NEWS ANALYSIS

By ANUOLUWAPO BABALOLA

With so much to be careful of in Nigeria when it comes to security of life and property, kidnapping has become a worrisome issue.             Will it go soonest or stay? A look at the number of kidnap cases in the country, in spite of the efforts of the police and other security agencies, paints a disturbing picture. This crime poses a great challenge to the security of the country to the extent that Nigerians feel unsecure outside the confines of their homes. Sleeping with one eye closed has become the order of the day and this, perhaps, is not just instilling fear in the minds of the people, but also stalling business activities in some areas.

Kidnapping has gained prominence lately in the country and there seems to be no end in sight; no thanks to the militants of the Niger-Delta region.  It started there mainly; it cannot end there. It continues to spread over to other regions of the country with its implications.

Lately, the South West is in the iron grip of this vice and has seemingly recorded more cases than in any other part of the country. It is either that the perpetrators use their victims as rituals or demand ransoms. Recently, Ekiti State recorded kidnap cases of medical personnel, which led to industrial actions by medical practitioners. Apparently, patients are going to be the victims of this as experienced in time past.

Also, in Ado-Odo Ota, Ogun State, kidnappers’ hideout was unravelled, sometime last year, and some culprits were apprehended. A look into their activities in Oyo State, Ibadan precisely, revealed that within the period of one year and two months, three cases were discovered. In March 2014, a den was discovered at Soka in Ibadan, where dying men, women, human skulls and decomposing bodies were found. In Olorunsogo area of the state capital, a divisional police officer (DPO) was killed in another allegedly discovered den.

One would have naturally thought that the bad publicity and controversies the Soka incident generated would have scared the dare-devils away, but no. There seems to be another case waiting to be discovered. Many people and security experts have blamed the continual occurrence of kidnap cases in the country on the porosity in the system.

Meanwhile, while reacting to one of the many kidnap cases in the state and ways of averting the crime, the state governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, said that security agents would comb the entire Soka area to fish out the perpetrators and bring them to book. But, unfortunately, another den was discovered by the Anti-Kidnapping Squad of the Oyo State Police Command at Isase village of Badeku community in Ona Ara Local Government Area of Oyo State on 31 May 2015 and a 43-year-old suspect, Ismail Adesina, was arrested.

CEOAfrica gathered that a Toyota Camry (Muscle) with registration number, Lagos AAA 125 DK; a Nissan Almera car with registration number, Lagos AGL 882 DF, and a Toyota Camry (Big Daddy) with registration number, Lagos AAA 207 DH, fetish objects, fake currencies and antiquities were recovered from the den.

The question then is: if truly the perpetrators were fished out after previous discoveries and in cognisance with the governor’s pledge, then what could be responsible for the recurrence of the criminal act?

CEOAfrica, at the scene, discovered that the den had carved images similar to those that had been discovered in different kidnappers’ or ritualists’ dens in the south-western part of the country. They were reportedly being used to deceive victims into believing that they were dealing with genuine native doctors.

While speaking with Oyo State Commissioner of Police Muhammad Musa Katsina, on the discovery, Katsina described it as another “basket of illegality and a multi-purpose den that accommodates all manners of crime, from kidnapping to armed robbery and money-doubling,” adding that the arrest was as a result of weeks of painstaking intelligence gathering.

The arrested suspect, who said he had been a fraudster for about five years, disclosed that he was working with one Oji, while other syndicate members who owned the vehicles found at the scene used to take “customers” to them. He revealed that five people had fallen victims to them.

Olukemi Ademola, a resident of the community, explained that “the majority of the criminals resorted to rituals in order to become rich, without knowing that they had dug their own pit.” Olukemi advised Nigerians to be wary of seeking powers outside God’s.

In an attempt to find out the causes of these criminal acts in the country, a human rights activist, Dr Paul Ezenwaka, stressed that the government needed to implement stricter measures to securing lives and property in order to have a peaceful environment. “I hope the Buhari-led administration will tackle this issue of security in every state because it is not just affecting South-West, but the country as a whole. Look at the Chibok girls …  we need to get it right this time that security is a cogent issue every government must tackle with utmost concern,” he said.

“Moreover, unemployment should be addressed. President Buhari has said a lot concerning this and you know the perpetrators are mostly youths complaining of unemployment as a force driving them towards criminal acts. They are lost to criminal activities instead of being gainfully employed for Nigeria’s development. So, the government should endeavour to provide jobs for the youths as it has promised.”