The ugly spectacle of kidnapping for ransom is not strange to our shores. In a way, it has almost evolved into a business enterprise. However, the audacity and ghoulish disposition of the resurgent band of marauders make the hair stand on end. Quite unnerving.
Like ravenous brutes let loose from the lair, these resurgent goons have lately swooped on our relative fortress, the nation’s seat of power, and begun to spew blood, tears and sorrow. Their heinous expedition has cast a pall of gloom on a wide swath of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. There is panic everywhere. Residents are on edge. Everyone now sleeps, goes to work and returns in a state of fright.
Alhaji Mansoor Al-Kadriyar, a senior official of the National Population Commission (NPC), woke up on Tuesday, January 9, this year, probably without the slightest whiff of danger. But that day, a group of gunmen spotting military fatigues invaded his home, located in the Bwari Area Council of the FCT in the eerie hours and abducted him and all his six daughters.
He was released shortly after to go raise the N60million ransom the abductors demanded. They soon raised the amount to N100million. And in a display of fiendish rage, the kidnappers seized his first daughter, Nabeeha, a 400 level student of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, and shot her dead in cold blood, because payment of ransom was delayed!
The soulless fellows then made a most callous spectacle of her corpse by dumping it on the Abuja-Kaduna Highway! Al-Kadriyar’s brother, Abdullahi, who joined policemen to pursue the abductors was also shot dead in the process.
For Oladosu Ariyo, an Abuja-based lawyer, life has become a harrowing, punishing nightmare. In the night of Sunday, January 7, 2024, kidnappers swooped on Sagwari Estate Layout in the Dutsen-Alhaji area of FCT and whisked away 11 residents, including Ariyo’s wife and three children.
While brow-beaten Ariyo scampered around, begging colleagues in a bid to raise the ransom demanded, the vicious gunmen killed one of his children in their custody, 13-year-old Folashade. Like in Al-Kadriyar’s case, that was their own way of warning the lawyer not to delay payment of ransom any further!
The abductions and the killings sparked public outrage. Nigerians took serious umbrage to the new waves of kidnapping and some good Samaritans even joined the drive to raise the ransom demanded, using the ubiquitous social media.
As noted earlier, abductions for ransom are not novel but the trend, quite disturbingly, is assuming an epidemic proportion. What had been largely restricted to the North East, North West and parts of the Middle Belt of North Central, is fast inching to the FCT and southwards.
In the South, kidnapping had before now been isolated cases, confined to the highways and forests. But the plague, according to reports, appears to be inching towards the city centers. A number of cases are reportedly recorded in Lagos, Ogun, Delta, Enugu, Imo, among others in December, 2023.
In states like Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Plateau, Benue and other most affected states, hundreds of hapless victims are still holed up in kidnappers’ forest dens being visited with the worst savagery. And the military, stretched thin trying to contain the atrocious activities of these murderous bandits on so many fronts, a putrid mess inherited from the Buhari administration, appears to have been overwhelmed.
The intensity of abductions, the ferocity and viciousness of the marauders in the FCT particularly engage analysts because it is expected that the federal seat of power ordinarily should be too fortified to be penetrated by evil-minded people. That the marauders can strike so successfully and get away with it beggars belief.
The Minister of Defence, Mohammed Abubakar, however, has an alibi for the security breaches. He said the gunmen are bandits fleeing from the heat of the ongoing military onslaught against them in North West and parts of North Central.
“As you are aware, people are saying FCT, FCT, these kidnappings happen in the suburbs, around locations that are bordering Kaduna and Niger and this is as a result of the current operation going on in the North West and some parts of North Central. The bandits are fleeing and getting shelters around these areas and the security agencies are working very hard to push them out, block their movements and finish this thing once and for all,” he was quoted as saying.
Very well then. But the fact that these fleeing bandits are penetrating the locals to the point of planning and executing their dastardly operations successfully is indicative of failure of intelligence. Under normal circumstances, the bandits ought to have been intercepted as they are fleeing in, through well coordinated intelligence and their operations foiled at the planning stage.
The expose of the Plateau State governor, Caleb Mutfwang, however, appears to have supplied the missing link. He said the military and the security agencies have been infiltrated by fifth columnists, who leak vital operational information such as the movement of troops to criminals. Mutfwang said the foes include agents of criminals unleashing mayhem in Plateau, where over 150 people were killed in coordinated attacks on 23 villages in December, 2023 alone in spite of the heavy military presence, and other parts of the country.
This, he explained, accounts for troops’ late response to distress calls and why many military personnel have been killed in ambushes due to information leaked to the criminals about their movements.
The official responses to the security breaches in FCT were prompt. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, immediately summoned the service chiefs and other security chiefs to Aso Villa and gave them marching orders. The FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, immediately after returning from the villa the same day summoned the chairmen of the six council areas of FCT and security chiefs into another round of deliberations.
The Minister followed it up with confidence-building visits to strategic areas in the FCT. He also held town hall meetings with stakeholders. He asked the people not to panic, assuring that the government and security agencies would nip the security challenge in the bud.
The Inspector-General of Police, Olukayode Egbetokun, on Wednesday, January 17 deployed the newly trained Special Intervention Squad(SIS) operators in the FCT to curb the heinous activities of kidnappers and bandits in the border towns within the territory.
The operators immediately undertook a show of force expedition to the flashpoints to instill confidence in the residents and warn criminal-minded elements. According to the IGP, SIS is soon to be replicated in all the 36 states.
These are highly commendable moves showing that the government is responsive to public sensibilities. Government should do all within its power to rise above the criminals’ game and curb the dangerous security breaches.
First, the expose by the Plateau governor is serious and highly disturbing. And it should be taken seriously at the highest echelon of security administration. Modalities should be put in place as soon as humanly possible to constantly flush out bad eggs who are drawing back the wheel of progress in the armed forces and the various security agencies.
Then, the governor’s counsel concerning the ongoing recruitments into the forces and security agencies should also be taken and implemented. That is that the processes must be so transparent and diligently executed to avoid recruiting the wrong people, which is akin to arming one’s enemies.
In the final analysis, let the challenge be tackled at the root. The main problems fanning the embers of kidnapping and other atrocious activities like cyber crimes and even ritual killings today are the worsening economic hardship and conscienceless and open display of ill-gotten wealth.
People revelling in ostentatious lifestyles, cruising around in the latest wonders on wheels and putting up architectural masterpieces all around without visible and honest sources of wealth have caught many on a short fuse, leading them to throng the dark alleys of wealth, the deadly get-rich-quick path. Criminals find easy allies in people of this nature who are desperate to get rich by all means. Otherwise, they are no magicians.
Sadly enough, therefore, to the youths of today, who are the proverbial leaders of tomorrow, work ethics and ethical values no longer mean anything. Their sense of value is warped. The core values of hardwork, honesty, patience in tribulations, honour and a good name being more valuable than gold cut no ice with them.
The relevant agencies of government, especially the National Orientation Agency (NOA), need to go to the drawing board and design workable reorientation campaigns, using the popular social media platforms and other wave-making mass media. We need to completely reorder the ethical sensibilities of our populace, most especially children and youths. We need to go back to basics and recoup our core ethical values before it is too late.
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