CHAPTER ONE:

1.1 INTRODUCTION

For those who know the truth, this who issue of kidnapping started

in the south south zone of Nigeria in particular in Port Harcourt a few

years ago. The initial target was expatriate oil workers, and then it started

spreading Nigerian oil workers especially their kids and wards etc. And so

every one of us put up this sidon look,not-in-my back yard, I-do-not-care

attitude until it gradually grew of a national emergency.

One important thing is that in most of the initial cases of

kidnapping, unconfirmed ransom were paid running sometimes into

millions of naira. That now started making the "business" popular in Port

Harcourt and so it started spreading to other areas including the south

east. Another important point is that the south east and south-south are

very integrated. In fact Port Harcourt may be out of the cities outside

Iboland that has a high concentration of Ibo people. Naturally the bad

eggs among Ibos living in these areas joined the kidnappers naturally. And

because it an "easier way to get cool cash" (I can imagine) without going

on armed robbery, it was easy to recruit criminal minded followers

everywhere including Ibo land. And therefore when the police and joint

task force (JTF) began a crackdown on the kidnappers around the Port

Harcourt area they migrated to the east, multiplied and modified their

tactics.

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1.2 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Kidnapping is the act or crime of forcefully taking away and holding

somebody prisoner, usually for ransom.

The essential elements of kidnapping and of false imprisonment are

about the same, except that the former includes, in addition to a

detention, the act of carrying away the victim to another place, usually for

the purpose of avoiding discovery.

South East in this context means the south-eastern part of Nigeria;

which includes Bayelsa, Port-Harcourt, and other states and cities around

the area which are mostly Igbos.

1.3 CAUSES OF KIDNAPPING

There are few causes of kidnapping in Nigeria which can be

narrowed down even to about three causes:

 Inadequate employment opportunity.

 Form of threat.

 For money rituals.

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CHAPTER TWO:

INSTANCES OF KIDNAPPING IN THE SOUTH EAST

Kidnapping was a vogue introduced by the militants in the Niger

Delta before the amnesty programme was put in place by the late

President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the primordial factor that gave rise to

the crime was political and economic to draw attention to the sufferings

and plight to the people in the Niger Delta region.

For now, the crime has cut across Nigeria; from the North to the

South and from the East to the West. But worrisome, is the level the crime

has taken in Edo State, with the recent kidnap of the Chief Medical

Director of the Federal Psychiatric Hospital, Uselu, Benin City, Dr.(Mrs.)

Olabisi Ihenyen, alongside her husband, Dr. Lionel Ihenyen of Ihenyen

Hospital, in the outskirt of Benin City.

While they are yet to regain freedom, a female frontline politician

and an aspirant to the Federal House of Representative for Ovia Federal

Constituency, Barrister Lucy Omagbon was abducted.

When the federal government, in its wisdom, thought that the best

solution to the Niger Delta militancy was to meet force with force, little did

it know the distance and mutations the violence could take. And that is

the problem now.

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 Kidnappers or militants seems the seeds of the Niger Delta militancy

have grown far beyond the creeks as one of its fallouts, kidnapping for

ransom, has been exported to neighbouring states of the South East. It is

not just that ordinary people now live in fear in that region, investors are

not comfortable doing business in an area infested with kidnapping as

well.

Though kidnapping in the South East is alien, the trade as some are

wont to call it, is bourgeoning there like bees on their hive. But the root of

all this is oil, confirming, in a way, what the Nobel Laureate, Nadine

Gordimer, wrote in The New York Time of May 25, 1997 that “In Nigeria,

the price of oil is blood”.

When Gordimer made that remark in a conference in the USA

against the dictatorial regime of the late Gen. Sani Abacha, kidnapping for

ransom had not spread to the South East. Ken Saro-Wiwa and Wole

Soyinka were the issues then.

One of the reasons for the spread of the monster, Saturday

Vanguard can reveal is poverty, joblessness, campus cultism, and political

thuggery.

There are also government policies which have cut the ordinary

people off from their means of livelihood so much that the only way to

respond to the state is to seek revenge on the affluent, be they

government officials, politicians and business persons.

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 Some of the people complained that the state governments, in their

way to clean up the areas have rendered them penniless. Yet, they are

those who use the trade as a form of settling family disputes or just to

settle political scores.

But the trade is not being usually done by just anybody. Most times,

it seems to be executed by university graduates who could not get

employment. But then, they are also usually moulded by different cults

they belong in the institutions. Some of them are even in the evil trade as

undergraduates.

They are mainly youths in their twenties. They may not be happy

with what they are doing, as confessions from some of them show, but

they seem rather frustrated by society.

The result is that fear pervades the land. Neighbours are suspicious of

each other. Citizens are being seized and ransoms demanded before they

are releases. The effect of the long neglect of the Niger Delta and the use

of force as well as the frustration of the youth is behind the high incident

of crime and its new entrant, kidnapping in the south. The First Kidnap in

the Niger Delta

Kidnapping as “weapon of the weak pretending to be strong,” was

first heard on Saturday, February 18, 2006. This was when movement for

the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed responsibility for the

abduction of nine foreign workers during its attack on an oil facility. Along

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with three Americans and a Briton, the group said it kidnapped two Thais,

two Egyptians and a Filipino.

Kidnapping as Business in Igboland

Kidnapping became a big business idea. And so, it did not take long

for those impoverished, the poor and jobless graduates to enter into the

trade. More so, their ilk in the neighbouring states followed suit. And like

cancer, kidnapping as big business and alternative employment spread to

the neighbouring states of Imo, Anambra, Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu, all in

the South East.

In Enugu, a monarch, Igwe Uche Nwachime, in Nkanu West Local

Government, was abducted and killed. The proprietor of Grand Riveri

Hotel, Enugu, was kidnapped but was released after the ransom N5m was

said to have been paid. The younger brother of the former NAFDAC DG,

Prof. Dora Akunyili, was captured. His captors reportedly asked for N30m.

In Abia, as the snatching of the Enyimba Club chairman, Anyasi

Agwu; heralded the uncomfortable phenomena and erstwhile ASUBEB

chairman, Comrade Iruke, a lawyer, Ngozi Ukweni, Justice Awa U. Kalu

who was shot in a failed kidnapping bid, a magistrate, a an electrical

dealer, and a host of Abia State top functionaries also became victims.

In Anambra, a couple were kidnapped immediately after their

wedding. They were later released after three days in captivity last

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December 17, a bank manager in Oba was kidnapped. A month earlier, an

assembly man representing Anaocha I Constituency, Chief Joseph Dimobi,

was kidnapped.

Dimobi was picked in his country home in Aguluzigbo about 10.30

p.m. by kidnappers who demanded a N30 million ransom. Dimobi was

concluding arrangements to perform the funeral rites of his late father

when he was kidnapped.

Other lawmakers in the state ran away, switching off their phones

because “one never can tell who would be the next target,” the speaker

said.

Before then, the state Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association

(NMA) was kidnapped. He was later released after allegedly paying a

ransom of N3 million.

The spate of kidnapping has forced state governments in the region

into thinking of making kidnapping a capital offence. Governor Sullivan

Chime’s government has declared that it would make kidnapping a capital

punishment in Enugu State, the same thing Imo and Anamabra states one

thinking along that line too. Abia has already signed that into law. The

Abia State government, through its commissioner for Information, Chief

Ralph Egbu, told Saturday Vanguard that it has been fighting the scourge.

The deputy governor, Comrade Chris Akoma said the government

constituted a Joint Task Force made of the military and Police, with

appropriate logistical back up of 47 brand new vehicles. It beefed up

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security around the notorious Enugu - Port Harcourt expressway with

crack anti-insurgent troops as well as providing dedicated hotlines, all the

time for the people to call.

The government said it provides confidentiality to informants and to

date governor Theodore Orji is said to continue to pay a reward of N1m

whose information has resulted in successfully dislodging and arresting

the criminals.

Kidnapping, as a capital punishment in the state, comes with it a

forfeiture of the accused’s property to the state upon conviction. The state

said it increased a number of Mobile Police anti-crime formations to three

in the state, provided 65 Operational vehicles and logistics to its security

agencies, drafted in detachments of Army and Navy.

It has also created a bye-law for effective Vigilance Groups to

collaborate with the Security Agencies. It combs villages, houses and

plantations in the state, threatening also to depose any traditional ruler, in

whose domain kidnapping and armed robbery occur.

Kidnapping in the East:

Indeed, when kidnapping began in the East, especially, Abia in

2007, it was touted that the opposition could be behind the menace. But

Saturday Vanguard investigations showed that this may not really be so in

all cases. Perhaps, the first inroad into the burgeoning trade in Igbo

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heartland was made by Saturday Vanguard last weekend when it did not

only meet with those who could be kidnappers or have knowledge of

those in the trade, it also met with victims of kidnap in the region.

Imo State: The angry Youth

The first port of call on the survey of kidnapping in the South East

was Imo state. By June last year, kidnappers in Imo had abducted 10

persons. The targets were the wealthy and they included Mrs. Ngozi Nneji,

wife of the proprietor of ABC Transport Plc; 85-year-old Pa Christopher

Chukwu, the father of a prominent politician and oil magnate, Chief Gov.

Ikedi Ohakim of Abia State. Tony Chukwu; the father of the proprietor of

Disney Hotel on Onitsha Road, the son of a member of the Imo State

House of Assembly, Chief Simeon Iwunji; a member of the Imo State

House of Assembly, Mr. Celestine Ngaobiwu; two sons of the Speaker of

the Imo State House of Assembly, Chief Goodluck Opiah (who were

abducted in Aba, Abia State). There were also pupils of a private school at

Works Layout, Owerri.

But the case of Chief Sylvanus Udenkwo, father of an Owerri based

millionaires, Joel, is an eye opener on the mode of kidnapping in that part

of the country. Udenkwo, the only victim in the state bold enough to

narrate his experience in the hands of a five-man gang who held him for

12 days. He was freed by the state police on June 13 without any ransom

paid.

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 Udenkwo was kidnapped as he tried to help some young men who

visited him at Isiala Umudi, seeking land to buy for an MTN mast.

The man did not have such land but decided to take them to his

relation who might have. He drove the two to the land for the construction

of the purported mast.

They tricked his kinsman away and made away with the old man. He

was gagged, blindfolded and taken to a bungalow, where he spent 12

days. His abductors extracted the mobile telephone number of his rich

son from him for negotiation. But it gave the police the opportunity to

organise his release.

His captors, Udenkwo said, could pass for his grandchildren. The

men had told him kidnapping had now become their business. The

kidnappers were not rude to him, he said. Neither did they humiliate him,

though they threatened him with their guns to scare him.

His son, Joel, said the kidnappers had earlier asked for N70m

ransom for his father. He had contacted the Imo State Commissioner of

Police, Mr. Innocent Ilozuoke, who monitored the discussions as the sum

moved down to N40m, N20m, N10m, and N5m until the police moved to

quash the crime. It cost him only N6,000 MTN cards in N1,500

denomination to free his father from his abductors.

The commissioner, the assistant commissioner of police in charge of

operations, Mr. Goddy Okereke, and all the men were in the bush, two of

them (the kidnappers) were shot and they escaped, leaving behind their

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motorcycle, which the police took away. The next day, they now noticed

that the business happened not to be as usual and noticed that the aim of

the kidnapping was over.

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CHAPTER THREE:

EFFECTS OF KIDNAPPING IN NIGERIA

Kidnapping in Nigeria has many effects depending on the aim of the

kidnappers, but there is one major effect which every kidnapping

operation that is completed points out; the inefficiency of our police force.

The leadership of the Nigeria Police Force is gripped with the fear

that it could be dissolved anytime from now, following the growing rate of

insecurity in the country. Sources close to the Presidency told Saturday

Punch on Thursday night that President Goodluck Jonathan‘s security

advisers were already fed up with police management team headed by

the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ogbonna Onovo.

Onovo, who succeeded Mr. Mike Okiro last year, had been

contending with growing insecurity since he assumed office. Many

Nigerians, including police officers, have been killed by armed robbers,

with Onovo and his team having no answer to the situation.

Just last two months ago, four journalists were kidnapped near Aba,

the commercial nerve centre of Abia State, on their way from Akwa Ibom

State where they had attended a conference. Since then, Onovo has

relocated to the South-East, following a marching order from the

Presidency to secure the release of the journalists and burst the

kidnapping gangs in the region.

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 Few months ago, a source said, ”Anytime from now, the Presidency

will act on the issue. The Presidency seems to be tired of the several

excuses of the police concerning the security situation in the country. If by

now we are experiencing this, one can imagine what the situation is likely

to be during the general election next year.

President Jonathan had on different occasions lamented the security

situation in the country, which he said had worsened. To this effect,

Onovo had no option but to accept his fate.

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CHAPTER FOUR:

4.1 SOLUTION

The federal government should include the people of the south-east,

particularly Abia and Imo States, in the presidential amnesty programme, as a

way of arresting the spate of kidnappings in the area, participants in a

roundtable on moving Abia State forward said yesterday in Umuahia.

They also urged the government to initiate programmes for a mental

reorientation of members of the Nigeria Police Force as, according to them, the

present perception of the members of the force by the Nigerian public could not

make for effective crime prevention.

“There must be a mental restructuring that will treat criminals as criminals

and not as Igbos, Hausas, Yorubas, Ijaws, Efiks, or the like. This is because a

bullet from the nozzle of a criminal does not discriminate on the basis of tribe or

tongue. A situation where policemen see victims of crime as brothers and sisters

of the criminals is antithetical to good policing,” they said.

The federal government should, in addition to the ongoing SIM card

registration, incorporate into the GSM system, security gadgets that can track

the location of phone users, especially in kidnap cases. This is because

kidnappers often communicate with the phone lines of the kidnapped victims,

and not necessarily theirs.

In a communiqué after the conference, which was organized by Human

Rights, Justice And Peace Foundation, participants called for the decentralization

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of the Nigeria Police Force through constitutional amendments to allow states to

set up their own police, which must enjoy legal powers to address the issues of

kidnapping, armed robbery and other violent crimes effectively and efficiently.

They argued that if the police was decentralized to accommodate community

policing, the extortion and other vices linked to members of the force would be

checked, as the victims would recognize those from their locality.

However, while we bemoan this development, we commend the

efforts of the Edo State Government under the administration of Comrade

Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole in tackling this menace and other related crimes,

with the continuous empowerment of the police, with the provision of

gadgets, vehicles and monetary incentive.

IT is our belief that with such assistance, the level of crime,

especially kidnapping would have abated.

4.2 CONCLUSION

The catastrophic incidence of kidnapping has taken a different

dimension, with the resurgence of the crime taking an alarming proportion

across the length and breadth of the country. At the last count, no fewer

than thirteen prominent citizens are reported to have been abducted

within a spate of two weeks in Edo State.

Although the incidence of kidnapping is believed to be nationwide,

the South East and the nation’s capital city, Abuja has witnessed the most

horrendous crime wave with kidnapping topping the list of such

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malevolent acts against society, perhaps because of the huge ransom

received from relatives of victims and friends so that their captives can

regain freedom.

The degree of the worsening scenario of all manners of crime,

particularly kidnapping has caught the eyes of the international

community with a negative image, portraying the country in very bad

light.

Just as we believe that the fight against crime by the police will be

meaningless and futile, and hence the need for people to give information

that will arrest crimes and criminality, we are tempted to ask, ‘what

guarantee is there for the police informant who gives out a tip on a

neighbour for his life, safety and security?

The moment police informants are guaranteed of their safety and

security, only then will the public respond positively to giving out

information to assist the police in combating crimes in the society.

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