Abuja and The Reign of Kidnappers
Sustaining a weekly column has become increasingly frustrating given the current wave of kidnappings across the country. One begins to sound like a broken record on so many critical issues. Considering what has been identified as our collective national amnesia, I am not surprised to receive messages from readers who ask why I have not commented on kidnappings. Yet, this is an issue on which I have intervened numerous times, including reporting contributions I made to ‘ransom funds’ for the release of some victims. Perhaps more Nigerians are now paying attention to this serious national security challenge because kidnappers have moved from the hinterland to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The kidnapping of six young ladies from their Bwari (Abuja) home on 9 January, along with their father, Mansoor Al-Kadriyar, may have been the tipping point. In releasing Mr Al-Kadriyah, the kidnappers asked him to go and find N60 million to ransom his six daughters, not later than last Friday. Unable to meet the payment deadline, the kidnappers killed one of his daughters, Nabeeha, a 400-level student of Biological Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria and dumped her body on the street. When concerned citizens, including a former Minister, Isa Pantami (who announced that his friends had raised N50 million) invoked the idea of crowdsourcing funds online to secure the release of the remaining five daughters, the kidnappers jacked the ransom money to N100 million.
We pray for the safe return of the five Al-Kadriyar siblings—including Najeebah, a 500-level Quantity Surveying student and Nadherah, a 300-level Zoology student. But President Bola Tinubu must go beyond the usual ‘summon of Service Chiefs’ perfected by his predecessor to no result. Besides, action speaks louder than words. When you vote N1.4 billion for arms and ammunition for the police, and a whopping sum of N31.915 billion to erect fanciful buildings for the Office of the National Security Adviser (as captured in the 2024 Budget by a Daily Trust report yesterday), it is obvious that the administration does not yet appreciate the enormity of the security problems we grapple with in Nigeria today.
On 26th of last December, the district head of Pandan-Gwari in Bwari area council of the FCT was kidnapped right in his palace alongside five of his subjects. Their whereabouts remain unknown even though the criminals have reportedly made a ransom demand of N50 million. Last Thursday, the invaders moved to Kawu community in the same Bwari area council. The Councillor representing the area, Abdulmumini Zakari, told PUNCH newspaper that gunmen numbering about 40 “divided themselves into groups and some went into the palace of the district head, Abdurrahman Ali, where they abducted his son, Lukman, and his wife, whom he married two weeks ago.” While the challenge goes beyond Abuja, the symbolism of a federal capital city where residents dread moving around due to fear of kidnappers is quite telling.
From North to South, East to West, local economies in most rural areas across the country today are comatose because peasant
farmers have been forced to abandon their farms due to incessant kidnappings. Amnesty International concluded its report last year: “The Nigerian authorities have left rural communities at the mercy of rampaging gunmen.” And we can see the result in the astronomical cost of basic foodstuff.
Meanwhile, this national problem has been with us for more than a decade. As far back as 2012, the African Insurance Organization (AIO) designated our country the kidnap for ransom capital of the world. Nigeria, according to the AIO at the 18th African reinsurance Forum in Mauritius, accounted for 25% of global kidnappings in 2011. “The number of kidnaps for ransom in Africa continued to increase. In the first half of 2011, Africa’s proportion of the global total increased from 23 per cent in 2010 to 34 per cent. Nigeria is now the kidnap for ransom capital of the world, accounting for a quarter of globally reported cases,” the AIO stated. And that was 12 years ago. If anything, the situation has worsened in the last decade. But before I conclude, let me excerpt from my 18 March 2021 column, ‘Kidnappings Incorporated’.
================================ Nuhu Tanko is a gardener at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja whose two brothers were kidnapped on 31st December 2020 on the way from their village (Dakunu in Chukum local government of Kaduna) to the state capital. According to their account, the kidnappers, clad in military camouflage, were more than 50 in number, all on motor bikes, with each carrying at least two guns. They were all masked. The two brothers were also on a motor bike which was burnt by their abductors after they were kidnapped. At the Katarimape forest where they were taken, the duo met three other victims who, like them, had their hands and feet tied. Each day, the five captives were given a cup of water and some local biscuits to share. When the kidnappers eventually reached the Tanko family, they demanded a ransom of N10 million. After disposing of their small piece of land and everything else the family could sell, negotiations spanned three weeks.
Eventually, the family reached out to Tunde Ahmadu, the Yar’Adua Centre Chief Operating Officer to help raise money. Tunde was allowed to listen in on one of the calls with kidnappers who threatened to kill the two boys if the ransom money was not produced on time. After gathering N900,000 in cash for the two (and having been warned never to involve the police if they wanted them back alive), a Tanko family ‘emissary’ took the money to a specified location in Katarimape forest as directed by the kidnappers. A few hours later, the two brothers returned home. “Most people have left our village because of kidnappings. It’s like bandits have taken over our village and the surrounding communities,” Tanko lamented while sharing the tragic saga with me. “They kidnap people, kill and rape women, even if the women are pregnant.”
The pathetic picture painted by Tanko is not different from the account of Mallam Iliya Gwaram, father of one of the abducted Jangebe school girls in Zamfara State, who himself was in captivity at the time the female students were brought to join them. “l saw the schoolgirls being brought into where we were camped by our abductors. At first, l didn’t 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,” Gwaram recounted after his release a few days later. “The 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…”
ENDNOTE: With the invasion of kidnappers, ‘one-chance’ vehicle robbers and sundry other criminal cartels, Abuja is becoming increasingly unsafe for residents. Respected security analyst and lawyer, Bulama Bukarti, has explained the reason why. “Over 9,700 people were killed last year in 2023 across Nigeria. Abuja cannot be immune to that because, as long as you leave insecurity to fester and flourish across Nigeria, then, it will find its way to Abuja,” he said while noting that what happens within the FCT is a reflection of the security challenge in Nigeria. “The way to secure Abuja is to take the fight to the bandits and terrorists in other parts of the country.”
It is difficult to fault Bukarti’s thesis. The FCT Minister, Nyeson Wike, may have his job cut out for him. But this problem is beyond him. Until the whole of Nigeria is safe and secure, residents of Abuja deceive themselves to imagine that they can be safe. That’s why the federal government must collaborate with the states to find a solution to the growing challenge of insecurity in Nigeria.