The booming kidnapping business

WITHOUT doubt, the militants of the Niger Delta have transformed, before our very eyes, from armed agitators for liberty and resource control into deadly criminals deploying their wits and arms in the direction of kidnapping for ransom. When it appeared that tension in the region had been doused — with the release of Mujaheed Dokubo-Asari and the appropriation of N444.60 billion naira for security in the Niger Delta in the 2008 Budget— and agitation would no longer be formally appropriate, the militants had transformed into kidnappers and hostage-takers for want of a better form of engagement.

THERE is, in fact, a little difference between kidnapping and hostage-taking, with the latter drawing some questionable garb of political dignity. In spite of the little difference both are reprehensible crimes in any civilised clime.

THE abduction of foreigners, who engage in the very lucrative business of oil in the Niger Delta region, to settle political scores about resource control and the derivation formula— issues which agitated the minds of the militants— could rightly be described as hostage-taking. But kidnapping for ransom grew out of this act, when the militants, for want of better, gainful occupations, decided to turn the heat on their own kind. Today, no rich influential citizen is free in the region. The only way to be safe from being kidnapped is to be absolutely poor, not to have any ransom value.

A rich businessman who deals in spare parts was once abducted during a church service! When reporters asked him how much he paid for his ransom, after he was eventually released, he— the man— could not hide his indignation. The rich businessman was not angry with his captors; he was enraged that the reporters had the temerity to ask such a silly question. Even the hallowed precincts of the house of God do not deter these kidnappers. Only recently, a man was paraded by the police in Port Harcourt for kidnapping a six-year-old boy from the church! He lured the young sod by promising to buy him biscuit from the children section of the church and kept him for days, asking the boy’s dad to come up with a ransom of N10 million.

ALSO recently, the wife of an oil magnate was abducted from her living room by gunmen. Her abductors initially demanded for a ransom of N1 billion! This amount was then negotiated and reduced to 500 million naira. By the time she was released after two weeks, it was not revealed how much the husband paid for her release.

KIDNAPPING has, suddenly, become a booming business in the Niger Delta and the South East of the country with the authorities appearing helpless and nonplussed by the worrying situation. But we predicted this stage in an earlier editorial written when the businessman was abducted from the church. Knowing full well that the police are not well-equipped to match the Niger Delta gunmen weapon for weapon, it was pretty easy to predict the crime would grow into a booming business.

IN the days when foreign oil experts were taken as hostages, governments sat and negotiated with these abductors rather than apprehend them. These criminals have shown why it is not safe to negotiate with any criminal. When a government makes it a habit of negotiating with criminals instead of docking them, the message it is passing across is that it can no longer guarantee the protection of life and property, its bounden statutory duty and its raison detre.

WE think that the state governments and the police in the Niger Delta— and some parts of South East— owe the country the duty of smashing the thriving kidnapping business in that area before it spreads to other parts of the country, regardless of what it is going to take to do so.

ONE reason kidnapping has become a thriving and lucrative business is because nobody has really been punished for it. The disconcerting reality, that kidnapping thrives, in this area is one proof that the state has regressed into a veritable jungle, where might is right and where anybody with a weapon can just do as he pleases to make money. The fact that the victims are paying also shows a loss of confidence in the state and this is quite unnerving.

KIDNAPPING as a business is a threat to the state and the operators of the state ought to appreciate this fact. The fact that it is lucrative and thriving reduces the state to a worthless apparatus which is being replaced with anarchy and terror. This, to put it mildly, is a shame.

whining ali and irony of power

DR. Ahmadu Ali, immediate past chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued to make newspaper headlines. He has been involved in a battle of words over his demolished building in Abuja, claiming he was a victim of high wire politics.

THE other day, the former PDP power broker, who was nominated as an ambassador and cleared by the National Assembly, was reported to be begging President Umaru Yar’Adua for a ministerial position in his cabinet. Some countries like the United States and South Africa, it was reported, had rejected the idea of playing the hosts to the PDP chieftain as ambassador for reasons best known to them. But Dr. Ali, it is said, did not want to lose out in the power game. He wants to be actively involved in the political activities of his country.

THOUGH he has not denied the newspaper reports that he was in Aso Rock to seek the assistance of President Yar’Adua for a chunky slice of the national cake, it can be understood, if the man who became famous(?) for his role in the “Ali must go” incident, is, indeed, looking for “something” to do in the Yar’Adua cabinet. His reason for seeking an active role is definitely not pecuniary. Dr. Ali has never hidden the fact that he is wealthy. But he needs the lever of power to hold his balance, considering the high number of big toes he marched on when he was riding the monstrous PDP horse as chairman. And it is not unlikely that these big toes may decide it is now time to kick at him and knock him down.

DR. Ali must have imagined what would happen to him without power, if, as the most powerful member of the ruling party, his house could be demolished. But then, it is all about transience or the ephemerality of power and, importantly, of life. Whoever thought the day would come that the Ali— who was knocking political opponents down and out, flaunting his party’s and his own invincibility— would, one day, whine publicly that he was being victimised? Life is an irony.