Gbenga Adeosun
Frequent acts of violent crime including armed militancy, insurgency and banditry have grown to form a major threat to Nigeria’s national security. Banditry includes cattle rustling, armed robbery and kidnapping for ransom, which has remained the most notorious form of banditry in Nigeria. It has become the most pervasive and recurring violent crime in the country with no end in sight to the spread of its deadly tentacles.
Kidnapping is an unlawful detention of a person through the use of force, threats, fraud or enticement. The purpose is an illicit gain, economic or material, in exchange for liberation. It may also be used to pressure someone into doing something, or not doing something, and can be targeted at individuals or at groups. Loss of lives of some kidnapped victims, ransom payments, forceful closure of schools and businesses, as well as restrictions in farming, social and productive activities, are some of the adverse socio-economic impacts of kidnapping in Nigeria.
Alarming Rise of Kidnapping for Ransom in Nigeria and its Damaging Impact on the Society.
Kidnapping for ransom has become endemic in Nigeria, exceeding frightening proportions with its frequency and spread across all parts of the country. Hardly a week passes without agonizing reports of abductions and kidnappings of individuals or groups of people from highways, workplaces, school dormitories, hostels; sometimes, even whole families are being abducted from their residence, leaving them at the mercy of these dastard perpetrators who murder some in gruesome manner while family or friends of the victims labour hard to raise ransom payments to save those wallowing in the den of the abductors.
In 2014 and 2015, the Northeast and Niger Delta area of Nigeria had the highest number of victims as a result of the activities of Boko Haram insurgency and militancy. Large-scale abductions have also targeted schoolchildren in many instances. Thousands of students have been kidnapped in Borno State’s Chibok, Niger State’s Kagara, Zamfara State’s Jangebe, Kaduna State’s Afaka, and Kebbi State’s Yauri. Before then, abduction was mainly restricted to the Niger Delta region, where militants mostly went after oil workers for ransom.
There were also cross-border kidnappings that led to the arrests of kidnap kingpins like Evans and killing of few others around the flash points areas by the security operatives. However, a few years later, particularly between 2020 and 2024, the North Central and Northwest became the hardest-hit regions due to the spread of terrorism and banditry.
It is a sad irony that Nigerians can no longer move or travel by road freely to spend quality time with their family without the psychological apprehension of kidnappers lurking around the corner. The effect of all this is that while citizens live in perpetual fear, investors take their businesses elsewhere. Either way, the country is the loser. When the security of citizens is at the mercy of kidnappers and other criminal syndicates, a government not only loses legitimacy but also the peoples’ support.
The federal government must therefore demonstrate the capacity to deal with this entrenched menace.When this whole kidnapping scourge started on a large scale more than a decade ago, the targets were only rich businessmen, politicians, and other well-to-do citizens deemed wealthy enough to pay the ransom demands. But kidnappers have since descended to the less wealthy class of the society; it is so endemic now that no category of the society is immune to this menace regardless of social status. In some cases, these criminals randomly stop vehicles on the road in the hope of finding anyone at all. Nigeria has one of the world’s highest rates of kidnap-for-ransom cases. Other countries high up on the list included Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Yemen, Syria, the Philippines, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. So prevalent is the crime that the African Insurance Organisation (AIO) as far back as 2012 designated Nigeria as the global capital for kidnap for ransom, having overtaken countries like Colombia and Mexico that were hitherto front-runners. The crime has also become a thriving industry with network of support staff. It is now common to hear of medical doctors, bankers, transport workers and other professionals being part of the kidnapping ring.
Thousands of Nigerians have been kidnapped for ransom and other purposes over the years. Kidnapping has prevailed in spite of measures put in place by the government. The Nigerian police’s anti-kidnapping squad, introduced in the 2000s, has endeavored to stem the menace. But this has been to no avail, mainly due to a lack of manpower, ineffective monitoring, and poor logistics.
Efforts to nip kidnapping and ransom payments might have failed because of weak sanctioning and deterrence mechanisms. Kidnapping thrives in an environment that condones crime; where criminal opportunism and impunity prevail over and above deterrence. This obviously calls for an urgent review of Nigeria’s current anti-kidnapping approach to make it more effective. The security agencies do not appear to have any solution to this increasing and ever-present menace.
That families of victims and other ingenious Internet predators now initiate online crowdfunding is why the authorities should be concerned. With that, it is now easy for these criminals to monitor the progress of the crowdfunding and adjust their ransom demands accordingly. In the process, they can also summarily execute some captives for terror effect to speed up ransom payments.Prior to the widespread of these crimes, there were recorded cases of kidnap for rape, ritual, or for other purposes in various parts of Nigeria.
But kidnapping today is done primarily for ransom – either money or its material equivalent to be paid for someone’s release. The underlying logic of the kidnapping enterprise is that the victim is worth a ransom value and they or their proxy have the capacity to pay. Each victim has a so-called “kidnap ransom value” which makes them an attractive target. This value is determined by a number of factors. These include the victim’s socio-economic or political status, family or corporate premium on the victim, the type of kidnappers involved, as well as the dynamics of ransom negotiation.
The kidnapping business in Nigeria has been mostly perpetrated by criminal gangs and violent groups pursuing political agendas. Bandits have often taken to kidnapping for ransom to make money. The escapades of the famous kidnap kingpin, Evans, speak volumes of this pattern of kidnapping. Evans was a multimillionaire kidnapper who was arrested in Lagos a few years ago. He is currently still in detention awaiting trial.
