With Kayode Fasua
In the milieu of the trenches of old Oyo Park’s deep forests in Oyo State, lay so many quiet but poignant questions, as steadied searches went on for kidnapped pupils and teachers of Esiele public school in Orire local council area of the state.
For about two months, the captives, among them tots and several children hued in innocence, had been huddled in various woods, far removed from the prying eyes of sane people. They were panned by hails of heavy rainfall, scorched by the afternoon sun and terrified by the risk of being bitten by dangerous reptiles or devoured by carnivores, at night. In all, their entire miserable living was trauma descended. Worse still, are chilling stories of how they were made to trek from one location to the other, covering miles, at no notice.
The sobering import of this horrifying spectre for the man in the Southern part of the country, especially in the Southwest, is deep; for the simple fact that a kidnap haul of this magnitude had never been experienced in the clime. But not so for his fellow compatriot in the North, particularly someone from the North-East. There, kidnapping for ransom is a way of life, to the extent that families belong to thrift societies not for the sake of making savings for investment but to secure a vault for ransom payment once your relation is kidnapped.
The puzzle, however reducible to troubling questions, is that, should kidnapping and banditry now be seen as integral part of the Nigerian body, to wit, that we cannot get it severed but can only tend it as inescapable ailment? While not bothering to dwell on the historical antecedent of herder-farmer clashes said to have roots in the impossible peregrination of armed Fulani herders through the Sahel, it is clear to everyone that the story today, is totally different.
We are now in an era of coordinated insurgency put up by persons who have given full vent to a combination of religious bigotry and sharp appetite for territorial acquisition. They are such that want to build empires in the mould of Islamic countries dominating the Middle East. And they are not in anyway discouraged by the foreboding of violent deaths or other debilitating consequences. What is also worrisome is that, beyond banditry oiled with kidnapping-for-ransom, some local hotheads and steaming hot criminals have now redefined kidnapping as sheer trade. They have been reaping big from it across Nigerian communities, invading worship centres, farms and other unusual places to pick their victims.
Years after the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade had been abolished, this moment now re-presents humans as articles of trade in which they get kidnapped to be bought back with megabucks. In the Orire instance, the kidnappers sent shockwaves to the entire world with the viral video of how they slaughtered as of ram, one of the beleaguered captives, Michael Oyedokun, apparently to hasten government and public responses alike, as per pacifying through heavy ransom, and possibly swapping the group’s incarcerated commanders with the holed-up captives.
Now to the brass-tacks. For how long will government, institutions and individuals pander to paying heavy ransoms to secure the release of abductees who were not hidden in the skies or dispatched to the invisible world of the gnomes via juju or the mesmerism of Marabouts? Certainly, the kidnappers operate in our bushes and trenches, which are not completely hidden from security agents and other requisite sleuths.
Recall the 2014 abductions of school children from Chibok and Dapchi girls’ schools in Borno State, which by all standards were the shame of a nation, as Nigeria’s Police and its higher sibling proved awkwardly incapable of busting. The lives of the kidnapped school girls in their hundreds were broken into smithereens as it were, with many of them returning home years later with babies born to unknown fathers.
Truth must be told-going by the recent successful operation of joint armed forces along with other security outfits on the fringes in Oyo State, that, there is apparent collusion of some of our security operatives, community leaders and some impossible characters who may include politicians, with these kidnappers. For these criminals to endure for days and ridiculously, months inside the bushes without being singed, is screaming validity to this claim.
Accepted that the kidnappers often use their victims as buffers, and we may want to consider that as excuse for being ‘tactful’, leading to long delays in rescue operation. It is also indubitable that those who know where the kidnappers are, are not willing to blow the whistle, for the simple reason that they have some pecuniary gains to derive, in the aftermath of ransom payment.
Away from plying any form of low road, the brutal fact is that, Nigeria has got to wake up with President Bola Tinubu coming out to take the bull by the horns. The government must deploy modern technologies through the assistance of friendly countries, especially the United States of America, in demographically installing impregnable trackers in all Nigeria’s territories, along with accompanying unmanned drones to be remote-controlled from situation rooms.
Again, the country must spend a fortune acquiring boom-boom weapons for its security outfits, especially the military, making sure the weapons available to insurgents, bandits, kidnappers and the like, are made outdated.
The latest move by the Tinubu administration to establish the much-awaited State Police system with full constitutional backing is enthusing, to say the least. But its implementation must not come in the usual Nigerian way.
Otherwise, we may be flogging a dead horse.