In recent time, apart from Boko Haram and Fulani Herdsmen terrorism, attention has been turned to the issues of kidnapping and stringent measures have been taken to tackle the menace.
Kidnapping is an act of instance or the crime of seizing, confining, involving, abducting or carrying away a person by force or fraud often with a ransom demand or in furtherance of another crime. The use of kidnapping and hostage-taking became prevalent in Nigeria starting in 1999 when the military handed power over to the civilian. The Nuger Delta militants saw the political transition as an opportunity for them to renew their pressure of getting the Nigerian’s state to themselves.
Kidnapping is usually accompanied with a ransom for money or gains. However, the crime of abducting is considered to be when a person has been taken away from his or her original location by persuading him or her with some act of fraud or with a forceful away that may include violence. Nigeria today ranks among the kidnapping hot stops of the world. Over 3,000 people were kidnapped in Nigeria in the first half of 2021 alone.
Four years after Chibok schoolgirls were kidnap, a similar incident occurred when, on February 19 2018 Boko Haram kidnapped 110 schoolgirls from the government girls science and technical college at Dapchi, Yunusar local government area of Yobe state. Five schoolgirls were said to have died on the same day of their abduction.
A month after, the girls were freed except one, a Christian girl named Leah Sharibu, believed to have not been released by the terrorist because she refused to abandon her faith and convert to Islam. In August 2018, an audio message was released by Leah Sharibu pleading for her freedom, later parents disclosed that Boko Haram threatened to kill their daughter. In February 2019, social media reported her death but on May 14 2019, Leah celebrated her 14 birthday in Boko Haram custody, after she had spent over 400 days in captivity. In January 2020, Leah was reported to have given birth to a baby boy after being forcefully converted to Islam and married off to a Boko Haram commander.
One of the kidnap cases that also shock the country was the lecturers of the University of Maiduguri, Borno State in July 2017. Boko Haram terrorists had ambushed the lecturers, who were part of an oil exploration team of the Nigerian National petroleum Corporation, was on an oil prospecting mission to the Lake Chad basin. The terrorist killed five staff members during the ambush and abducted four others.
The university said the deceased comprised two geologists, two technologists and a driver.
The higher rate of unemployment among the youths, especially in areas like the Nigeria Delta and south-east has also been exploited by politicians and then so-called big men in our society who employ these people as thugs and musclemen during elections, so after the election, the youth use the weapon to kidnap as a means of earning a living.
A wise man once said that the love of money is the root of all evil. In Nigeria today the mentality to get rich quickly or die trying to prevail, especially among the youth. These kinds of individuals prefer to make money today by any means possible and don’t care about the outcome or consequences that may arise tomorrow as a result of their activities.
Nigerian youths are impatient for quick bucks to take kidnapping as a form of business. This is usually accompanied by other criminal activities such as armed robbers and electoral violence etc.
Poverty is one of the major driving forces that usually pushes people to go into kidnapping. The effect of poverty in a particular population cannot be overemphasized. Poverty and lack over a long period usually lead to frustration, depression and a feeling of helplessness. This is enough to push the youth to enter kidnapping.
Corruption is one the major things that pushes people into kidnapping, according to transparency international in the year 2014, Nigeria was ranked 136 out of 174 on the list of corrupt nations in the world.
Unemployment, leads one to see kidnapping as a more profitable way of making income. Some graduate are in the city without securing a job to feed themselves talkless of taking care of their young ones. Kidnapping has been the easiest way to get money and with the demands of huge amount of money.
Terrorism, some jobless and hungry youths in Nigeria have taken it upon themselves that terrorism is the only solution to the numerous problems.
Quick money is one of the cause of kidnapping in Nigeria to make quick money and become rich quick.
In Nigeria we are in survival of the fittest is the norm in contemporary in Nigeria.
Conclusively, government should provide for a reliable and unique identification number for each individual for tracking of social benefits other identification purposes, establishing effective borders control for all of Nigeria, especially the north and north central.
– Egwu Ojonugwa Ajeletu
300Level Student, Mass Communication Department,
Prince Abubakar Audu University Anyigba, Kogi State.
