Kidnapping has reached a tipping point in Nigeria. All Progressives Congress [APC] may yet contest the history, but clearly, the years it has presided over the affairs of the country, have coincided with the burgeoning out of kidnapping into the booming industry it has become.
Once upon a not-too-distant past, kidnapping was a daring sporadic criminal act, targeted at a tightly identified affluent expatriate and indigenous persons, within certain locations in the country, where such a snatch-and-dash criminality could be attempted. Not anymore. Now, kidnapping has exploded exponentially into a national epidemic, from which no one is safe.
For kidnappers in Nigeria these days, every man is game and no place is considered unsafe to pull off the act. Kidnappers now strike at the privacy of homes, as well as at such public spaces as schools, religious worship centres, village squares and busy roads. Curiously, there has been no report of kidnapping at a political party convention ground, a fact that tends to give credence to the old saying that even among rogues, there is honour. Maybe.
In his illuminating book, The Tipping Point, which offered interesting insight into social behaviour and quirky turn of events in societies, the American journalist and author, Malcolm Gladwell, identified a tipping point as “that magic moment when an idea, trend or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like wildfire”.
For kidnapping as a problem, a dangerous trend in Nigeria, the very point where the criminal enterprise crossed the threshold, tipped and spread like wild fire, is not difficult to locate. It exploded under the reign of APC, as a ruling party, starting with Muhammadu Buhari as president. Not that there had not been kidnapping before then. For the records, the Chibok girls were kidnapped under President Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party [PDP]. True. Since then, coinciding with the stretch of the reign of the APC, kidnapping has turned into an epidemic. Increasingly over time, criminals confirmed that kidnapping is not only a very lucrative enterprise in the Nigerian society, it is even relatively safe. It is not even as risky as armed robbery. The situation has reached an unbelievable point where kidnappers literally take a chunk of a village and return few days later to pick those they could not collect at the earlier expedition. Ask the people in Kaduna. Malcolm Gladwell, may have to extend his work, to beam the light on the phase after the tipping point.
As kidnappers now ask for ransom in billions and trillions of Naira, the question cannot but arise; is there any connection between what individual legislators take away as their constituency project sum, which came light recently, and the hike in the ransom kidnappers are now demanding? Just ideas.
As kidnapping reaches a higher height of epidemic eruption in Nigeria, with the reported number of the abducted climbing above 500 persons in less than a fortnight, the reality has steadily dawned on many, including the criminals themselves, that the state and its security agencies, are well-nigh incapable of securing ordinary citizens. The rich and the prime members of the political class, can resort to deploying the resources at their disposal to defend themselves and their interests, at least to some extent, but how long can that be sustained?
President Tinubu’s statement last week that the government will not pay any ransom to kidnappers, did not excite many. It is not, of course, that people want ransom to be paid to kidnappers. The truth however, is that what is of utmost importance to the relations of kidnapped persons, is the safe return of their loved ones. Attempt to sound tough makes sense when backed with manifest capability. Nigerians are yet to see much of that. Until the kidnapped are rescued, the words of the president remain hollow to the traumatised victims and relations.
Last week, however, Sheik Ahmad Gumi, cleric, medical doctor, retired soldier and one of the citizens totally at liberty to say what he feels about Nigeria, offered, not only his views on the raging scourge of kidnapping in the country but assistance in reaching the criminals. For a man who lives well above the law, Gumi is not the easiest person to assign value to his utterances. The reason for this vary. For one, he obeys only his mood and no other authority. At times, he is inclined to sound off, and sees issues only from a prism that suits his belief. At other times, he comes across as someone who is frustrated by a feeling that many do not take him seriously. Yet at other intervals, he is dismissive of systems and individuals.
In a period of emergency, however, such as Nigeria presently lives, there may be wisdom in not discountenancing any options. You never can say. A man who keeps touting his access to kidnappers must be conceded some reckoning, as a possible important man, when about 500 citizens are being held by kidnappers.
In an interview he granted a national television channel last week, Gumi offered curiously interesting perspectives on the booming kidnapping industry in Nigeria. He proceeded thereafter to offer himself and his ideas, to help the government do what it obviously cannot do at the moment, that is, track the kidnapped and the kidnappers.
Nigeria’s efficient security services cannot account, at least to the best of public knowledge so far, how kidnappers moved over 200 victims at various expeditions in the northern part of the country, without thick forests. From what the security agencies say, they cannot yet trace the location where the kidnapped victims are quartered. It may all be strategic information management. Hopefully. Gumi says, however, that he knows what the security intelligence apparatuses do not know. Unfortunately, it seems, there is no information-sharing agreement between Sheik Gumi, the independent entity and the security intelligence authorities. So, Gumi is offering his services to the government. Gumi wants to be talked to.
In his television interview in reference, Gumi informed the country – leaders, security agencies and all – that the recent attacks by terrorists “is a tip on the iceberg unless Nigerian government negotiates” with the bandits. He said of the criminals, “They are ignorant. They don’t have direction. They don’t have leadership. They don’t have empathy”. But then, he added, “We are turning them into monsters, more monsters as [than] what they are”. He proceeded to warn that the criminality of banditry and kidnapping will persist, or even deteriorate “until we change our tactics” and allow people who know better to handle the situation.
As a former military officer, Gumi said, he knows for sure, that there is no military solution to the crisis at hand. He expressed surprise that even military personnel do not seem to realize the challenge before them. In his words at the interview, “I heard when one military man said it is turning into a war. I am so sad to see that they are now realizing that it is turning into a war. It has been war since; it has been ethnic war, it has been class war…. We have to accept that”
Sheik Gumi actually holds the view that ransom should not be paid to the kidnappers. He recommends however, that “we should give them hope”. The question arises; who exactly are these terrorists and bandits? Are they Nigerian citizens? The predominant line that the government of Muhammadu Buhari strained to sell all through his tenure, was that the bandits and terrorists ransacking Northern Nigeria and steadily making foray into the south, were foreigners. Even at that, there is still the unresolved matter of foreign merchantries imported into the country for political reasons, resulting in the aggravated security problem of Nigeria. A prominent member of the APC made the allegation against his party and it is still an open wound. What type of country is this?
Whatever anyone may think of Gumi, he has, at least, offered himself, to address a thorn in Nigeria’s flesh. Maybe the time has come for Nigeria to consider creating a ministry to be responsible for negotiating with kidnappers and terrorists, with such attendant assignment as ‘giving hope’ to the criminals, as Sheik Gumi recommends. Should the Tinubu government incline to this line of action, they will not need to search far for the founding minister. Sheik Ahmad Gumi is out there shouting,” send me”. Nigeria!