Opinion

By Emeka Omeihe 

IT is heart-refreshing president Tinubu has promised not to rest until the scourge of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping that resurged in various parts of the country is stamped out. He met with service chiefs last week to find solutions to escalating and embarrassing insecurity especially in and around the Federal Capital Territory FCT.

The Minster of the FCT, Nyesom Wike also summoned an emergency Security Council meeting where he was reported to have read riots acts to area council chairmen even as he assured that the government was handling the situation and respite was in sight. 

The FCT has been in the news for bad reasons following the abduction of a man identified as Mansoor Al-Kadriyar alongside his six daughters and many others in the Bwari Area Council of the FCT. The father of the young girls had earlier been released apparently to enable him source the N60 million ransom demanded by the bandits for the release of his children.

As the family sourced for the money, a discreet attempt by the security agencies to free the captives turned out catastrophic. An uncle to the abductees who led the security agencies to the rescue mission was gunned down by the bandits. Two of the three policemen hit by bullets during the gun exchange reportedly died.

Apparently infuriated by the failed rescue attempt, the kidnappers were said to have been very uncompromising when the family told them they were only able to raise N30 million. After so much negotiations and pleas on the deadline for the payment of the ransom, the bandits instructed the family to come and receive a ‘message’ at a certain location in the night. 

When the family got to the location around 10 pm, they were shocked to see one of the girls Nabeeha and three other victims brutally murdered.  They had no option than to take the corpse of Nabeeha with them. One of those murdered alongside Nabeeha was a 13-year old secondary school girl Ariyo Folorunsho who was also abducted from the Bwari council area of the FCT. 

The kidnappers later called the Al-Kadriyar family that they had increased the ransom to N100 million-N20 million each for the five remaining girls. They threatened to kill the girls if the ransom was not paid on the next deadline. That was the ordeal of the Al-Kadriyar family in the hands of the demented bandit-kidnappers.

They lost a daughter and an uncle even as the lives of the remaining five innocent girls hung on the balance. The development caused so much national trepidation that some groups began online fund raising to save the lives of the remaining girls. 

As the fund raising was going on, a former minister of communications, Isa Pantami told an anxious nation that a friend of his had paid in N50 million into the bank account of the girls’ father to enable him make up the N100 million ransom to save his daughters from mortal harm.

That was the kidnapping saga the country was embroiled in. The incident denoted a metaphor for the escalating kidnappings and sundry criminalities that have reduced the worth of life in this country. But worthy of note was the helplessness and hopelessness of the Kadriyar family as they took resort to self-help to secure the release of their children. 

Even when they involved the security agencies, the outcome was fatal. Nabeeha may have been killed to punish the family for involving the police to rescue the poor girls. And after that callous murder, the family was left with no other option than to source for the ransom as the consequences of further default could be very dire.

So those who donated money to facilitate the release of the remaining girls are not to blame. It is also beside the point whether it was Pantami or his unnamed friend that provided the N50 million. The lives of the girls were really in grave danger after their sister had been killed. And if ransom was the only way out in the circumstance so be it.

 But the experience of the Kadriyar family mirrors vividly the predicament of Nigerians in the hands of bandits and sundry kidnappers since that social malaise surface on our national chessboard. During the last regime, bandits, terrorists, herdsmen and kidnapers levied so much war on the rest of the society that questions were raised as to whether law and order had broken down irretrievably in the country. 

There was the embarrassing Abuja-Kaduna train attack that led to the killing of innocent souls and abduction of many. For months running, the bandits held the captives hostage releasing piecemeal, those who were able to pay their ransom. The government appeared helpless as the reign of the bandits held sway. But the government hid under the excuse that it was merely exercising caution so as not to harm the abductees in any eventual attack on the bandits. 

That could as well be. But such excuses are all that the bandits required to oil the wheels of their illicit business. Little wonder abduction and kidnapping for ransom by all manner of criminals have continued to be on the upward surge. The fate of the Kadriyar’s is a consequence of this state of anarchy. 

It exposes the helplessness of abductees in the face of the inability of the security agencies to find a handle to this national embarrassment. It conjures the image of the sovereignty of the bandits-a republic within a republic.

 In this column, I had in May 2021 under the title “A bandits’ Republic” expressed fears that the country was increasingly sliding to a verity of the sovereignty of the bandits. Then, the reign of the bandits-herdsmen and kidnappers especially in parts of the north had begun to convey the unmistakable impression that there existed a bandits’ republic within the federal republic of Nigeria.

 Then, bandits had taken control of the many ungoverned forests in the country from where they levy war on the society dictating the rules of engagement with the government of the day seemingly helpless. That is the miserable scenario re-enacted by the Bwari incident. But the bandits’ territory is not a normal republic where the rule of law and due process form the basis for political action. 

It is a republic in its most aberrant form, sharing common traits with the Hobbesian state of nature where life has at once become short, nasty and brutish. That republic is governed by the law of the jungle, bestial instincts and survivalist predilections. No singular economic or political activity goes on there. Neither are the inmates under the sovereignty of any singular dominion. 

But adjoining the jungle republic is a modern government (republic) which the bandits rebel against. Ironically non-state actors operating from jungle republic regularly mount serious attacks on the legitimate government equipped with all the paraphernalia of office with the latter unable to establish its firm authority. 

That is the paradox presented by the unmitigated reign of terror by the bandits and sundry kidnappers. Why will victims of the regular onslaughts of bandits not pay ransom if only to save their lives in the face of the inability of the government to protect them?   

It is not just enough for the government to caution on the dangers of crowd-funding for ransom. Neither does it suffice to discourage families of victims from paying ransom. The government must show capacity and control in its statutory duty of securing lives and property. That is the basis of its authority and legitimacy.

A situation the bandits compete with the government for the loyalty of the citizens with the latter negotiating their freedom with ransom, creates the unmistakable image of a kidnappers’ republic within a republic. It has all the trappings of state failure. The government must rise quickly and diminish the authority and seeming invincibility of these non-state actors taking refuge in our forests. 

Those hiding in the forests under the guise of whatever business are the biggest challenge to the escalating banditry and kidnapping. The inability to separate genuine herdsmen occupying the forests from their criminal counterparts provides the cannon fodder for the continued reign of the bandits and kidnappers.  What to do?

This article was first published The Nation Newspapers.

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-January 22, 2023 @ 14:16 GMT|

Tags: Emeka Omeihe Nyesom Wike