JTF’s war against ransom payment - What impact on hostage-takers

A militant and one of the victims once kidnapped
for ransom

Bolaji Ogundele, in this piece, examines the new effort of the JTF to cripple the economic power of the militants.

Professor (Mrs. ) Dora Akunyili and Alhaji Nuhu Ribadu are both chiefs of federal agencies noted for their zeal to achieve excellence. They have at different times taken radical steps that were not known with ways of doing government things in the history of Nigeria. They have both raised the alarm at different times over the obstacles that influential Nigerians had placed on their ways to achieving their set goals, they are both constantly under threats of physical attacks on their lives but yet resolved to carry on in what they believe is the way to fight crime in a place like Nigeria. One instructive thing about these people and the fight they are engaged in is that, fighting crime in a place like Nigeria might be one of the most unenviable things to do, especially when powerful people are involved.

In the same boat with dealing in fake drugs and financial crimes are dealing in hard drugs, arms running, bunkering and now, kidnapping for ransom. They are all criminal activities that revolve around multi-million naira empires while the people that run them are usually highly connected. It is the connection of the people running these criminal outfits that have kept them going. Just like the spokesman of the Economic and Financial Commission (EFCC), Mr. Osita Nwajah, once said of the people the agency has to prosecute, they are very wealthy individuals, who have managed to translate the wealth of an entire state or corporations into their personal purse and are ever ready to use any amount to frustrate their efforts at bringing sanity into the society.

In like manner, the fight against the new criminal trend- abduction for ransom -may soon come under attack from the section of society that has been making unimaginable gains from it. This might not be far fetched, considering the amount of money involved in the illegal business and the calibre of people involved in it. From it, young jobless people, unscrupulous security officials and politicians have made so much fortune that has afforded them the sort of luxury that hardly any straightforward venture could have made available for them. It is currently turning youths away from pursuing legitimate and traditionally acceptable means of livelihood as many have realized that it had turned the fortunes of many unlearned crooks around, giving them the kind of comfort that most graduates may never dream of all their lives even as bankers. So just like bunkering, many more people are turning to the new way of crime in the Niger Delta and are ever ready to defend this 'business' with just anything.

Although in recent times, Rivers State has been characterized with myriad of criminal activities, many of which mutated from genuine agitation into some sort of big time savagery, the most nagging of which is the problem of kidnapping. Government has not lost hope in evolving a sane society, where security of life and property is prime. In this effort, the last few months have witnessed the redeployment of security chiefs to handle the worsening security situation in the state. Along the line, this development has thrown up new challenges and fresh approaches to handling the issue and one of this is the resolve to put an end to ransom payment to kidnappers. Talking to a group of journalists recently in Port Harcourt, the Commander of the Joint Task Force (JTF) Operation Flush-Out 3, the formation tasked with the responsibility of restoring normalcy to Rivers State, Brigadier General Sarkin-Yaki Bello, said the new resolve of the task force is to ensure that the enticing element in the crime, which is ransom, is discouraged.

To achieve this goal, all the units of the JTF, especially the SSS, have redefined their mode of operations and have since then gone on to secure the release of hostages with emphasis on non-payment of ransom by either the families of the victims, in cases involving persons not connected to any multinational company and by the companies in the cases where they are involved. Another introduction to the fight against kidnapping is the arrest of suspected kidnappers and their arraignment in court. Hostages had always got released in times past, but the 'hows', 'whos' and the 'wheres' were never revealed, thereby stalling prosecution.

The new 'no ransom payment' resolve, has been considered genuine because there were cases, where the people negotiating for ransom had been arrested, paraded to the world and arraigned in court to face the law. This, however, must have been getting in the way of some peoples’ business because much money go into some of these deals, especially from some oil companies that often get so desperate as to be ready to pay anything, the 'big men' that get cuts from the business will soon think of ways to take care of security officials that will not be ready to bend their resolve and be settled from the proceeds from the dirty business.

Recent observation and analysis of the operations of the security units in the state show that they have taken real and proactive steps to reverse the trend. For instance, the last few hostages were released, more like abandoned victims in lonely places after the hoodlums behind the crime must have realized that the game was already going out of their hands. More than ever before, with the collaboration of other elements of the Joint Task Force (JTF), the service has arrested more kidnappers and had charged them to court. Besides this, it is making sure that it discourages families and companies of victims from yielding to pressures for ransom payment. The hoodlums in the business have never failed to establish links of communication with those they intend to milk. SSS has continued to use same avenues the hoodlums created to demand ransom, to pressure them into abandoning their chases. Often, it had used same links to nab suspects.

"They know the people they go for, it is an earlier experience that pave way for the new ventures. If they kidnap from a particular region and they succeed with ransom, expect them not to quit. For example, you will discover that they keep going back to Agip, it is because, that company pays good ransom to them. According to some of their victims that have been released, whenever these criminals attack any Agip outlet, they look out first of all for Italians because they know that the company will pay heavily for them.

There was a particular occasion when the company spent N400 million as ransom. This last one, I learnt that when they asked the two hostages where they are from and then discovered they were not Italians, they were demoralized and that was why freeing them was easy. They first asked for N150 million but when they realized we were not kidding, they went to abandon them on that bridge", the security source said.

If they are making so much in some cases and some people are working to frustrate this in the name of security, it is most sure that beneficiaries of the system will not just fold their arms, they will launch back.

ADAC have gone all out to run them down, sometimes using apparatus of the same state that these law officers are trying to protect against them.

The concern of many observers on this development in the state however, is that, if the system continues to be without the moral will to sanitize and be sanitized, Nigeria might indeed be far from operating the rule of law in a bid to create a society where criminality will find it hard to register its presence. If the legal system and the state's framework will be so ineffective that the will of the individual and of some cartels would always find their place first before the interest of the fatherland, then achieving development in any sector of the nation may become difficult.