By Emmanuel Onwubiko
Just after attending the Holy Mass of Sunday January 5th 2025 which was marked as the Epiphany of our LORD and SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, yours faithfully decided to take an hair cut in one of the most staffed and well governed barbing saloons located in Wuse 2 in a place considered as one of the centres of businesses in the Federal Capital Territory.
It was at the saloon that the receptionist who announced to me that a barber would soon be available to attend to me, gave me one of the day’s copies. I think it was either Sunday Punch or Thisday on Sunday. I then went straight to read the human angle interview’s page which to me is the most illuminating of all the news pages because most of these interviewees are persons who passed through the shadows of deaths and survived by the whiskers. The story that attracted and indeed tickled my fancy, was a true life crime story about a teenager sentenced to death for stealing fowls in Osun state.
This Osun state resident,Segun Olowookere, who was sentenced to death by hanging for stealing a chicken and eggs in 2010, had revealed in the interview that he would prostate and thanked the judge who asked that he should be executed.
Olowookere stated this during a recent interview where he was asked if he want the government to revisit his case.
He Said; “No. I do not want the government to do anything to those who implicated me. I have accepted my fate. I have learnt that whatever will come to pass will surely come to pass. I cannot blame anyone for my travail. If I have the opportunity to meet the judge who sentenced me to death, I will prostrate and thank him.
“If he had discharged and acquitted me then, God knows what the person who planned what happened to me would have done to me. He might have found a way to kill me. I might have died. The judge who sentenced me did well; he added a chance for the governor to pardon me after 10 years. I don’t harbour any ill feeling towards the judge or anybody.
“But I will advise the police to be responsible and civil in discharging their duties. Not everyone will have the grace of coming out for people with a good heart and improved character. The police should try as much as possible to investigate thoroughly and weigh the level of offence before rushing to try suspects in court.
The aforementioned story tells anyone that the Country’s legal system isn’t totally free from internal and Systemic Challenges. In both the Criminal code and Penal Code which applies in the South of Nigeria and North of Nigeria, there are embedded dysfunctionality that DEFIES logic to such an extent that it would seem that suspects who commit petty crimes, get heavier sentences whereas bigger felons, especially those with the cash to manipulate the legal system, are prosecuted for a deliberately prolonged period of time during which times, most of these hitherto high profile cases involving politically exposed persons are quietly abandoned.
But there is also some crimes that are looking like they are much more sophisticated than the government of the day to such a ridiculous extent that these heinous crimes have been allowed by both the immediate past corrupt administration of Major General Muhammadu Buhari and the current President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration to continue to defy solutions.
These crimes of kidnappings have constituted the greatest cog in the wheel of progress of millions of Nigerians. Kidnappings are happening all around us but the security forces set up, equipped, trained as it were, to crack down on these practitioners of evil acts, have spectacularly failed to find a lasting solutions to them. State justice administration in the subnational entities that make up the federation of Nigeria, appear overwhelmed to tackle and deal decisively with kidnappers.
The crimes of kidnappings have become so endemic that most unfortunate Nigerian travellers kidnapped by these terrorists are detained as hostages for months and some lucky ones who survived to witness their eventual freedoms after heavy financial payout are made by their families, have emerged to reel out intriguing stories that point to one certainty: that there is a collusion between some operatives of the security agencies and these armed abductors most of whom are never actually caught and penalised by the government.
For eight years that the last administration lasted, armed Fulani terrorists gained ascendancy in the hierarchy and sophistication of their fascinating involvement in serial crimes of terrorism and kidnappings.
The then government of Muhammadu Buhari, lacked the political will and the determination to decisively crush these criminals only because they are kinsmen of President Buhari whose regime provided these terrorists the free hands to smuggle in all kinds of sophisticated weapons which Buhari himself claimed that these weapons were been imported from Libya and Chad but his administration which appointed Fulani heads of all the internal security outfits such as the Department of State Services, Customs, Immigration, Police, NIA, failed to stop the influx of these sophisticated weapons. The office of the federal attorney General and minister of justice under Buhari was also compromised and inefficient. The police did nothing to combat kidnappers and their satanic violence.
There was this real life story that was narrated by the head of the Methodist Church of All of Nigeria who was kidnapped near his hometown somewhere between Imo and Abia States, that tells the story of intricate connivance and conspiratorial communion between Fulani born kidnappers and soldiers most of whose top officers are also Fulani born. After this cleric narrated his story of near-death, the Buhari’s junta attempted to silence him for mentioning that Fulani kidnappers and soldiers were responsible for his ordeals which costs the Methodist Church over N100 million in ransom payment before the tormented man of God was freed.
In the next few lines, the then Methodist Prelate, Samuel Kanu-Uche, recounted his kidnap ordeal just as he insisted that soldiers were complicit.
As reported by every conceivable media in Nigeria, Bishop Kanu-Uche and two other priests were recently kidnapped and freed after N100 million ransom was paid.
The then Prelate of the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Samuel Kanu-Uche, has recounted his experiences in the hands of kidnappers who attacked him in Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State, Nigeria’s South-east.
Bishop Kanu-Uche was kidnapped while returning from a programme in the area alongside his chaplain, Abidemi Shittu and the Church’s Owerri Bishop, Dennis Okechukwu.
The clerics were released nearly two days later after paying N100 million to the kidnappers.
In an interview with Arise TV, around that period which was rebroadcasted, the prelate said their vehicle was attacked by a group of eight heavily-armed young men dressed in black attire.
He said his driver had attempted to circumvent the kidnappers when they jumped out of the bush, but they fired shots and deflated their vehicle’s tyres.
“After two of them fired shots at our tyres, our vehicle started swooping and fell,” he recalled.
The cleric noted they forced them inside a forest after the leader of the kidnappers introduced himself as the commander-general of the forest in the area and also in charge of kidnappings from Lokpa, Isuochi, Ihube and Isikwuato, all in Abia State.
According to the Methodist Prelate, the commander told him that they were not robbers but only kidnap for ransom, assuring that they would be freed if they were able to pay the agreed ransom.
The Commander later warned the cleric that they would behead them and dump their corpses in a big gully without being traced if they failed to pay the ransom.
Reverend Kanu-Uche said they were joined in the vehicle by two male officials of the church who ran away during the attack.
The cleric said they threatened to kill one of them when he pleaded with the kidnappers to accept N50 million as ransom.
“They said the least money you can pay us and we will accept is N100 million,” the cleric said.
Rev. Kanu-Uche said the kidnappers said the money would be shared with their sponsors.
He said the church rallied around to bring the money to the kidnappers before they were asked to go.
“When they went to collect the ransom (from our people), they brought in more people hidden somewhere with more guns.
“And they were heartless. When they said, ‘you can go,’ they didn’t even give us even N200 to board a bike. Nothing. They just allowed us to walk like that. It was the worst humiliation I have ever witnessed in life,” he said.
He said they stole his wedding ring worth $150 and other valuables.
Sadly, as I write today in 2025, nearly two years after this heinous crime, not one person is behind bars. Hundreds of thousands of terrorists are simply let off the hook during the last administration which tolerated terrorists.
Another story of chilling acts of premeditated and cruel violence is that of a school girl kidnapped and freed during the last Yuletide after her family paid to set her free. The following lines were some questions posed to her by the media and her answers are so revealing even as we can see how so ineffective and inefficient the military and policing institutional processes are to confront kidnappers.
Which school do you attend?
I’m a 400-level student at the School of Health, Makarfi, in Zaria.
How old are you, and which state are you from?
I’m 26 years old now. I’m from Oyo State. My dad is from Ogbomoso, but my mum is from Oyo Town. I can say I’m from Ogbomoso Ayilara, but we stay in Oke-Elerin, and we always go home.
Could you describe the events leading to your abduction?
I was coming back from school in Zaria and heading to Funtua, which is in Katsina State. When I got to the park, no taxi was available. So, I decided to take a car along the road. Another woman, who had six children, also joined me. When we got to a village called Maraba Maska, the driver stopped, claiming the fuel had finished and that he would call another car for us to board. We had to enter the new car.
When did this happen?
It happened on December 1, 2024.
How many passengers were in the new car?
There were four of them; three passengers and the driver. None of them were female, and they were all Fulani. The seats inside the car were insufficient, and it was already 6pm. So, the woman and I entered while the children sat on our laps. Another man also joined us. When we reached Funtua Junction, where I was supposed to alight, I informed the driver, but he ignored me.
He drove past the junction, and we started shouting. That was when the passengers who had pretended to be fellow travellers brought out their guns. We didn’t even know they had guns, as they had concealed them. The car continued moving until we reached a point where there were soldiers.
This girl also told a story of how the kidnappers killed two children of one of the kidnapped victims just because these kids weren’t walking fast enough in the Katsina forests. In Niger State, a man and his wife were kidnapped since over 4 months and even after paying millions in ransom, they haven’t been freed. In the same Niger State, dozens of women are hostages to terrorists and kidnappers who are allowed by security agencies to operate uninhibited. In Zamfara, over one dozen graduates posted for the National Youth Service Corps scheme were held for thirteen months and were not freed not until their families paid ransoms running into several millions. In Kogi state few hours back, a Professor at the Kogi State University Anyingba was kidnapped violently near his home and taken into the forests. A fast moving Abuja to Kaduna train was derailed by terrorists and over 40 passengers were kidnapped and were not released for many months.
So why have kidnappings defied the government of Bola Ahmed Tinubu? Why was the head of the National Bureau of Statistics arrested by the operatives of the Department of State Services after this federal government agency released a disturbing report showing the massive scale of the activities of kidnappers and the colossal amounts these kidnappers successfully collected from families of victims of kidnappings?
Simply, the security forces are doing as they pleased and there is a total deterioration of professionalism and discipline which explain why none of the top executives of all the internal security outfits are ever sanctioned for dereliction of duties or compromises which enable kidnappers to continue to operate despite the fact that everyone who uses a telephone is linked to the database governed by the Nigerian Communications Commission just as all the security forces have working relationships with the agency that collect telecommunications by all persons in Nigeria and also banks are monitored by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and another separate agency created specifically out of the EFCC and the Central Bank of Nigeria to monitor movements of cash, exists and lavishly funded to trace laundered money.
So how are these terrorists and kidnappers doing their businesses without any trace by the security forces and why is the President and the governors not adopting stringent steps to enforce the laws against kidnappers? Who are the sponsors and beneficiaries of commercial kidnappings that have become billions of dollars franchises in Nigeria? The answers to these revolving questions will tell every discerning minds that Nigeria is almost a failed state described allegedly by erstwhile prime minister of Britain Mr. David Cameron as a nation that is FANTASTICALLY CORRUPT.
Emmanuel Onwubiko is head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria and was National Commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria.
