The Kidnap of 344 (?) boys from their school in Kankara, Katsina State highlights the criminal activities of bandits through armed robbery, kidnapping, mass slaughter, rape and cattle rustling. Basically, bandits have colonised Danmusa, Dandume, Kankara, Batsari, Sabuwa, and Jibia local governments of the State. Few, if any, federal officer, political office holder or academic from these places can claim to have visited his or her local government in the last one year. Life in these local governments reflects Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature, which is “solitary, nasty, brutish and short.” That Katsina is a haven of, and for bandits, is an embarrassment, being President Buhari’s home state. Mounting insecurity in Katsina and Nigeria, as a whole, signposts the loss of a social contract; that is, the obligation of the state to secure lives and the exercise of citizens’ constitutional duties and obligations to the state.
To be a Nigerian on Nigerian soil is to be gripped by the existential fear of insecurity – crises situations, rising conflicts, social menace and rancour. Across the country, kidnapping for ransom has become the most lucrative business ever. Human life means nothing to government and the governed, as the country slides into anarchy. Gradually, a once peaceful country in which you could travel all day and all night through its nooks and crannies, is becoming Nigeristan – where sovereignty is defined by a few intermittent miles, with areas carved and governed by outlaws. From the Chibok girls to the Kankara boys and everything in between, kidnapping has become a pervasive, intractable and predictable violent crime in Nigeria. Why the government is not seeing this as a major threat to Nigeria’s national security is confounding. Moreso when Nigeria keeps the company of failed states like Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela, Syria and Afghanistan, as countries with the highest rates of kidnap-for-ransom cases in the world.
There are denials that ransom was paid by the government for the release of the Kankara boys, but we know that is bunkum. Pure baloney! Nigeria will be peaceful and conducive for business when the government is sincere and ready. We are not ready yet. Nigeria is a lie, slowly unraveling. The abduction and release of the Kankara boys does not pass the smell test. It looks and smells staged. Staged as a way of making some saboteurs rich. It is brisk business. As a business enterprise, kidnapping is built on the logic that its victims are worth ransoms, which they or their proxies can afford to pay. In the case of the abducted Kankara boys, the whole idea is to make the government pay a hefty sum to mitigate the expected outrage. The staging itself was a bad weave reeking with impunity. Anyone with half a decent brain could see through the contradictions and sloppiness of it all.
Before these widespread orgies of violent crimes gripped the nation, kidnapping was the preserve of pockets of criminal gangs and violent groups for personal enrichment, environmental activism and political agenda. It has since metastasised into something more sinister because of where it sprang from. How? The near total insecurity in the North-West has roots in the example set by Niger Delta militants who resorted to blowing up pipelines and the abduction of expatriate workers as a way of drawing attention to the degradation of their environment by transnational oil companies. Boko Haram terrorists grabbed the playbook, tapped into the kidnapping spree to keep their operations afloat. Along with a prostrate economy, criminal syndicates are wiping out personal capital by extorting families and undermining food security by preventing farming across the country. These large scale abductions in broad daylight can only signal one thing – some people seem bent on having their share of government money, after all Niger Delta militants got rewarded for kidnapping oil workers and the destruction of pipelines. Collectively, we are reaping the fruits of the incentivisation of crime.
In these uncertain times, my spot of bother is: Why would a sovereign state appear so helpless against garden variety criminals? The answer lies in Nigeria’s internal contradictions built on the foundations of mediocrity and impunity. Kidnappers are in business because the benefits of their crimes outweigh the consequences. Efforts to curb violent crimes have failed because of weak consequence and deterrence mechanisms. For every crime committed, there is an Ọba, emir, senator, minister or governor who will call law enforcement that they should be left alone. If that fails, justice will be subverted for filial, ethnic or religious reasons. The police have been known to encourage people to pay ransom. Unless it is a high profile kidnap, no one cares. Even those we rely upon to safeguard us are corrupt to the marrow, are often complicit in crimes, and are sometimes beneficiaries of the proceeds of crimes. Some of them are getting kidnap to expose their impotence. Kidnapping is opportunistic like most crimes. When a people tolerate crime, create scared cows and impunity thrives, all sorts of crimes will rule.
It is not too late to find a solution. A serious government must never give in to violence, and criminals must never be rewarded for their crimes. Negotiation with kidnappers and terrorists legitimises their actions and methods. The only thing criminals fear is prosecution and retribution. Nigeria’s policy should focus less on negotiating with terrorists and kidnappers and more on bringing them to justice. The country will continue to be a petri dish of violent crimes when terrorists are feted, accommodated, absorbed into the society, and even admitted into our security apparatuses because they are from the “North”. We can’t redeem blood thirsty psychopaths, neither can we de-radicalise a man sworn to crime. The best deterrent is demonstrable political will to pursue, capture, jail or kill terrorists/kidnappers/criminals and destroy their organisations.
If these kidnappings are not state sponsored or business for some powerful interests, the government must be serious in raising the costs to make the benefits meaningless by imposing harsher penalties. The current penalty of 1-20 years in prison is not enough. Harsher penalties like life imprisonment without parole or the death sentence is better. A violent crime must be met with harsh punishment.
Credit: Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, PT