has the highest percentage share of total cases reported with 36.08% and 45,385 cases recorded. FCT Abuja and Delta State followed closely with 10.48% and 13,181 and 6.25% and 7,867 cases recorded respectively. (Crime Statistics: Reported Offences by Type and State (2016) http://nigerianstat.gov.ng/elibrary?queries[search]=crime)
Crime Statistics on reported offences reflected that a total of 134,663 cases were reported in 2017. Offence against property has the highest number of cases reported with 68,579 of such cases reported. Offence against persons recorded 53,641 cases reported while offence against lawful authority recorded the least with 12,443 cases recorded respectively. Lagos State has the highest percentage share of total cases reported with 50,975 (37.9%) cases recorded. Abia and Delta State followed closely with 12,408(9.2%) and 7,150(5.3%) cases recorded respectively. (Crime Statistics: Reported Offences by Type and State (2017) http://nigerianstat.gov.ng/elibrary?queries[search]=crime)
Source: https://knoema.com/atlas/Nigeria/Kidnapping-rate
Source: https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Nigeria/kidnapping/
In 2009, Nigeria’s 36 state governors met in Abuja and urged the Federal Government to take a tougher stance on the matter by bringing the full weight of the law on culprits. In September 2017, the Senate passed a bill imposing the death penalty for abduction, wrongful restraint and confinement for ransom. (See “Nigeria’s kidnapping crisis”, February 1, 2019, https://enactafrica.org/enact-observer/nigerias-kidnapping-crisis). Some states already had laws against abduction and kidnapping. The laws passed by 16 out of the 36 worst-affected states prescribe capital punishment for kidnapping, especially in cases where a victim has died while in the custody of kidnappers (Ibid). The legal regime of capital punishment has been to no avail as kidnappers still hold sway on the crime terrain in the country.
Kidnapping has become a criminal dynamic or a critical part of the evolution of crimes in Nigeria. It stands on its own special category. It must therefore be differentiated from armed robbery and other forms of criminal activities that threaten lives and properties of the individuals, corporate bodies and the Nation-State. It must be treated theoretically from a different perspective.
Kidnapping is a silent wound inflicted on the society from which the victims have been suffering, groaning and whimpering. Its sociological impacts and psychological traumatic effects may not be accurately captured or measured. Its collateral damage is extensive since its effects describe a wider circle of secondary victims.
The causes are interwoven with the growing complexity of criminality in Nigeria, which in turn is also interwoven with the dynamics of socioeconomic development and political evolution in the country – in this case with retrogression of economic structures and political dysfunctioning (for instance, election rigging and political thuggery).
Historically, it was often associated with money-making ritualistic phenomenon. Indeed, it is a contemporary off-shoot of militancy in the region which has now assumed national dimension while militancy per see is still restricted geographically to the Niger Delta region. Today, it is no longer the exclusive prerogative of the Niger Delta militants but has now been adopted as a criminal enterprise by other criminal syndicates across the country.
By 2010 or thereabout, the targets have shifted from foreign nationals (oil workers) in the Niger Delta to fellow citizens not only in the Niger Delta but also in other parts of the country. It is a criminal phenomenon that has no ethnic coloration as hapless citizens from all the geo-political zones became victims at one point or the other. There is also no age or gender discrimination as citizens of both sexes and different age groups have fallen victims from time to time.
At the national level, kidnapping became a mean to an end: of negotiating and extraction of money and leverage from families, groups or classes of people and institutions of the Nation-State. In other words, kidnapping is carried out with the specific aim of getting an unwarranted reward from the families of the victims, the groups or classes to which these victims belong in society and finally the institutions of the Nation-State through their involvement in rescue missions or intermediation/negotiation. In this context, kidnapping can be seen to be an extractive criminal enterprise.
The effects are devastating as well as far-reaching. The scale or magnitude of psychological and not just physical violence inflicted on the victim, by holding him/her hostage against his/her will always leave an indelible mark on the psyche of the victim for a long time. For female victims, it could even be worse. Female victims always stand the risk of being raped, sexually abused in one form or the other (for instance, depriving them of regular hygiene) and subjecting them to all manners of degrading (un-womanly) treatment. It is a victimization process of which the psychological traumatic effects for the victims and their families, the society and the State – in their constituent units – cannot be adequately captured in words. Victims are held against their wills for duration of time – pending the payment of ransoms – denied their freedoms of movement, fed with poor diet and kept in solitary confinement, denied contacts with loved ones and communications with the outside world, get bargained with in monetary terms or having financial premiums/values placed on their heads/lives; having their dignities of human persons degraded to a subnormal/shabby level. The traumatic experiences are often repressed into the deep unconsciousness of the mind as a form or memories “better” forgotten.
Families suffer along with their victims along the above mental and social terrains. Families are stigmatized socially by having their kits or kin kidnapped; forced to suffer in silence or given unnecessary or undue media exposure, forced to enter into negotiation with kidnappers/men of underworld; forced to part with their hard-earned money as ransoms to secure the lives of their loved ones; etc.
At the social level, kidnapping and payment of ransoms reinforced the entire phenomenon itself because kidnappers are justified in their criminal activities as a mean of legitimizing themselves and extraction of “Shylock Pound of Flesh” from a society that cares less about them; a society that abhors them; in short a society that creates the socioeconomic circumstances for their criminal activities to thrive such as through unemployment, official corruption, social hypocrisy or wrong social values; lack of proper civic education, etc.
At the economic level, it creates atmosphere of uncertainty, insecurity of contractual agreements between individuals, between corporate entities and individuals, and between two or more corporate bodies. Private and public officials do not feel completely safe in an atmosphere threatened by general insecurity and more particularly fear of being a victim of kidnapping – even when they are protected by private or corporate/public security details. Kidnapping becomes a trigger for unintended consequences of entering into a contractual relationship in an atmosphere dominated by fear of insecurity or fear of being a victim of kidnapping. Thus it creates and sustains a network and atmosphere of low intensity/instability.
The consequences are far-reaching. It further denies the country the much-needed foreign direct investments in part and restricts or narrows the scope or spread of the investment to particular region of the country where insecurity and kidnapping in particular are higher. Sometimes, foreign investors choose to retreat completely where they cannot invest their resources in the particular location in the country.
Kidnapping has become a security denominator with which certain foreign countries seeks or attempts to demonize Nigeria as an unsafe, insecure environment or a failing state – a state gradually falling into the embrace of a Hobbesian conditions where life is made short, nasty and brutish, etc.
Kidnapping discourages tourist travels to the country. It creates negative image for the country abroad as embassies within the country issue from to time security alerts to their citizens at home not to travel to Nigeria or restrict their movements when within the country for fear of having their citizens kidnapped for ransoms or other sinister objectives.
At the State level, the thriving of kidnapping means that law enforcement authorities are increasingly becoming unable to stem the criminal activities. It means the laws and legal penalties against kidnapping as a crime against the State and person are not effective to serve as deterrent against it. Sanctions are seen not to be sufficient. Something drastic perhaps is required. The widely acknowledged inefficiencies of the police, State Secret Service, the paramilitary constabulary forces; the unwieldy nature of the judicial system, especially the length of time required for a criminal case to receive final justice dispensation and dispatch, the hellish conditions of the prison-correctional system – all these contribute to the sustenance of kidnapping as a special category of criminal activities in Nigeria today.
The crime of kidnapping shows that the bolts and nuts that hold the fabric of the social order together have become loosened under pressures from various angles, mostly from economic angle. It can be seen as a product of the dysfunctioning socioeconomic and political factors within the structures of the political economy (of inequalities as exemplified by unemployment which currently stands at 23.8 per cent of the entire population). The net result is the gradual falling apart of the social contract system where individuals become afraid of one another, specifically, the fear of being kidnapped on the streets.
The transition to democracy has not delivered its expected dividends. Rather, what the country has been witnessing is a phenomenon of State capture by various factions of the Nigerian political class, a process that has led to a gradual build-up of a vast network of clientelism, nepotism, corruption and which in turn has led to collective disenchantment, disillusionment, frustrations, desperations, violence, frictions, conflicts and finally insecurity. The formal political institutions have not been able to deliver any tangible dividend. Rather, it is a case of emergence of the so-called strong-man leadership (that is actually effete) with the corollary potential or real instability or consolidation of injustices and inequities in the polity.
Kidnapping is a crack in the wall of social order already battered by ethnic divisions, religious bigotry, economic crisis and moral retrogression. But in the final analysis, it is all about making money through illegal means by unemployed youths and their grandmasters.
Kidnapping speaks directly to the calamitous failure of leadership in the realm of public and private governance, in the domain of religion and private world of family life. It is the virtual failure of effective governance (within the framework and parameters of democracy) to generate enough economic opportunities that is at the root of the various typologies of crimes and insecurity that the country has been facing in the last two decades, since 1999 to be precise: insurgencies, terrorism, kidnapping and separatist movements including armed robbery.
The failure of this effective governance is not only limited to the socioeconomic space but even more important the security sector. And the first thing that unavoidably come to notice is the lack of national security policy and/or strategy – a situation that also speaks directly to lack of wholesale or holistic reform in this area since 1999.
In the last 20 years, the country has had a substantial turnover of national security leadership (Inspector General of Police, National Security Adviser, Director General of Department of State Security, Director General of National Security Agency, Director of Military Intelligence, Director of Defence Intelligence, the Service Chiefs, and other para-military organizations). But none of these national security leaders has ever come forward to showcase any theoretical or practical model or template for combating the increasing security challenges being faced by the nation.
In this particular case study of kidnapping, no Inspector General of Police since 1999 has specifically come out with a superior security model or template for combating kidnapping as a newly emergent security challenge in the country. The questions that literally come to mind are legion: what exactly is the problem here? Is it lack of interest or as a result of the magnitude of the challenge including the task of covering a vast geographical space where kidnapping takes place?
This writer has advocated for reform of the security services with particular emphasis on for national security policy as a framework for guiding the operational methodologies for combating new current security challenges the country is facing. (Ekemenah, A.: “From Threats to Tasks: Case for Reform and National Security Policy”, September 2, 2019, http://nextmoneyng.com/2019/09/02/from-threats-to-tasks-case-for-reform-and-national-security-policy/)
Origin of Kidnapping
Kidnapping is a criminal enterprise of special category. If we regard and treat it in this context, then it is possible to understand the negative impact on the society especially its danger to social order i.e. freedom of movement without fear or hindrance.
Perhaps, the first major kidnap story celebrated across the country was the botched kidnap attempt of the late Alhaji Umaru Dikko, former Minister of Transport under Shehu Shagari administration. The kidnap attempt took place in London, United Kingdom, by the agents of the Muhammadu Buhari-led military junta that overthrew the Second Republic. Dikko was abducted from his London home, drugged and diplomatically crated for onward transportation to Nigeria. But the attempt was thwarted at the London Heathrow Airport and led to diplomatic row between Nigeria and the United Kingdom then.
The attempt to secretively bring back Umaru Dikko was politically-motivated by the Nigerian military Junkers then viz: to bring Umaru Dikko home to answer the charges of corruption leveled against him by the military Junkers. This showed clearly that kidnapping could not only be politically motivated but indeed it has its root in political objectives in Nigeria.
Before the advent of the Fourth Republic in May 1999, kidnapping was a rare phenomenon, even though it exists without doubt. But kidnapping in those days is often associated with money-making rituals. During this time it was a kind of criminal and atavistic activity aimed at increasing the criminal’s sources of wealth or primitive wealth accumulation. The victims are mostly young ones who are killed without mercy. In the Southwest part of the country, they are called in local parlance as “gbomo-gbomo” (i.e. child-snatchers or child-thieves). In those days, children are hardly sent on errands over long distances for fear of being kidnapped by this group of men of underworld. They are distinguished from armed robbers or petty thieves. But they are feared even probably more than armed robbers. Kidnappers are often armed with charms with which they bewitch their victims, enticing them or hypnotizing them into zombies and have them taken to their hideouts or covens where they are murdered and have their private or vital organs severed from their bodies for rituals purposes. Corpses of the victims are found later. The culprits usually escape into thin airs.
Kidnapping has therefore been a terrifying criminal phenomenon in Nigeria for many decades.
Today, the dynamic has changed radically. There are hardly kidnapping for money-making ritual purposes in a direct manner any more. Rather, the money-making ritual end has transformed into modern money-making ventures of negotiation or coercive extraction of money from the victims and/or through their families. The methodologies have changed but the objective remains the same. The old crude methods have given way to modern or sophisticated methods of armed kidnapping, spiriting the victims away to hideouts, of making telephonic contacts with the families and opening up negotiation for payment of ransoms.
Kidnapping started in Niger Delta around 2005 as part of the emergent militancy in the region. It gradually came to be sharply distinguished from the mainstream of militant activities: bombing and destruction of oil facilities, clash with security agents of the state – over dispute over oil revenue-sharing between the federal government and states in the region, disputes over environmental degradation as a result of oil exploration and production, disputes over compensations received from multinational oil companies operating in the region from time to time, etc.
It started with kidnapping of foreign oil workers who are regarded rightly or wrongly as agents of the multinational oil companies. They are kidnapped for ransoms or for political negotiations with the oil companies. Rarely were the victims killed which suggested from the very beginning that the whole criminal enterprise was designed and designated as a mean to an end: to coercively extract money from the families or employers of the victims; and also for political objectives.
Over time and space, it evolves into kidnapping of indigenes whose targets varied from one group of kidnappers to another. The targets are males and females, old and young, of all classes in the society.
The promulgation and/or introduction of Amnesty Programme for the Niger Delta militants introduced its own dynamics into the equation. With the introduction of Amnesty Programme in July 2009, kidnapping in the Niger Delta abated as many militants; arms-wielding youths are amnestied and taken off the battle fronts of the creeks for rehabilitation through various institutional training programmes locally and abroad. This was also the period that kidnapping migrated from the Niger Delta to the South Eastern part of the country.
From Niger Delta, it spreads to the South Eastern states and from where it gradually spread to other parts of the country to become a national phenomenon. As a result, kidnapping is now generally regarded as a national emergency and no longer restricted to a particular region any more. For instance, Boko Haram insurgency in the North Eastern part of the country has come to aggravate the situation as Boko Haram insurgents also added kidnapping to their repertoire of violence and campaign of terror against the Nigerian State.
Kidnapping is now a national cancer.
Today in Nigeria, kidnapping has hypnotically dragged the very flower of the society into its cauldron. Youths are now happily and foolhardily involved and engaged in it. Students of tertiary institutions have gotten roped into the network through their various cult groups and criminal gangs. Teeming jobless youths outside the tertiary institutions have been drawn into it through illegal media channels, through association with students from the tertiary institutions.
In the Niger Delta, there are numerous ethnic militia groups who used kidnapping of expatriate oil workers, as bargaining chips/weapon of drawing attention to the awful conditions of oil exploitation, production, environmental degradation, dislocations and oppressions in the Niger Delta. There are those militants who were dislodged from their Niger Delta bases in the creeks and passed over by the Amnesty programme who later resorted to kidnapping as a mean of survival in the new changed social environment. There are also those who see kidnapping as a faster, lucrative business and less risky than armed robbery because of the political aura associated with kidnapping. This group has spread all over the country.
The devolution or degeneration of the Niger Delta “crisis” from the era of Abacha-led military junta (1993-1998), through the brief intermission of Abdulsalam Abubukar -Okhai Akhigbe military colossi (June 1998-May 1999) and during the two terms of Olusegun Obasanjo administration (May 1999-May 2007) into militancy and agitation for resource control introduced a new genre into kidnapping enterprise in Nigeria in the 1990s and early 2000s. It became an armed instrumentality used by the Niger Delta militias and constabulary forces to draw attention to the degrading environmental conditions existing in the region and the clarion call for redress from the Nigerian State and the multinational oil corporations operating in the region and to gain a fair share of the wealth generated by oil productions in the region.
The emergence of Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) led by the notorious Henry Okah, a splinter group from the Niger Delta People Volunteers Forces (NDPVF) led by the now famous Asari Dokubo in late 2005 brought kidnapping in the Niger Delta into full focus as a national criminal phenomenon. Other militant groups soon joined the fray of kidnapping at random and for ransoms. Kidnapping helped in no small measure to stigmatize, criminalize and delegitimize the Niger Delta militancy over the arch of time and space. What became a logical thesis, a new leit motif, of the Niger Delta became its anti-thesis.
Again, the above scenario shows clearly that kidnapping is historically tied with the politics of the nation and oil politics in this case.
Young girls are now being kidnapped for marriage and conversion from one religion to the other. The celebrated case of Ese Oruru, 14-year old, kidnapped from Yenagoa by an Hausa young man, whisked off to Kano, forcefully married to him, impregnated, and had her converted from Christianity to Islam is an examples of numerous other cases exposed and reported adequately in the media this years alone.
On April 14-15, 2014, about three hundred young secondary school girls were kidnapped from their school premises in Chibok, near Maiduguri, Borno State at the height of Boko Haram insurgency in the state and had them whisked off to unknown destination. Few escaped on their night journey to their unknown destination mostly rumored to be Sambisa Forest where Boko Haram had its operational headquarters at the boundary between Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon. Till date, the fate of the remaining 276 young girls or thereabout remain unknown as the security forces are yet to rescue them.
Three girls from the Babington Junior Seminary in Ikorodu, Lagos, were kidnapped, later found and rescued by a combined team of police, Department of Security Services agents) and the Army. Around mid-January 2017, kidnappers stormed the Nigerian Turkish International College, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ogun State, and whisked away five pupils into captivity.
Notable and innocent government and public officials are randomly kidnapped for ransoms and have them released after such payment of ransoms and spending varied numbers of days in captivity.
Many famous and rich men and women have been victims of kidnapping in the country. Among them are popular Nigerian actor, Pete Edochie, who was abducted at Afor-Nkpor in Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State in 2009; first runner-up of Mr. Nigeria pageant and Nollywood actor, Kenneth, was kidnapped in 2012 in Owerri, Imo State, with the kidnappers demanding N100 million. Another Nollywood actress, Nkiru Sylvanus, also tasted the bitter pill of kidnapping. A traditional ruler in Delta State had become a victim of kidnapping. He was eventually found dead after many days of captivity. The aged mother of the former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Professor Mrs. Okonjo, was kidnapped in Asaba, held captive for several weeks before she was released by the kidnappers after payment of undisclosed amount of ransom. The father of the former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, Pa Soludo, was kidnapped in Anambra State, held in captivity for several weeks before he was released, again, after payment of undisclosed amount of money. Even former President Goodluck Jonathan was not spared, as his foster father was abducted from his Otueke-home in Bayelsa State. Shettima Ali Monguno was kidnapped in Borno State, spent several weeks in captivity before he was released after payment of undisclosed sum of ransom.
The hitherto held legitimate ideological struggle and demand for resource control and a renegotiation of the Nigerian State became mired in unacceptable sundry criminal activity. Kidnapping for and taking of ransom led to the emergence of nihilistic nouveaux riche overnight, creating and sustaining a new conveyor belt for money laundering activities through the commercial banks in the country, corrupting the financial system in the process. Over $100 million have been estimated to have been paid in ransom to kidnappers between 2006 and 2008 alone.
Militancy partly morphed into large-scale criminal enterprise of kidnapping, hostage taking and ransom collection revealing the soft underbellies of militant movements in the region. It became a genie that could not be put back into the hellish bottle of politics and Mafia individualism where it came from.
Causes
The widespread poverty and the corollary high rate of unemployment in the country have been generally accepted as the major causes or drivers of kidnapping. In a country officially burdened with 23.8 per cent unemployment rate, criminality such as kidnapping cannot be too far from the mindset of criminal and desperate elements. Kidnappers are mostly educated young men of school and employment age who have become hopeless in finding gainful and sustainable employment opportunities with the failure of job-creation schemes by the government at federal, state and local levels.
Kidnapping is a transactional business. The kidnappers are not really interested in killing their victims except in reported cases of resistance or fear of security agents swooping upon them unexpectedly. The kidnappers are only interested in making money out of or through the victims. It is thus a business relationship that is not guided by any known rule, a relationship between an unwilling party on the one hand and another party willing to inflict violence and/or use coercion to get its conditions met unconditionally. In the vortex of this relationship lies the reality or actuality of the phenomenon of an insidious criminality and evilry of kidnapping.
Here we see the docility of the society in accepting kidnapping as a form of fait accompli, a phenomenal reality from which it is impossible to escape if death of the victim is to be avoided at all cost. This is on the one hand. On the other hand is the actuality (clear and present) of the danger of kidnapping becoming a norm in a society that has given up hope in the ability of the security agencies to act promptly, rescue victims without payment of ransoms and bringing the kidnappers to justice without delay.
“We thank God” becomes a signature from a possible death at the hands of the kidnappers after payment of various sums of ransoms to the kidnappers or to prevent prolongation in the detention camps of the kidnappers. But “we thank God” is a form of resignation to the calamity that has befallen the nation in the face of the unreliability or incapacity of the security agencies to cope with the rate of kidnapping in the country. Relatives give thanks to God because they are able to mobilize and pay the demanded ransoms with or without negotiation. Converse would be the case if the relatives cannot pay the ransoms so demanded especially if the kidnapped were to be killed.
“We thank God” becomes a cover for seething rage or angst at the kidnappers and even the social system that allows such evil acts to take place unchecked, particularly the failure of government and the legion of security agencies that would like to proclaim to the high heavens that they are doing “something” or their “best”. Forgiveness becomes very difficult to envisage here as various religious bodies would proffer. Since no justice has ever being seen to have been done, forgiveness is even more difficult. Society and government have failed woefully in collective terms to do the needful. It is left to the individual victim to forgive or not. The vibration of the soul towards forgiveness is disordered because of the excruciating traumatic experiences suffered at the hands of the kidnappers and the failure of the criminal justice system to come to rescue to serve as the last line of defence against this criminal typology.
The criminals are emboldened on daily basis by the docility of the society, the flatulent incapacity of the security agencies and other social dynamics. Kidnapping then digs its heel in the social order and as agency of moral corruption that has come to corrode the normative values of the society as captured in the constitutional framework of fundamental human rights of freedom of movement without let or hindrance, freedom from unlawful detention (in the hideouts or camps of the kidnappers), freedom from coercion and degrading treatment.
What was hitherto a drop in the ocean becomes a tidal oceanic wave threatening to overwhelm the entire society. Kidnapping became a free-ticket to sudden riches through the porous security environment in which most people live in Nigeria.
Endemic corruption that has eaten into the fabric of socioeconomic system over the years especially as revealed since the beginning of the Fourth Republic has also been identified as one of the causes of kidnapping. Corruption activated the get-rich-at-all-cost syndrome and the corollary rat-race to achieve this end that has gained traction among Nigerians, especially the youths. Nothing is held sacred any longer. Any mean of achieving wealth and fame is legitimate. Kidnapping is thus regarded as a legitimate business as a way of bridging the gap between the rich and the poor where the political leadership in the country lacked the moral suasion to discourage itself from looting the national patrimony.
The poor state of infrastructures all over the country especially in the oil producing communities contributes to the aggravation of criminal tendencies such as kidnapping. The poor state of infrastructures correlates with the poor standards of living and serves as dynamic for criminal proclivity to escape from poverty created by dysfunctioning socioeconomic system.
The proliferation of small and medium-scale weapons enable kidnappers to engage in their criminal activities with boldness especially against the background of inefficiencies of the law enforcement agencies. Kidnappers procure their weapons from various sources including the law enforcement agencies/agents themselves. Political actors also act as godfathers to kidnapping gangs and share the ransoms with them. Kidnappers access weapons from the politicians during election campaign periods in which they act as thugs or shock troops to the politicians against their rivals. These weapons are not often return back to base from where they were secured and thus become the main weapons for kidnapping purposes later.
In the Niger Delta for instance, these weapons were sophisticated enough which enable a gang of kidnappers to invade an oil facility and overwhelm a group of 40 soldiers and took them as hostages before they were later released. Some of the law enforcement agents have also lost their lives to the superior firepower of these criminal gangs including kidnappers.
Mobile communication aided the evolution of kidnapping and shaped it as it facilitates easy contact with the families or employers of the victims via mobile telephone communications. Negotiation for payment of ransoms follows quickly with or without the intervention of the law enforcement authorities. Negotiation can drag for several days, weeks or even months before agreements are finally reached between the kidnappers, the victims, their families and/or go-betweens. In most cases, victims are kept out of the negotiation loops as their involvements are considered detrimental to the final settlements. Mobile telephone even makes it possible for both parties not to meet physically as their negotiations can be carried out on phone.
The leap in communication system and emergence of social media helped to sustain network of criminal tendencies and perpetrations. For instance, a young university girl was lured all the way from Kano, through Facebook, to Lagos where she was gang-raped and murdered in a hotel room. The global system of mobile communication (GSM) provides the avenue through which kidnappers reach out and negotiate with relatives of the victims on ransom amount and mode of payment.
The politics of do-or-die which has created Manichean political ambitions and instability in the country serves as a secret driver of kidnapping. Political opponents are kidnapped and/or assassinated.
Illiteracy also falls into the loom especially in connected with Boko Haram insurgency and terrorism in the Northern part of the country. Boko Haram roughly translates to “western education is a sin”. The import of this on the moral psyche and cultural template in the North is decisive because it blurs the boundary between what is moral and immoral as regard other people with different belief system or orientation.
New Cases
On June 10, 2017, Mr. Chukwudumeje Onwuamadike, (with nom de guerre “Evans”) aged 36, who hails from Umudim Village, Nnewi North Local Government Area of Anambra State, was arrested at his mansion in Magodo residential area of Lagos by the IGP-driven Intelligence Response Team, IRT, for serial kidnapping cases, ransom taking and other criminal activities. It took the Police almost a decade to track him down and nab him, after spreading a dragnet of intelligence-gathering and deft management of human tip-offs…Investigations revealed that Evans has been able to evade arrest due to his ability to change his identity. Police operatives who have been trailing him over time can’t actually say what he truly looks like. It was also gathered that, aside his ability to change his identity, Evans is conversant with modern police tracking devices.(Ekemenah, A.: “Evans, the Kidnapping Kingpin: the Shame of a Nation”, July 4, 2017
http://nextmoneyng.com/2017/07/04/evans-kidnapping-kingpin-shame-nation/). He was subsequently charged to court. But his case is still dragging on till date. Evans’ case is a classic study in the widely acknowledged notorious slow process of justice dispensation in Nigeria especially those involving this type of cases. As the case is today, nobody can predict when it will be concluded and dispatched. Nobody can also predict where the pendulum of justice will swing (either in favour or against the accused).
This historical slow process of criminal justice dispensation in Nigeria has its fundamental philosophical or jurisprudential consequences in general. The fundamental philosophical or jurisprudential consequence is that “justice delayed” is not just “justice denied” but that the actual essence of justice is defeated in the passage of time spent in delivering justice thus creating doubts as to whether true justice has been achieved at all or not. That is the lesson that must be taken away in this example.
Another example is the recent Wadume case which on the other hand demonstrated the ability of the Police to rise up to challenges in certain circumstances. Alhaji Hamisu Bala (with nom de guerre “Wadume”) was a reported notorious kidnapper operating in the Northern part of the country with his operational base in Taraba State. The Police was able to track him down in early August 2019 and got him arrested. But the Police was obstructed by the Army whose soldiers within the vicinity scuttled the arrest by having three Police officers killed and got Wadume rescued who later escaped from the safe home provided for him by the soldiers. The slain officers were from IGP-driven Intelligence Response Team, IRT. The unlawful intervention of the soldiers created a public uproar within the country and the Army was forced to arrest its own soldiers to account for their dastardly act.
The IGP’s Special Intelligence Response Team is one of the specialized formations within the Nigerian Police Force, all created in response to the increasing wave of crimes in the country over the past two decades as well as dynamics of criminal activities in recent years. Not much is known about the team or how it operates – unlike the case of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) that has become controversial and infamous for its brutalities (constant violations of the fundamental human rights of the citizens sparking public outcries and calls for its abolition) (See Ekemenah, A.: “The Imperative of Interagency Cooperation among the Security Agencies” August 16, 2019, http://nextmoneyng.com/2019/08/16/the-imperative-of-interagency-cooperation-among-the-security-agencies/)
Wadume case speaks to many outstanding issues that we have to consider in the process of finding solution to security problems such as kidnapping.
First, as had earlier been noted by this writer, his case speaks directly to the conspicuous lack of interagency cooperation among the security agencies in the country contrary to what the security officialdom would like the public to believe.
Second, it also speaks to the sometimes unbelievable ability of the Police to rise up to certain challenges especially when its public ego is at stake. The only wonder and question is why the Police is never able to chalk up such achievements on a regular basis to put it on a sustainable sophisticated pedestal to combat crimes as they occur, if it is not able to proactively about to prevent it.
Third, the incident spoke to certain tactical errors that could easily be committed by any of the security agencies in the course of pursuing its legitimate duty and within its operational methodological framework.
Finally, the case also speaks to the linkage between the present-day Nigerian politics and criminal gangsterism. Wadume contested first on the platform of People Democratic Party and later on the platform of All Progressives Congress without the party machineries (including Independent National Electoral Commission) discovering his criminal background and activities. If such a man has been elected, then he would have the cover and protection of the party umbrella finally to escape justice whenever discovered and put on trial. This danger of giving shelter to such criminal elements by politics is clear and present under the current political environment governed as it is not by rule of law but by rule of the jungle.
The last case for consideration here is that of the Appeal Court Justice Chioma Nwosu-Iheme who was kidnapped in broad-day in Benin City, Edo State, in the month of October and spent 14 days in captivity before she was released after payment of heavy ransom for her safety and release.
Reading through the various media reports on Justice Nwosu-Iheme ordeal, the reader will not fail to see the tonnes of profanities or invectives hauled against the State, the society and the “system” by the kidnappers which provided the raison d’être for the kidnapping. In a report by THISDAY newspaper, the politically-motivated TraderMoni spending was brought into the foreground and the kidnappers cited it as one of their justifications for their act.
Solutions
Professional colleagues have asked: What can we really do to eradicate the increasing rate of crime of kidnapping in Nigeria that has become a scourge in recent years from our society? Can the police and other security agencies summon their strengths to combat this scourge? Or should we resign to fate and pray never to fall into the grisly hands of kidnappers at any point in time?
The answer is NOTHING as long as we do not address the root-causes of kidnapping.
While kidnapping is criminal, without doubt, it also serve as a mirror on ourselves as citizens to see how the State, society and the “system” have individually and collectively provided the basis for the emergence of criminal activities such as kidnapping, revealing the fundamental fault lines in our State system and social order: the general neglect/criminal negligence that pushes certain people to the edge of insanity or criminality, to the fringe of existence in general.
The Nigerian State in particular is already formed with its insidious characters well-known in academic circles and civil society. What it lacks is institutional reforms that will make the State more effective and responsive as a major driver of development in the country. Also the State-society relationships and interactions have become infectious and dysfunctional that impedes expected harmonious relationship that fosters development of both sides of the spectrum and deliver democratic dividends to the citizens.
Kidnapping has become an albatross to the nation but it cannot be treated only as a criminal act or enterprise. More important, it must be treated as a social problem arising out of hopeless, frustrating, and desperate conditions of our country today in terms of socioeconomic degradation that has taken place over time and space that has left or dumped millions of people especially youths in the unemployment market where evil acts such as kidnapping breed and thrive.
The question has been raised as to whether judges should have more police protection. The question is neither here nor there. Judges usually have one or two police as security details. Having more police protection does not however address the core problem. There is no point having a preferential treatment for judges when citizens are exposed to the danger of kidnapping on daily basis. There are better ways to deploy the already stretched police manpower. There is need for specially trained police unit like the IGP Special Intelligence Response Team/Task Force to deal with special categories of crimes like kidnapping. Other security agencies can also assist the police – but some of them may like to argue that fighting kidnapping is not their jurisdictional task or part of their mandates.
But it avails us nothing if we have specialized anti-kidnapping units by the Nigeria Police across all the state commands. It avails us nothing if we have the most sophisticated deterrent technology against kidnapping – if we do not address ourselves to the core problems that generate this crime of kidnapping.
First of all, kidnapping takes place in ungoverned space, i.e. in un-policed areas such as lonely roads or where police response units cannot easily be accessed. Secondly, kidnapping also takes place under camouflage conditions i.e. kidnappers often disguising as security agents, mounting road blocks, for instance, to deceive the unwary victims. In such a situation, it is often very difficult to differentiate enemies from friends as the situation has created “frenemies” for all to face and tackle.
There are further philosophical problematiques. It is very much doubtful, for instance, whether the most severe legal sanctions or punishments (including capital punishment) can serve the purpose of deterrence to kidnapping and other criminal acts for that matter. This debate is age-long and there is no need to enter it here as individuals have their different views.
Then there is the problem of the permissive societal normative values based on different considerations such as religion, ethnicity, contemporary morality or modern agnosticism (in form of “I-don’t-care” attitude/altitude/lassitude arising from hatred of any form of constituted authority, government, social sanctions, etc).
Here is the core of the complex entity. There are those who are not criminal-minded but who directly or indirectly enjoy the pecuniary fallouts of kidnapping. it is not only the kidnappers alone that enjoy the ransoms collected from victims. The kidnappers purchase arms and ammunitions from unauthorized bodies and individuals; they consult and pay juju merchants; they spend the rest of the money in the open market, buy goods and services; spend monies on their families (nuclear and/extended). The same money finds its way back into the banking system in one form or the other. What is the secret attitude of all the individual beneficiaries of the illegal business of kidnapping whether one is aware or not of the actual transactional acts. This is because, in the final analysis, kidnapping is an extractive business, an extractive financial process and circulation of money illicitly obtained.
But kidnapping must be tackled headlong. It must be regarded as clear and present danger to national security, security of lives and properties.
Unfortunately, there are no fool-proof security mechanisms yet in place to prevent kidnapping in its totality. This is primarily because the Nigerian public workspace is not properly policed. It is possible for kidnappers to strike anywhere before there is enough time for security intervention. The police-civilian ratio, for instance, is still very low within the context of our burgeoning population. This is coupled with poor manner of investigation that is well known to be associated with the Nigeria Police. For this reason alone, it is doubtful how this social scourge can be quickly resolved.
First, government should place kidnapping on the same category as Boko Haram insurgency and terrorism, Niger Delta militancy and general armed robbery in the country. This is because it involves infliction of violence, exaction of coercion and terror. It must be treated as an emergency situation wherever it occurs.
The security and welfare of the citizens is the primary purpose of government and governance. Without the security of lives and properties, of contractual agreements between various individuals, society cannot exist, neither can government.
The function of modern society and government is the protection of the constitutional rights of the citizens, security of lives and properties and full enjoyment of fundamental human rights.
Kidnapping is direct threat to the constitutional right to live and freedom of movement of the people. Thus the government has the ultimate responsibility for reducing or eradicating conditions that generate or facilitate kidnapping and other criminal activities associated with it. This means that governance must be geared towards eradication of poverty, which had become endemic, through welfare-oriented policies and programmes that create employment opportunities for the youths and other categories of job-seekers.
Job creation and wealth creation become one in the same net. This will raise the standards of living and bridge the yawning gap between the rich and the poor.
If corruption is reduced through adequate punishment for the guilty, it will serve as deterrent to many would-be criminals. But oftentimes corrupt politicians are seen as demi-gods, above the laws of the land who get away scot-free with their acts of impunities.
The political system should be further democratized to involve the active participation of the youths not as thugs or sacrificial lambs but as youth leaders at various levels. Politicians should come out with proactive public policy towards socioeconomic development that is youth-centred or people-friendly. This will help to drastically reduce the challenges of kidnapping among the youths.
There is also the need to reform the legal and judicial system to ensure strict compliance with the relevant laws relating to kidnapping and related offences. The law must be seen to adequate, effective and has the power to sanction and/or punish without fear or favour without let or hindrance. Trial cases involving kidnapping should be expedited and publicized adequately. No secret trial involving kidnapping cases. The scourge must be exposed as an evil. But whether capital punishment is the ultimate goal of the penal system here or not, the important thing is that the guilty must be punished in accordance with the principles of supremacy and rules of law.
Provision must be made to the effect that property of anyone found guilty of kidnapping will be confisticated and/or destroyed – as a form of social punishment.
Security forces, especially the police, must continually be given adequate training and equipment to combat this scourge. They must be vast in intelligence gathering, to nip in the bud any attempt to kidnap before it takes place.
Public and/or civic education is equally important in this regard. The society must clean itself up. All social vices and hypocrisy that foster criminal tendencies must be combated.
Provision of social infrastructure such as good road networks, potable water, stable power supply, free education at primary school level and comprehensive healthcare delivery should also be provided for the citizenry. These will go a long way in curbing the menace and reducing it to the barest minimum.
- Ekemenah is the Chief Analyst of NextMoney magazine
