There are disturbing indications that insecurity in the country, especially kidnapping for ransom, has assumed a frightening and senseless dimension. It would appear that kidnappers no longer profile their potential victims to ensure that they have ransom to pay before abducting them. Ordinary Nigerians and indeed citizens at the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder have suddenly become targets of attack by kidnappers. This is a really worrying angle to the heightening insecurity in the land.
Just a few days ago, suspected kidnappers reportedly abducted a 20-year-old petty trader, Ajuma Simon, a native of Ukpotume, a village close to Ugwolawo in Odolu/ Igalamela Local Government Area of Kogi State, and demanded a huge sum of money. She neither ran into the kidnappers’ ambush, nor was she abducted in a vehicle on the highway in company of other victims: the gunmen reportedly invaded her house around 1 a.m. and whisked her away. This is rather strange because her profile does not fit into that of the regular victims of kidnappers, especially those who are specifically targeted by the outlaws. The victim reportedly hawks cooked rice and okpa, a rather affordable local delicacy, for a living! If the criminals truly invaded the young woman’s house in the very dark hours of the morning, then they must have discovered something about her and her socioeconomic status. Yet they still went ahead to abduct her, given the type of information they supposedly had about her. The rumour doing the rounds in the community that she had just collected a “contribution” does not take anything away from the fact that Ajuma is an unusual victim of kidnappers who reportedly stormed an okpa vendor’s house in their numbers in the wee hours of the morning to kidnap her for ransom!
The abduction of a cooked rice vendor, a woman barely surviving, is reflective of the sad state of affairs in the country. This is strange and ominous as it implies that even the poor are not exempted from dastardly attacks by criminals. And it may well be that people risk abduction if they dare to walk on the streets! Has the security situation in the country deteriorated so much that hoodlums target just any person, regardless of the very slim probability of achieving their ignoble objective of extorting money from the victim’s family and members of their social circle? Where, for instance, will an okpa vendor or her family get ransom money to pay kidnappers whose demands are usually outrageous? If she had money, would she be hawking rice and okpa, literally carrying a tray on her head, in the first place? Again, the truth is that in all probability, the “contribution” money she got is a small sum, the kind that people in her social class can muster. Yes, ultimately, there could be negotiation with her abductors, but the kind of negotiation that would make the criminals to settle for what is patently a peanut may risk the life of the victim.
Ajuma is definitely of the poorest class in society and to expect her to produce ransom money in millions is cruel and unfeeling. And the belief in some quarters that the motivation for the abduction may not be money seems to have been more or less erased by the kidnappers’ alleged demand for a huge ransom. It is, however, hoped that security operatives will soon unravel the seeming mystery. In any case, whatever the motives of the kidnappers are, this terrible situation was created by the government which failed to protect Ajuma and many other citizens, even though the raison d’être of government is the security and welfare of the citizenry. The government should address insecurity, especially now that everyone is literally a potential victim of the kidnappers prowling all over the place.
This kind of news is bad for Nigeria. The government cannot be pursuing foreign direct investment while at the same time doing very little to address the pervasive insecurity in the country. Unfortunately, some of this bad news is reported in the foreign media, sometimes even ahead of the local media. And it is needless saying that no one would want to invest in an unsafe environment. Certainly, the veritable threat to lives and properties in the country is assuming a frightening dimension. That is inimical to both the security and welfare of the citizenry and the health of the domestic economy. All stakeholders, with the government taking lead, are called upon to up their ante and alter the perilous status quo.
More importantly, there is a need for changes in the official approach to maintaining security as the current one is obviously suboptimal. The security architecture that permits the burgeoning acts of terrorism, banditry and other criminal activities surely needs tweaking, or it will be business as usual. Again, a security architecture that excludes the subnational governments in whose domains criminal activities take place from the matrix of critical elements that should improve security is fundamentally flawed. Governments at the lower levels should be adequately resourced and empowered to truly maintain law and order within their jurisdictions. Ownership and control of the police at subnational levels are long overdue. This is not novel as it operates in certain civilised climes from which operational lessons can be drawn. Nigerians are uninterested in which tiers of government are in charge of security; all they desire is safety of life and property, which can be easily achieved through a coordinated interplay of efforts and strategies among the three tiers of government.
A situation where the ordinary Nigerian who is contending with hunger cannot walk free on the streets or sleep with his/her two eyes closed for fear of kidnappers is unprecedented. It smacks of double jeopardy, which no responsible government should subject its citizens to. We urge that pragmatic official actions be swiftly taken not just to rescue Ajuma Simon from her abductors but also to stymie the recurrence of this dangerous trajectory of insecurity in the country.
