BY OLORUNSOLA JOHN OLUDAISI
The security management challenges facing Nigeria are very serious and pose an obstacle to the economic and social development of the country.
One of the security problems is the phenomenon of kidnapping for ransom. The kidnapping industry has become a household name in Nigeria in recent years. Ensuring peace, safety and security for citizens, tourists, investors and others is a serious problem for the government.
Currently, Nigeria is considered a terrorist country and kidnapping activities as a business venture are on the rise. The youths are said to have been involved in numerous kidnappings, many of which led to loss of life and loss of money worth millions of naira.
These reasons cannot be far away. These include youth unemployment, youth unemployment, drug addiction among young people, poverty and social inequality in society.
Despite many security measures taken by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to eliminate kidnapping in Nigeria, the process still continues. Criminals continue their evil deeds without punishment.
Kidnapping cases continue unabated due to the government’s inability to address security issues.
Buhari and his government has failed to equip its law enforcement agencies with modern strategies against kidnappings in the country.
Kidnapping remains a serious crime in Nigeria. This has become the worst and most punishable crime in the country, but no punishment is being given to offenders because they have official backing. This could be attested to when government gives backing to negotiators in order to free captives in the den of kidnappers.
It is worrying that despite all the efforts of the government, some desperate people linked to the bad eggs of the security forces are taking advantage of this situation. A few unpatriotic individuals are currently using this development for their own power and/or financial gain. They want to make money with it. They are also playing politics. How hypocritical!
Kidnapping in Nigeria has become a security threat fueling a vast network of militant and Islamist groups.
With the attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train in Katari, Kaduna State on March 28, 2022, one wonders how these devils can implement and realize their plans. While eight passengers lost their lives in the incident, 65 passengers were kidnapped by the fearless terrorists.
Abuja-Kaduna Road is one of the most dangerous roads in the country as hijackers have been known to hijack cars at many places along the highway.
The train, which was traveling long distances and carrying a lot of passengers which needed to be secured, was left unsecured.
How can an operation continue for hours without calling security services or be revealed as willful negligence?
Many people were kidnapped in Northern Nigeria between December 2020 and March 2021. The threat of new attacks caused the closure of approximately 600 schools.
“No matter what the authorities do to solve this problem, things are not going well. The failure of Nigerian authorities to protect students from recent attacks shows that we have not learned the lessons of the Chibok tragedy. The only response authorities should take against students attacked by gunmen is to close schools, which is also a violation of rights and education is at risk,” Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria said.
In 2018, Amnesty International reported that Nigerian security forces ignored warnings that Boko Haram fighters were advancing on the town of Dapchi in Yobe state, where they later abducted 110 students from a science and technology school.
This evil can only continue in a country that lacks stiff penalties for offenders. How can the government and its security agencies bring anybody to book when their hands are not clean?
From the north to the south, kidnappers are kings dictating their ramsons even the security agents are not spared as they pay their ways out of the kidnappers’ dens whenever they fall victims.
It is rather so sad to note that in the last 11 years, reports have it that not less than N13.66bn was paid as ransom between June 2011 and July 2022, while from 2021 to date, over 500 incidents of kidnappings were said to have been recorded with close to 4,000 Nigerians and some foreign citizens abducted across Nigeria, many more unreported cases are happening and these could not be ascertain due to the nature of Nigeria when it comes to proper data documentation.
While all these incidents of kidnappings and abductions were happening across the country, the Nigerian government left the victims in the hands of these unrepentant and inhuman gangs.
The citizens elected a government headed by a former military head of state, Muhammadu Buhari. This is a country self-acclaimed to be the giant of Africa. In Nigeria, kidnappers, bandits and terrorists were seen holding their victim’s hostage at will for several months without the government freeing them or negotiating for their release.
Since March 2022 when bandits attacked, killed some and abducted hundreds of the passengers of the Nigerian Railway Corporation’s train on its way from Abuja to Kaduna, some of the abducted victims are still in the hands of their captives because they are yet to pay ransoms. While it is known facts that those who have regained freedom, paid heavily to get their freedom from these criminals
There is no doubt that the present government lacks the political will to deal decisively with the perpetrators of terrorism and banditry.
If not for connivance, how come our security agencies are not able to pinpoint the exact location of these criminals and use technology to launch precision attacks and save our people from their den? It is beyond belief that bandits will kidnap victims and hold them hostage for months and even have the audacity to show video clips of how the kidnapped people are being tortured. If the Nigerian government does not find this embarrassing enough, then nothing can ever be shameful.
Despite glaring evidence, Nigeria’s security services, known as the DSS, denied there was a “kidnapping epidemic”.
It “has spread because insurgency has spread”, DSS spokesman Peter Afunanya told AFP, blaming insecurity on the proliferation of foreign weapons and the spread of jihadists outside of their enclaves in the northeast.
A former US ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell felt sorry for the country while speaking on the issues of kidnapping in Nigeria, “In the past, kidnap victims tended to be the wealthy and the prominent, and so kidnappers had every interest in keeping their victims alive to extract the maximum ransom possible. Now, victims are often poor villagers, sometimes kidnapped indiscriminately, a departure from the targeted kidnapping of wealthy people.”
