• Uncertainty over state-policing solution
By Cosmas Omegoh
Has kidnapping for ransom in the country come to stay? Perhaps it has.
Over time, kidnapping has gained notoriety as a trade, and ceased to be a variant of heist it used to be – and the evil it once was. The character that once made it evil is long gone.
A cross section of stakeholders has been voicing strong concerns following the rising menace, proffering solutions and challenging the government to take action.
For nearly two decades now, the Nigerian society has had to deal with kidnapping for ransom. People have had to pay huge sums to free their loved ones from the claws of outlaws. Even organisations, and sadly, including churches, have been paying hundreds of millions of naira as ransom to ensure the release of their clergies.
At the moment, many Nigerians still live with the trauma of being held in captivity under excruciating conditions, long months after they were freed. What about those who after paying ransom were notified to go get the bodies of their loved ones? Some have had to take ransom money to abductors only to be held back.
Kidnapping is now a blossoming trade of sorrow and sadness.
According to an agency report, there are concerns that “in the past decade the Catholic Church in Nigeria had witnessed an alarming wave of abductions targeting her priests, seminarians, and religious personnel against the backdrop of a general increase of kidnappings for ransom.”
In March 2025, for instance, the Catholic Church released a heart-rending report that between 2015 and 2025, 145 Nigerian priests were kidnapped, 11 killed, while four are still missing.
The Church spoke through Agenzia Fides, the news agency of the Vatican based in the Palazzo di Propaganda Fide, Rome.
Meanwhile, the figures quoted do not include clergy men from other congregations and the latest adduction of priests in Auchi, Uromi and Kafanchan dioceses.
For instance, last week, a certain Rev. Fr. Ibrahim Amos, priest-in-charge of St Gerald Quasi Parish in Kurmin Risga, Kauru Local Government Area of Kaduna State, was kidnapped.
The cleric was taken when gunmen smashed into his residence at Kurmin Risga on Thursday, April 24, 2025, at about 12:15 a.m. He later regained freedom, but it was unclear if any ransom was paid.
The latest kidnapping incident came on the heels of the abduction of Rev. Fr. Sylvester Okechukwu, also a priest of the Diocese of Kafanchan on March 4, 2025, who was later killed.
The kidnapping of priests in the Southern Kaduna region, many believe, has been such a coordinated act especially by bandits, said to have other intentions beyond ransom collection.
Priests in Gboko, Uromi and Auchi dioceses of the Church have shared similar fate lately.
Following the huge sums Nigerians pay when their relatives are abducted, kidnapping for ransom has not only ratcheted, but has also become a money spinner, growing both in size and sophistication. More and more individuals are taking to it for their living. They are successfully scooping huge cash as their reward, while spreading pains, sorrow and horror in their wake.
At every turn, cells of outlaws are ruling, dominating and grabbing innocent persons whom they take to ungoverned spaces where they are kept for as long as it takes their relatives to pay ransom for their release. Victims are kept in inhuman conditions for long weeks and months, fed with bread and water – where they are available – just to sustain them. They are in addition brutalised and given the criminal’s portion. Video footage of their ordeal are sometimes sent to their loved ones to compel ransom payment. The victims cannot breathe the air of freedom until the money so demanded is paid.
While in captivity, many have died under intense torture; others because their relatives could not meet the kidnappers’ demands and deadlines or because they could not access medicare, their remains tossed aside and forgotten.
Indeed, the tragedy of kidnapping provides a tragic insight into the poignant reality a seemingly helpless and hapless country and its citizens are currently passing through.
Kidnapping in the beginning
Providing a historical background to kidnapping, Dr Charles Bala Azgaku, in his work “Kidnapping in the Niger-Delta Region of Nigeria: Issues and Challenges,” recalled that “on January 11, 2006, what appeared to be the first reported case of abduction of expatriates took place when four foreign oil workers working for Shell Petroleum were kidnapped by militants in Port Harcourt.”
He also recalled how “on January 15th, 2006, ten persons including soldiers of the military joint task force deployed by the government to the Niger-Delta region (Operation Restore Hope) were killed.
Azgaku lamented how at some point “kidnapping assumed an alarming dimension in most of the South eastern and Niger Delta regions of Nigeria,” adding that “its occurrence and impact were induced by oil resource exploration in the country.”
Our correspondent recalls that kidnapping for ransom at some point began to wing its way to the Southwest, and later spread to up North as far as the Sahel region where it has now become a big enterprise.
A security expert, Seye Adetayo, in a chat with our correspondent, admitted that “insecurity has now become a big business for the criminal-minded.”
He added that “right now, they see it as a venture worthy to be invested in.” And sadly he said, “the reward is high, while the risk involved is minimal compared to robbery.”
According to him, “all kidnappers need to do is to pick up an individual. But in robbery, they must be certain that there is something there to steal. They must think of breaking into a facility and damaging it.
“But to pick up a human being, that is relatively safe for them. They can intercept them either by chance or by any means. They don’t necessarily see that the person carries any money before picking them. The victim is money themselves. They just take their time before contacting the families of the victim to actually pay or accept their demand. That they have a means of controlling.”
Why kidnapping thrives
While further providing reasons for the prevalence of the kidnapping menace, Azgaku noted that “there are many factors that have contributed to the emergence of kidnapping in Nigeria. Apart from the wider liberation consciousness or struggle of the people over the years, social, economic and political reasons have come to play prominent roles for the rise in recent times.”
He identified kidnapping as a liberation struggle, bad economy and high level of unemployment, individuals who now accept it as business, kidnapping as a sign of failed leadership and poor governance, and kidnapping as a political tool as the key drivers.
Kidnapping, Adetayo also noted, thrives because “even when kidnapers are eventually caught, the chances that they will still walk back home is very high not only because someone is going to release them, but because the Nigerian criminal justice system is so weak to deal with issues of kidnapping.”
Indeed, a former police commissioner, Iorbee Ihagh, admitted that “kidnapping has become a means for some people to make money, fearing that “it looks like it has come to stay. But that is not good for us.”
He stated although the challenge of insecurity is everywhere, the situation in Benue is peculiar.
“The Fulani are also involved in kidnapping; they are desperate to take our land,” he said, sounding sober.
“They have been killing us and driving us from our ancestral land.
“For the past 10 years, I have not been to my community in Kwande local government; they have burnt three houses I built there while I was in service. Nobody is going there anymore. They are killing people every day. We have IDPs everywhere. And the president is not doing anything about it. Let the president send his Service Chiefs to drive away the killer herdsmen occupying our lands.”
A public affairs commentator, Ernest Enwerem, based in Aba, Abia State, also lamented that kidnapping for ransom has become an evil Nigerians will have to live with.
He said: “Once evil sets in, it stays; that is what it is in history.
“The very best we can do now is to whittle down the impact of the menace and reduce the frequency of its occurrence.
“But as long as we still habour people who are desperate to make quick money, as long as we have people who are territorial conscious, people who want to claim others’ ancestral lands by brute force, annex their wealth and dominate, there will always be kidnapping.”
He alleged that: “As long as a certain ethnic group does not drop its quest to dominate others, they will continue to kidnap.
“When they kidnap and collect ransom, they use the money to procure arms and ammunition to invade communities and sack them.
“These people are infiltrating everywhere. They go into the bushes as so-called hunters, petty traders, artisans, and security guards. But that is not their goal. Their goal is to kidnap and kill.
“The people doing this are not ordinary men. They are trained persons on a mission for territorial domination.”
He told Sunday Sun that the example of invading kidnappers had emboldened local criminals who now collaborate with them.
“Some people in the local communities have also seen that kidnapping pays. So they are investing their energies in it so as to make money. That is why I don’t see this stopping even in the near future.”
Is the Nigerian state helpless?
There is this belief in some quarters that both the country and the citizenry are overwhelmed by the challenges of kidnapping.
Enwerem believes that the government has been treating the matter with kids’ gloves. He said: “As long as the leadership is playing the ostrich, as long as the leadership is not decisive about this evil, I don’t see any significant progress that can be made.”
Then he added: “Mind that the fish gets rotten from the head. If the head of a tractor moves, the articulated body joins. But if the former is stationary, every other side will remain comatose. Therefore, if the leadership is not doing anything about this menace, it is sure to be business all the way.
“If the government goes beyond the rhetoric of saying ‘enough is enough,’ and in sincerity mobilises forces against evil, it will definitely stop.”
What can be done against kidnapping?
While proffering ideas for stopping kidnapping in the land, Ihagh said if he were still in service, there was no way he would not go after the criminals headlong. He, therefore, urged the current crop of policemen to act.
“Obviously the officers should have informants wherever they are working; so they should go for them.”
However, he observed a drawback.
“But one thing is that the police might be afraid of doing their job.
“This is because in some cases, when they arrest a kidnapper, the politicians might come forth and compel their release. In that case, some of them might be afraid of their jobs; mind you that politicians in this country do whatever they want to do.
“But in a matter like this, we should not be acting like politicians. We should let the security agencies do their job,” he said.
Then to the locals, he said: “Security is not meant only for the government. Everybody needs to protect themselves.”
Another security expert, Micah Ugala flayed the government’s approach to combating kidnapping.
“The other time the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu was in Makurdi and said, “oh we are concerned, this and that. We have been hearing those rhetoric over the years.
“Unfortunately, the things we need to do we have not done particularly with regard to electronic communication.
“Again, we need to note that this country is too loose; I keep saying this. You can travel from Maiduguri to Lagos without anyone stopping you to identify yourself.
“At all the checkpoints, the security men are after collecting money from motorists. They will even salute the big men in vehicles; whether they are criminals or not, they don’t know.
“In Cote d’ I voire, for instance, you cannot cross from one region to another without identifying yourself. It is not possible.
“This is because kidnappers used the roads. If those checkpoints are serving the purpose for which they are mounted, kidnappers will be identified.
“But if you are riding in a Hilux or a Land Cruiser jeep in this country, you can go anywhere unchecked. You even get saluted. That is not security!”
Recalling how technology can be used to resolve the challenge, he recounted his walk with the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC).
“I recall approaching the NCC, giving them the idea of linking people to their sim cards. But they rubbished it.
“Now, we are talking about citizenship. This issue of ghost voting, ghost population, have we talked about it? The number of ghost citizens far outnumbers the citizens themselves. That I can tell anyone for free! We keep hearing that we are 250 million in number.
“But go to NIMC; as of September last year when they celebrated their identity week, they claimed they had 110 million Nigerians on their radar only. But we claim we are 250 million, where are the rest? That is the number they use during elections only.
“Now, for the government, if you are governing a people and you don’t know their number and you don’t have their data, is that not a security lapse and threat on its own?
“Now, what about all the noise about linking your sim cards with your name? There are some basic things we have not done about that yet. The sim registration is not water tight yet. The link has not achieved its objectives yet.
“Now, they are talking about coming up with another form of registration meaning that the registration was flawed. When people were buying peoples’ NIM for N100 on the streets, what do you expect? If the identity management agency had done its work how do people succeed with that?”
He also talked about putting the country’s citizenship into good use. He said: “Talking about citizenship, we should know ourselves where we are – in our estates. That would improve security.
“Likewise, we need to have our identities domiciled somewhere; that will help. We need to have a central database of citizens for us to know how many we are.”
To enhance the security in the land, Enwerem urged the government to mobilise and retrieve guns from criminals and herdsmen terrorising the people.
“Those who are said to be using AK 47 rifles to protect their cattle have to surrender them. If the police could mop up arms in the hands of some people the other time, if some people protect their property with guns and sometimes kidnap with it and you strip others of their own guns, there is no justice in that.”
He called for formation of local vigilantes to help combat the insecurity challenges plaguing everyone.
“Every community should organise themselves and form formidable vigilance groups. The groups will be under the supervision of local government chairmen, community leadership and traditional rulers.
“Once strange persons come into the communities, they can be tackled. That should be the beginning of security consciousness.
“But where there is no security or it is lax, crime and criminality will fester.”
At the state level, he charged the government to rise up to its responsibility of protecting the people.
He praised the efforts of Governor Alex Otti thus far in Abia State, noting that although crime cannot be eradicated, it is at its ebb in the state.
Ihagh also called on politicians and traditional rulers to take responsibility for their localities.
He said: “Everybody in the community needs to sit up. If you see that someone around you is a kidnapper, go ahead and report him.”
Ogala, however, placed the blame for the menace on the door steps of the government.
He insisted that the government knows about what is happening and as such cannot feign ignorance or handicapped.
“The powers that be know about it.
“The other time the government of UAE gave us a list of those involved in terrorism, what has the country done with it?
“Is ours not the same country that will arrest terrorists/kidnappers and later release them as repentant fellows?” he asked.
Then he noted: “Riding on what late General Sani Abacha once said, ‘any insecurity that persists in the country within 48 hours, the government of the day knows about it.’”
Further recalling how the government spurned an idea that would have made kidnapping a bygone in the country, he said: “At some point, I stuck out my neck and said let all these people using our telecommunication to facilitate kidnapping be tackled. I did that after encountering kidnappers, policeman Abba Kyiari arrested. When I interacted with them while they were in detention, they told me everything about their modus operandi. Then I came up and said we can solve our problem using our telecommunication.
“Without electronic communication, there cannot be kidnapping. In organising, planning and executing kidnapping, electronic communication is highly involved.
“Among the kidnappers I interacted with was a DSS personnel. I met with them at the Force CID here in Abuja while they were in detention. That was how I came up with how we can stop them as long as they use telecommunication; I know the way around it; so I wrote the NCC. That was what gave birth to the NIMC, but they rubbished it.
“I told them that I had the technology that would compel compliance. But we were in the process of negotiation before I started hearing about the NIMC link.”
The state policing idea
With conviction, Ihagh believes as a former police officer that the challenges of the day could be effectively resolved through the much vouched state policing. He insisted that it has become all the more compelling.
“That is the best for us.
“I often pity the state governors. Oftentimes when there is a crisis in their area, they call the brigade commanders, or the commissioners of police. The latter would first call their boss in Abuja before acting. They would tell the governor that they are not answerable to him.
“But if there is a state police structure, and I were a state governor, I would order the police to take care of the matter.
“The state police will protect their own citizens. But the police boss who has the sympathy of his kinsmen like we are seeing, will never hold his kinsmen responsible.
“Even the soldiers when they come here in Benue and see the Fulani with AK 47 rifles they do nothing. But when they see a Tiv or Idoma with a cutlass, they will be arrested and sent to Abuja,” he pointed out.
It is on the strength of that he insisted: “We actually need state police at a time like this. I have been saying this every time.”
To buttress the assertion, he referenced his experiences in the United States. “I studied there. They have state police; there are city police, and the federal police.
“Whenever a matter gets out of hand, they will bring in the next level of policemen. They don’t bring in soldiers.
“But here in Benue, they bring in soldiers and when they see the killers killing our people they look the other way. They say they were not told to come and shoot. Then why are they there in the first place?”
But while demand for state policing in the country mounts, many state governors appear uninterested.
Some people have reasoned that some state governors do not want to fund state policing with the tons of cash they cart away monthly as security votes. So far, some of them have come clear that they have no money to do so.
Signs that the governors are really not interested in the novelty emerged at last week’s National Economic Council (NCE) meeting in Abuja where they failed to discuss the matter, preferring to defer it.
Bayelsa Governor, Duoye Diri, said after the council’s 149th meeting that the issue was billed for discussion, but was not a priority in the list.
He said: “State police was part of our agenda today, but unfortunately, because of time demands, and after a very long meeting, we have been there for a very long time now, the presentations could not get to that point. So, I assure you that at our next meeting, that issue will be exhaustively discussed.”
It was noted that although all the 36 states had submitted their reports on the idea since last year, yet the idea is to be discussed.