{"id":115796,"date":"2024-12-20T06:29:30","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T05:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=115796"},"modified":"2024-12-20T06:29:30","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T05:29:30","slug":"the-multitrillion-naira-ransom-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/the-multitrillion-naira-ransom-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"The Multitrillion Naira Ransom Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Olusegun Adeniyi<\/p>\n

In a chilling report released on Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), N2.2 trillion was paid to kidnappers as ransom between May 2023 and April 2024. Titled, \u2018The Crime Experienced and Security Perception Survey (CESPS) 2024\u2019, the report revealed that as many as 91 per cent of kidnapping incidents in the country were to extract ransom, while 2.4 per cent of cases were attributed to political, criminal, or terrorist objectives. About 2.1 per cent of the cases were linked to personal or family disputes while custody disputes accounted for 0.5 per cent of cases. Within the same period, no fewer than 2,235,954 Nigerian citizens\/residents (which represents about 1 percent of our national population) were kidnapped in communities across the country at different times.<\/p>\n

We must commend the NBS for deploying data to lay bare some of our socio-economic challenges. \u201cOur people should never live in fear\u2014whether on their farmlands, highways or cities,\u201d President Bola Tinubu said yesterday while presenting the N47.9trillion 2025 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly. Yet, it cannot be lost on Nigerians that within the last one year, kidnappers raked in almost what the president is now proposing to spend on the country\u2019s health sector in the coming year. It also means that \u2018ransom subsector\u2019 of the economy is now the fastest growing. That\u2019s why authorities at all levels must find a solution to this vexatious menace that threatens not only our national security but also the progress of our country.<\/p>\n

The history of kidnappings for ransom can easily be traced to the current democratic dispensation in the country. We first witnessed the problem in the Niger Delta about two decades ago with political agitation for \u2018resource control\u2019 before it became a very lucrative enterprise for sundry criminal cartels across the country. Indeed, as far back as 2012, the African Insurance Organization (AIO) designated Nigeria the kidnap for ransom capital of the world. \u201cThe number of kidnaps for ransom in Africa continued to increase. In the first half of 2011, Africa\u2019s proportion of the global total increased from 23 per cent in 2010 to 34 per cent,\u201d according to the AIO at the 18th African reinsurance Forum in Mauritius. \u201cNigeria is now the kidnap for ransom capital of the world, accounting for a quarter of globally reported cases.\u201d That was twelve years ago. The situation of course is now worse considering the details in the NBS survey.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, this is also an issue on which I have intervened numerous times, including reporting contributions I made to \u2018ransom funds\u2019 for the release of victims. I recall sharing the experience of Nuhu Tanko, a gardener at the Shehu Musa Yar\u2019AduaCentre, Abuja who was kidnapped along with two brothers on 31st December 2020 on the way from their village (Dakunu in Chukum local government of Kaduna) to the state capital. By his account, the masked kidnappers, clad in military camouflage, numbered more than 50, all on motor bikes, each carrying at least two guns. It was after the family had sold all their possessions, including a piece of land, and the money was not enough to complete the N10 million ransom demand that they reached out to the Centre for support. \u201cMost people have left our village because of kidnappings. It\u2019s like bandits have taken over our village and the surrounding communities,\u201d Tanko lamented at the time, while sharing his harrowing experience, following his release. \u201cThey kidnap people, kill and rape women, even if the women are pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps more heartrending was the account of Mallam Iliya Gwaram in Zamfara State. His daughter was one of the 279 female students abducted from the Government Girls Science Secondary School, Jangebe on 26 February 2021. A few days later, he was also kidnapped. But while in captivity, the Jangebe female students were brought to join them. \u201cl saw the schoolgirls being brought into where we were camped by our abductors. At first, l didn\u2019t know who they were or where they were coming from, until l saw the face of my scared daughter looking at me. I quickly told some of the girls who were brought along with her and sat near me to tell my child not to show any indication that she even knew me,\u201d Gwaram recounted after his release a few days later. \u201cThe girls were brave enough and they kept our little secret up to the last of their four days stay with us. l never cried in the whole of my life like l cried the day the girls were taken back because l felt it was the last time l would see my daughter\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From North to South, East to West, there is hardly anybody who does not know someone who has been kidnapped. Therefore, the real value of the NBS report is to put official imprimatur to a social cum security malaise that has now reached epidemic proportion. Of the reported cases of kidnappings, according to the report, 82.1 percent were released, 12.8 percent were killed while 3.3 percent remain in captivity. If one does the arithmetic, the number of kidnap victims who don\u2019t\u2019 return alive is quite chilling. But beyond the trauma to families, the local economies in most rural areas across the country today are comatose while in some communities, especially in the Northwest, kidnappers have taken complete control. Even within metropolis, we all remember the kidnapping of six young ladies and their father from their Bwari (Abuja) residence in January this year. The father was released and asked to go and find N60 million to ransom his children. Unable to meet the payment deadline, the kidnappers killed one of his daughters, a 400-level student of Biological Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria and dumped her body on the street. Now that the NBS has beamed its searchlight on this most heinous crime, we hope that the relevant authorities will take the challenge seriously and act.Even more worrisome, going by the report, no fewer than 614,937 Nigerians were killed within the period.<\/p>\n

The implications of this situation for the national economy are grave. In a February 2006 paper, \u201c\u2019Captive Markets\u2019: The Impact of Kidnappings on Corporate Investment in Colombia\u201d, by the United States Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (Central Bank), the trio of Rony Pshisva, Protego Mexico and Gustavo A. Suarez measured the impact of crime on investments by exploiting variation in kidnappings in Colombia from 1996 to 2002. Instructively, the paper opened with a quote from a report in \u2018The Economist\u2019 magazine of 19th June 2004 which summed up their findings: \u201cWho wants to invest money and effort in building a business if their reward is to risk losing their life and\/or their money?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, as it was in Columbia, so it is in Nigeria today!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Olusegun Adeniyi In a chilling report released on Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), N2.2 trillion was paid to kidnappers as ransom between May 2023 and April…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Multitrillion Naira Ransom Industry - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/articles-opinions\/the-multitrillion-naira-ransom-industry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Multitrillion Naira Ransom Industry - 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