By Osayimwen Osahon George
There is a popular notion that Nigerian leaders are not proactive enough in attending to sensitive issues threatening national security. A recent example is the onslaught on the Agatu people of Benue by rampaging Fulani herdsmen which reportedly claimed over 300 lives. It took the Federal Government over a week to issue a ‘noncommittal’ press statement that condemned the undenied reprisal attack and a ‘political promise’ of fishing out the culprits involved in the blood-bath.
There was even silence from the Benue State government. It took the Governor of the state, Samuel Ortom over a week to make out time to visit the devastated Agatu land which is an agrarian community.
The responsible security agencies in Nigeria consisting of the Nigerian army, police, Directorate of State Security, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps and others allegedly went on recess giving us the impression that a covert investigative operation was in place until DSS shifted our attention to five Fulani men buried in shallow graves in Enugu, Southeastern part of Nigeria with the Biafra agitators strongly fingered in the criminal act. What about the perpetrators of the Agatu mayhem?
The snail-speed approach of the arms of government may not also be far from the factors that aided the successful abduction of over 270 school girls from Chibok in Borno State by Boko Haram insurgents in April, 2014.
The bitter truth is that the lives of the common people don’t count in Nigeria after all we have a population of over 170 million people which the government is already having issues in managing; so the smaller the better.
The crowd are only needed during elections. In fact, their voter’s cards are more important than them as it’s the only tool needed to legitimize a politician’s inordinate quest for power.
The issue of death penalty approved by the senate for kidnappers is quite laudable and also very much laughable. It buttresses my point on how much the ruling elites want to stay alive as long as possible enjoying their loot at the expense of the common people. Senator Iyabo Anisulowo’s kidnap was an audacious statement of abduction in Nigeria.
The effrontery at which the former Ogun West lawmaker was successfully kidnapped by yet to be identified assailants was a bold statement for both the affluent, average citizens and the poor. The average citizens like business owners and other established technocrats who have some coins to part with and can’t afford massive security around them have made God their ‘Chief Security Officer’.
As for the rich, who are the main targets especially our public office holders, there is an urgent need to approach the issue headon with the machinery of government before their homes become flooded with sycophantic sympathizers on their return from the abductors’ camp; hence, the urgency in the approval for a death penalty for kidnappers in the country by the Senate of the 8th assembly. Kidnapping in Nigeria has been rampant for quite time despite the efforts of the Nigerian police to clampdown on them.
An early notable achievement of the ‘Kidnappers Association of Nigeria’ (KAN) was the successful abduction of the current honourable Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige in 2002 which was heavily publicized due to his position as a governor then.
Some prominent individuals, celebrities in the Nigerian society have been monitored and targeted by abductors while others perceived to be comfortable by physical appearance on the highways have been randomly with huge ransoms paid.
A few cases that went viral are that of Nollywood icon, Pete Edochie in August, 2009, Managing Director of God is Good Motors, Mr. GodGood Nlakosin, who was killed by his abductors for unknown reasons, Nollywood actor, Prince Eke, Actress Nkiru Sylvanus in Imo State and Samuel Oki a cousin of former President Goodluck Jonathan was kidnapped and later found dead.
Since then, the few successful rescues and the huge ransoms paid by the families of the victims have given the needed boost to the ‘kidnapping industry’. Several unemployed Nigerian youths with limited skills and below par ideas but massive ambitions have ventured into this part of the labour market that was almost competing with the oil sector for quick cash. It is risky but they have found it endurable after all, all jobs have their own unique kind of risks.
The Nigerian society is a very vulnerable one with incessant cases of blind followership. The society is suffering from a disease I refer to as ‘AFFS’, in simple terms: ‘Acute Follow-Follow Syndrome’ which means any successful antic whether reasonable or unreasonable could be replicated by another person without considering the motivations and circumstances surrounding the decisions of the first person. I will give an examples to back up my view.
In 2015, one Suleiman Hashimu, a 34-year-old man probably unemployed decided to embark on a solidarity trek from Lagos to Abuja for President Muhammadu Buhari on his success at the presidential election which he successfully did. He received a royal welcome in Abuja and consequently, about 17 political lobbyists trekked in honour of several other politicians. What madness!
The police and other security operatives have blamed the general public for encouraging kidnapping by attending to the financial demands of the kidnappers. This advice is deemed comfortable to give when you are not in the shoes of the victim’s family.
It is he that wears the shoe that knows where it is pinching him. Onlookers can only admire while the wearer pretends all is perfect. Only a bastard exercises patience and goes to bed peaceful at night when his loved one is in the hands of demons that have no conscience or value for human life. Our Senators need to draw a cue from medicine in dealing with the issue of kidnapping.
A doctor treating a cancer patient cuts off the affected part to prevent a future spread or contamination of other healthy areas. Without this, ordinary treatments will be ineffective.
Kidnapping, armed robbery, drug trafficking, human trafficking, internet scam and the likes are concomitant effects of the magnitude of criminal acts perpetrated with the power of the pen behind the closed doors of government offices. Apart from its by-product which is the murder of the naira, we don’t have a viable economy that could give jobs to the two million Nigerians that join the labour force each year. Higher institution graduates are being churned out in thousands every year with very few decent jobs that could compensate for their sacrifices back in school, simply put underemployment.
Corruption has led to a network of problems that are too intertwined for a simple solution. A death penalty should be approved for treasury looters too in order make stealing unattractive and change the mentality of generations to come as the act of looting now takes the front-seat in our perceptions of leadership even though we mostly fail to admit. Cutting the branches of the fig tree is not the solution as it will sprout again with time.
There is a need to uproot it, so that its final death can be assured. As long as the society condones corruption due to the belief that one day tables will turn and it will be your turn to steal, the less-privileged youths will keep devising means to ‘tax’ the loot of public office holders by their own indiscriminate terms.
If our leaders at this rate continue as ‘enemies of the society’, this might degenerate to the heads of prominent politicians being sold at open markets with interested buyers.
Osayimwen Osahon George is a Content Writer and Political Scientist
