It is no longer news that escalating incidents of kidnapping and assassination are eroding public confidence in the government’s ability to protect lives and property. However, the sad news is that while rightly believing that it is the government’s duty to secure lives and property, members of the public appear to be unwittingly surrendering their moral right of self-defence on a platter of gold to merciless criminals. While the government must take responsibility for the present general state of insecurity, some violent crimes can be forestalled if only individuals would be more security conscious. Even in an ideal security setting, everyone still has a duty to observe some security rules to remain safe. Therefore, this write-up is an attempt at how to remain safe, even in perilous times.
The origin of the word ‘kidnap’ is instructive. It means ‘to seize (nap) a child (kid)’. Assassination, on the other hand, is the threat or fear embedded in kidnapping. Without the fear or threat of assassination, kidnapping would lose its dread. But sometimes, kidnapping and assassination are two distant cousins where targets are outrightly assassinated without any demand or option of ransom. Both kidnapping and assassination are as ancient as when human beings first started to hunt as tribes or groups. The chief of such a group was a hard man that yielded no inch of land but could be forced to give way when his son or heir was seized. This is how kidnapping for ransom started in the middle ages.
Today, kidnappings and assassinations are carried out for similar reasons or to achieve similar goals. Kidnappers seize public figures or expatriates as leverage to bargain for either economic or political benefits. Here in Nigeria, kidnapping is apparently for the former. On the other hand, assassinations are carried out to create uneven playing field in politics, industry or commerce. In the calculations of perpetrators, assassination of opponents gives them upper hand or easy sail in their contest or aspiration for public office. This immoral way of rising to positions of relevance not only rubs this country of a crop of visionary leaders but bequeaths retarded socio-economic growth or development in its wake. Also, the unhindered reign of assassination is dealing a mortal blow to the legitimate aspirations of families and dependants. These and many other reasons demand concerted efforts at stemming the tide of kidnappings and assassinations.
Any attempt at stemming the tide of assassinations and kidnappings must consider the places and times where and when targets are most vulnerable. The home, road and places of social interaction form every one’s security triangle. While one could exercise control over security at home and road, security at public places is beyond anyone’s control. In effect, one must not frequent a public place where his or her security is endangered. Also, one must keep his or her itinerary close to the chest. Having hinted on how to be secure in the public, let us concentrate on the two major places - road and home where security is of paramount importance.
The road is relatively the weak link in everyone’s security chain. In fact 80% - 90% of all violent attacks occur on the road – a terrain where victims are virtually defenseless. The home accounts for the remaining 10% - 20% of all security threats. Whatever the percentage, every level of security threat is important because that can make the difference between survival or assassination, escape or kidnap. Therefore, something must be done about the two frontiers – road and home for an impregnable security shield.
Meanwhile, it is important to distinguish between two categories of criminal acts with a view to proffering appropriate security measures. These are opportunistic criminal acts and sophisticated or planned criminal acts respectively. The former range from pilfering, burglary to armed robberies, while the later comprise mainly kidnappings and assassinations. While opportunistic crimes are impulse based or unplanned, kidnappings and assassinations are always well planned and targeted at select groups. Therefore, the precautions to take for opportunistic and planned attacks differ.
OPPORTUNISTIC CRIMINAL ACTS
Opportunistic criminal acts are sometimes victim induced. So, with common sense, many such criminal acts can be prevented. A low profile image, though basic, is most effective in warding off opportunistic attacks, especially in unfamiliar environments. Low profile simply means not flaunting your socio-economic status. A person’s status is manifest in the type of vehicle driven, clothing worn, possessions, lifestyle (entertainment activities, social circles, amount of publicity, etc). Also, reserved parking spaces at public parks, class of hotels/restaurants frequented, membership in exclusive clubs and personalized licence plates heighten one’s vulnerability. Therefore, those who must flaunt their status must invest more on security at home and on the road. But, as a reminder, keeping a low profile can avert most opportunistic security risks.
PLANNED OR SOPHISTICATED CRIMINAL ACTS
As earlier noted, kidnapping and assassination make up this category. It takes intelligence gathering or surveillance for either to succeed. By the same token, counter-surveillance is the first step to surviving or escaping such attacks. If intelligence reports indicate that a person is a particular target of a determined group like assassins, a drastic and expensive change in lifestyle would be imperative. On the other hand, if he or she is just one of a number of targets like in kidnappings, the security measures would focus on diverting the criminals’ attention to softer targets. This is particularly true for kidnap threats where assailants are fascinated only by what their target represents.
That is why public figures like politicians, captains of industries and commerce, performing artists, topflight civil servants, expatriates and even clergymen are becoming targets for kidnapping. They are believed to be wealthy, powerful and influential, representative of something important or particularly valuable to someone. They do not necessarily have to flaunt status; all that counts is the kidnappers’ perception.
So, in kidnapping, kidnappers would initially mount surveillance on more than one person. Along the line, they would zero in on one target that appears most vulnerable. This is one of the ways kidnapping is different from assassination which targets or zeroes in on only one target right from the onset. Once assassins identify a target, they stop at nothing until they succeed. However, for either kidnapping or assassination to succeed, a target’s movements would be analyzed and patterns of habit established. Assailants would continue surveillance on a target until they can accurately predict where he or she is and when he is going to be there. Once they are able to fix place and time in this manner, kidnapping or assassination is imminent. Therefore, it is at the surveillance stage of kidnapping or assassination attempt that an early warning system or awareness must be developed to foil an attack.
SURVEILLANCE AWARENESS AND COUNTER-SURVEILLANCE
Generally, the basis for any deliberate act of violence directed against a specific individual is intelligence. Intelligence, on the other hand, is simply information about a target’s movements and patterns of habit. Surveillance is needed to acquire the necessary intelligence or information for a successful attack. Therefore, developing an awareness of assailants’ surveillance is decisive to escaping or surviving an attack.
In other words, the key to pre-empting kidnapping or assassination is to be proactive. There should be a close watch for abnormal or criminal surveillance activities near the home or office. During surveillance, criminals take positions that enable them observe a residence or office closely without being suspected. Sometimes, they could strategically park a vehicle with abnormally large side or extra mirrors for surveillance. Such vehicles could bear fictitious corporate names and other particulars; their authenticity should be established. As plausible reasons for being in an area, criminals put up some ruses such as vehicle repairs, replacing flat tyre, door-to-door sales, utility repairs, construction work, etc. Therefore, being conversant with the kinds of objects and people who should be found in your environment at any given time, is key to detecting and defeating a criminal surveillance.
Also, people loitering or sitting in cars near the residence or office should be noticed. If you perceive your vehicle is being trailed, you can drive around your environment to confirm your suspicion. A constant state of alertness is important for countering criminal surveillance. Generally, the philosophy that once is happen chance, twice is coincidence and thrice is enemy action should be adopted. And there should be no hesitation to report any unusual activity to law enforcement agents. Or else, one could realize too late that his or her suspicions were true.
The driving period is another area over which surveillance awareness should be developed. Changing the time of departure is necessary though in the morning, it is difficult to vary time schedules significantly. Again, changing routes is important but many times, due to the location of a home or office, it is difficult. So, at both places (home and office), a target is left with only a 50-50 option to go right or left. This is why the pattern of kidnapping or assassination near the home or office is not a twist of fate. The difficulty in changing routes near the home or office makes it easy for assailants to fix a time and location thus heightening the chances of an attack succeeding.
Yet, unpredictability remains the best line of defence. It should be made difficult for assailants to decipher the where-about of a target at any given time. Therefore, time schedules and routes that cannot be altered should be made safe with counter-surveillance and appropriate follow-up actions.
Naturally, the type of threat, whether opportunistic or planned is key to the levels of home and mobile security. To determine this, individual threat profiling is imperative. Meanwhile, emphasis would now shift to how to attain security at home and on the road.
SECURITY AT HOME
For security at home, the place where one’s house is built or located is important. Ideally, this should be determined jointly by a person’s threat profile and economic power. And people of the same socio-economic status should live in the same environment. In that way, they are better able to appreciate their mutual or peculiar security challenges and cooperate to meet them. For instance, if a person who should live in a highbrow environment with the rich or public figures lives in a demeaning environment, he or she is risking violent attacks as the odd person out. Therefore, people with similar security challenges are better protected when they live together. Sadly enough, the observable trend in recent cases of kidnappings and assassinations is that the victims though public figures or relatives of pubic figures, lived in environments below their real or implied socio-economic status.
Even with an effective global security network in place, individuals must avoid being chosen as easy targets. The opening of the main door is a very vulnerable moment and anyone opening it should not be visible until a visitor has been positively identified. This presupposes there is a means of identifying visitors. Except visitors are expected, they must be identified even if they claim to be friends to members of the family. Verifications should be made on phone about law enforcement agents or utility workers visiting the home without any obvious reason(s). There should be strict attention to locking up and drawing curtains. Children and servants in the home should be adequately briefed on these security measures.
Access to the car garage should be from within the house and possibly remotely controlled. Where possible, automatic door opener and motion sensor lights should be installed. When you enter your driveway, the lights should go on and illuminate anyone lurking around. The automatic door opener could prevent an assailant from attacking if you were to get out to open the garage. Once in the garage, look around before you get out of your car, to make sure no one followed you in. If your garage is not attached to the house, take steps to routinely clear bushes or barriers, which could serve as cover for criminals.
Meanwhile, the moral character of house servants must never be in doubt because kidnappings and assassinations succeed most times with insider collaboration. Also, faithful dog(s) of a frightening breed should have a place in the security network. One dog, at least, is a good deterrent because intruders cannot argue with an animal as with a human being. Once more, every member of the household should be security conscious to foil violent crimes.
A Security Fortress
Within an effective global security network and beyond normal security measures, there might still be need for an individual fortress depending on peculiar security challenges and availability of funds to foot the bill. An individual fortress can be made very strong in concentric rings to delay and give warning of attacks. The concentric rings, which are both procedural and physical, should be woven around a stoutly built house with a ‘keep’ for protracted defence until help comes. Altogether, the concentric rings are four. The first and outer ring is a procedural one. The target must avoid predictable routines by disclosing information about his or her movements only on a need to know basis; departure and return times are the most vulnerable moments.
The second tier of security is both procedural and physical. A target should avoid personally opening a gate or garage door. Similarly, undue exposure while getting into or out of car should be avoided. The third layer of security is an effective perimeter wall. It should provide no cover to criminals to hang around unnoticed, well lit, hard to cross and with an embedded reliable alarm system. The fourth and final security ring is an open ground between the perimeter fence and the living house.
The open ground should be well lit, without shady spots for criminals to hide; any garden should be routinely cleared of unnecessary shrubs. Where necessary, movement detectors should be buried beneath the ground. Floodlights which can be activated by the alarm system or movement detectors are particularly important because a sudden beam of light catches intruders by surprise and frightens them either into confusion or withdrawal. This is the same justification for a loud alarm system with alternative manual or automatic modes of activation.
The doors of the house should be strong, always locked, equipped with means of identifying visitors (CCTV, wide-angled peepholes or mirrors) and capable of remotely controlled opening and closing. This should also apply to the outer gate of the perimeter wall, which if not manned, should be controlled from the house. Entry points into both the house and premises should be few but alternative exits must be available in case of fire or to enable occupants escape if assailants are certain to win control of the main entrance in a violent contest.
Windows should be shuttered or curtained and if there is a risk of bombing, laminated glass or adhesive polyester film will reduce the risk of flying glass, and wire netting can deflect grenades. Inside the house there should be an intercom system and the telephone numbers of relevant security agencies to contact in emergencies should be handy.
Once again, actions of a corrupt or treacherous member of the household could negate security measures. Assailants on the trail of a target could infiltrate his household or personal staff either by bribing or coercion. Therefore, great care should be taken to vet prospective servants to ensure that they are not vulnerable to blackmail, intimidation or corrupt inducements. The history of kidnapping and assassination is replete with examples of household staff who were expected to be loyal but succumbed to negative pressures.
SECURITY ON THE ROAD
There is a considerable array of technology that offers impregnable security at home and at the workplace but the security is breached twice a day when driving to and from the home. And when one considers that more than 90 percent of our journeys are by car, the reason is clear why experts regard the road as the weak link in the security chain. Over 85 percent of all kidnappings and assassinations occur while targets are on the road. Traveling in the morning by car near the home is the most dangerous time and area for a target because one of the necessary ingredients for a successful ambush is fixing a time and a location, which heightens assailants’ chances of a successful attack.
The reasons are: public figures believe in punctuality, especially in the morning; within the area of the home or office, it is near impossible to change routes and lastly; about 90% of morning travel is by car. Therefore, it is not surprising that about 85% of all kidnappings and assassinations occur near the home or office. However, a number of steps can be taken to minimize the security risks on the road. They include: counter-surveillance; using an armoured or bulletproof car and; employing defensive and where necessary, offensive driving tactics.
As most attacks occur near the home or office, there is a high probability that one would happen in a terrain well known to both assailants and their target. Therefore, there should be a careful scrutiny of the areas near the residence and the place of employment to identify some danger zones, choke points or kill zones. These are locations any of which assailants would find easy to fix the time a target would arrive and where they can apply deadly force. A danger zone could be an intersection that cannot be avoided near your home or office; it could be an exit road from an airport after a scheduled flight; or an access road to a highway. Similarly, one should have knowledge of safe havens within every danger zone. A safe haven is an area that would afford you some security and into which assailants would be reluctant to follow you. They include police stations, hospitals, fire stations, large shopping malls, military barracks, etc.
It is important to know where the safe havens are and how to get there because there would be no time to stop and ask for directions in the event of an attack. So, the shortest possible routes to safe havens should be known before hand. If the driver of the vehicle is not capable of compiling the danger zones and safe havens, a security professional should handle the task. Both records, especially the danger zones’ log should be reviewed and updated periodically.
Once an assault begins, the target’s vehicle should never stop. The first priority is fleeing the attack scene as fast as possible. Towards that end, a target must ensure that his or her vehicle is armoured or bulletproof; thus strong enough to withstand machine-gun fire and escape without any harm to its passengers. Finally, defensive driving skills firm up the mobile security shield. However, if a particular threat profile so dictates and with legal permission, a target can enhance his or her mobile security with an armed security escort.
CONCLUSION
Again, it must be conceded that it is the duty of the government to provide security but it is doubtful if any government would attach a security detail to every individual even in an ideal security situation. All over the world, the police (governments’ internal security agency) is largely a reactive force that arrives post-incident, takes a report, and then attempts to arraign the perpetrators of crime. This ex post facto response does nothing to mitigate the colossal losses, especially death suffered by victims of violent crimes. Therefore, every one of us has to rely to a large extent on personal initiatives to detect and deter assailants to stay alive. After all, self-defence as a universally recognized moral right is encapsulated in the fundamental right to life.
Mr. John Uwaya is an expert on security matters; any enquiries or requests for assistance can be directed to him through uwaya@texasarmoring.com, johnuwaya17@yahoo.com or on mobile phone No. 08027832306.
