Tracking the Payment of Ransom to Kidnappers: By Moses Amadi

 

Kidnapping is a victim crime or a crime of violence that affects the physical nature of a captured population, their lives or even leads to their death. This represents a sharp contrast from non-victim crimes such as prostitution, corruption, among others.

It is stating the obvious that Nigeria is faced with an epidemic of kidnapping for ransom or mass abduction in different parts of the country more especially in the northwest. People are abducted and released at the pleasure of the kidnappers.

Every day, the story of kidnapping and banditry is the same. They operate with impunity, which they have displayed in several ways, giving a sense of lawlessness in the country.

Already, some local governments have been taken over by them. Some forests which hitherto were occupied by rangers have been captured and turned to ungoverned territories from where they perpetrate their crimes.

In a recent interview, Senator Shehu Sani declared that there are only two local governments that are safe in Kaduna state in spite of the fact that the state has the highest number of security formations in the country. Reports show that more than 949 people have been kidnapped this year in the state, with more than 774 kidnapped, and 222 people killed this year in three months. Nationwide, statistics show that over 3,000 people have been kidnapped this year in Nigeria.

Latest reports indicate that kidnappers are demanding ransom in cash and kind. There was a recent report about a local baker who suddenly started receiving huge orders from kidnappers and it turned out that his supplies were used to feed those who were held hostage by kidnappers.

This was a case of a penny depositor suddenly becoming a dollar or pound depositor which should have raised a red flag to the financial services sector and intelligent agencies to take up the fight against mass abduction.

Motorcycles have audaciously been requested by kidnappers and they got those motorcycles. They boasted that they have professionals who could detect trackers (if any) secreted in the motorcycles. They have gone to a level where they are also applying technology to counter security gadgets of security agencies. That re-emphasises the industrial scale nature of mass abduction. In other words, when you have an industry, you have a number of professionals that contribute to the value chain.

Kidnappers have also been asking for rice and other food items as ransom. What this shows is that kidnappers are perhaps ahead of their game. They know that if they go to the market and make bulk or mass purchases, they may give away their identity. As a result, they compel the parents of the victims or abductees to buy the food items and bring to them, with a threat to starve their kids to death if their demands are not met,.

Kidnapping business has persisted partly because of the huge ransoms paid to kidnappers and the cooperation of some members of the public and security agents. There have been established cases of complicity of the security agencies, for instance, in Taraba and Zamfara states, where it was reported that some military personnel were involved in aiding and abetting banditry and kidnapping. It’s a very complex matter that has been termed ‘official kidnapping.’ It means those in authority are involved in the delivery and sharing of ransom. Perhaps that is why the discussions some governors had with kidnappers to stop their nefarious activities, have not yielded result.

At the moment, there is trust deficit between the members of the public and government on one hand, and members of the public and security agencies on the other. Recall that the question of bad eggs colluding with criminals has been with us for decades. Armed robbery now looks like a child’s play. But when armed robbery was hot in the country, there were instances of security officers who were caught in collusion with armed robbers and a few of them were tied to the stakes and they paid the ultimate price.

Lack of trust is one of the reasons why security agencies are yet to mine sufficient information from victims in order to provide a pathway for dealing with this issue. It is even more complicated to note that some state governments are against payment of ransom. This makes it difficult to debrief rescued victims. If somebody is kidnapped and the authorities intervene and resolve it successfully, the victim feels they owe a debt of gratitude to the government. They will willingly say everything they know and help the authorities to possibly prevent the next kidnap. Such information should be studied to get strategic intelligence so as to learn the patterns, signs and capabilities of kidnap gangs.

But when victims are left to their own fate, they may feel betrayed and reluctant to divulge useful information. That is the situation with the Bethel Baptist School incident and some other kidnap cases. The parents are calling people all over the world to pray for their kids that were kidnapped in Nigeria. It hurts to see that we don’t care about the damage done to our country’s reputation in the comity of nations.

Most of the kidnappings are reported to the police but they don’t have sufficient facilities to track kidnappers. DPOs are supposed to be tracking, but they rely on the anti-kidnapping unit in their command headquarters. Police formations are spread in every local government area but they lack the tools to work with.

Arising from the Jaji Conference that took place recently, government said they would use new tactics to deal with bandits. But it is evident that whatever new tactics the government is deploying, the security situation has not improved.

Security has to be prioritized, as the primary purpose of government is the welfare and security of citizens. But the reality is that kidnapping has become a daily occurrence in Nigeria, and so, the aspect of preventive mechanism to ensure that kidnapping does not take place, does not arise.

It is good to know about the recent approval of extra budgetary allocation of over N4 billion for the Nigerian Intelligence Agency to purchase tracking equipment. This is coming at a time when industry watchers are saying that huge allocations to tackle insecurity do not correspond with expected outcomes in terms of solving security problems. On the other hand, we are hearing that the police major tracking equipment has broken down, as subscription has not been paid since 2015. It is scandalous that Nigeria has only one tracking equipment managed by just one company.

For purposes of public finance, it shouldn’t take a supplementary budget in 2021 to provide for the purchase of such equipment. It is supposed to be a must have, to be in stock, in custody and in use at all material times so that it becomes part of our line budget. Worse still, it is not just about budgeting but the possibility of getting the money out and adequately deploying it when it is needed without the hurdles of procurement process. If eventually released, it is hoped that this money would be deployed to real time quality technology equipment that will help to arrest the situation.

Security experts have revealed that there are locator devices manufactured in Nigeria by some obscure government agencies that can geo-locate the exact position of the bad guys. There are some experienced police officers who are good in tracking but are not given the opportunity to show what they have. There are available drones with cheap prices from South Africa and elsewhere that can boost tracking of ransom paid to kidnappers.

Ransoms, whether in cash or in kind, are trackable. Tracking has become handy, as it aids investigation. This has to do with procurement of ICT facilities that can help in policing and monitoring movements of the hoodlums. 

The issue is not simply to track and retrieve those ransoms that have been paid, but to follow up so that activities, especially kidnapping, which are criminal in nature are dealt with according to law.

President Muhammadu Buhari has said that bandits and kidnappers would be spoken to in the language they would understand; that the war would be taken to them. What remains to be seen is the effect of such pronouncement.

Negotiation is better when one is in a position of strength or advantage. Both kinetic and non-kinetic techniques should be adopted in bringing solution to this security challenge. The kinetic technique should be given primacy, as it enables the security forces to attack and weaken the criminals. This involves getting intelligence, using drones, among others, to locate kidnappers. The most impact is achieved by carrying out simultaneous attacks in identified locations. If not, the criminals will move to areas that are safer and continue operating from those places. With the battle taken to them, they will be in disarray. That’s when we will have a better platform for negotiation to settle the issue of kidnapping in Nigeria.

It is learnt that some of the criminals are extra-territorial. In other words, they come from neighbouring countries such as Cameroon and especially the Republic of Niger, whose border with Nigeria spans more than 1000km. The Nigerian borders must be fortified to stop the criminals from having free entry in, and exit from Nigeria. That will make tracking easier.

Experts say there is a lot of movement of cash out of Nigeria by kidnappers. The manner in which extra-territorial kidnappers take their currency across the borders should be cause for concern. Physical cash is moved in the bush through the border with agents of the kidnappers, who transport the cash alongside their barons and other enablers. The people in the bush are foot soldiers. It’s an industry. There is a value chain. It’s a highly organized crime which needs to be taken down.

The current effort by the CBN and the justice department in trying to rein in some corrupt bureau de change operators should be intensified. Bureau de change operators along locations where kidnappers change their currency should be watched closely to check collusion by way of changing Cefa currency used in West Africa (which is different from the Cefa in the central part of Africa) and other currencies for kidnappers. The kidnappers equally change their currency to dollars.

There must be realistic linkages between the financial services sector and law enforcement. If there are unusual large deposits, there must be follow-up. In the US, if a huge sum is deposited in the bank, immediately the client will be asked to fill out what is called Suspicious Activity Report (SAR). Sometimes, if the bank officials are suspicious about the money, they may refuse to collect that deposit. If that deposit goes into the bank and it’s not reported, the bank risks heavy sanctions. In other words, there is a formal mechanism in place for reporting. The bank itself has a security department that conducts those investigations.

When people are held to account, they will do the proper thing by being alive to their responsibilities. Security agencies should look inwards and weed out the bad eggs. Police authorities have confirmed that there have been cases where Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) colluded with criminals. Some decades ago, the police put a system in place to check the means of livelihood and lifestyles of their personnel. That helped to arrest, put on trial, dismiss and even charge erring police personnel to court.

Leaders of criminal activities are not spirits; they can be arrested, and brought to book. All that is required is a joint exercise or inter-agency cooperation to put the kidnappers at a disadvantaged position so as to achieve an impactful crackdown.

How to go about all of these so that we develop a profile of this horrendous epidemic should form an area of major focus for the government and security personnel.

Teaser

The business of kidnapping has persisted in Nigeria partly because of the huge ransoms paid to kidnappers and the amount of cooperation that they receive. Every kidnapping incident for which ransom is paid can however be tracked, and the kidnappers apprehended.

Nigeria’s Sub-National Entities: The Hydra-Headed Monster of Ungoverned Spaces: By Moses Amadi

A critical aspect in Nigeria’s fight against crimes and insecurity are the thousands of localities and spaces without government presence. Can Nigeria truly exit her security issues without fixing this critical vacuum?

The federal, state and local governments comprise the tiers of government in Nigeria, with 774 local government areas that are described as the closest to the grassroots.

Over the years, there have been arguments that local government authorities have not been making much impact on the rural communities that should benefit from the dividends of democracy and opportunities that will transform them.

Some people also believe that the reason why local government authorities’ impact is not felt on local communities is largely because of the usurping of the financial autonomy of the council areas by the state governments.

Experts are also of the opinion that the local governments’ resources cannot pay teachers’ salaries which are deducted from source thereby leaving some local government areas with little or nothing to run their councils. But the Federal Government’s policy grants local governments the financial autonomy as well as access to their funds, which would have made it possible for local governments to function effectively. Surprisingly, too, local government areas are not even responsible for the employment, transfer or discipline of teachers.

Others are also of the view that the uncoordinated manner local governments handle the problems of ruler communities, has to a larger extent been hampering their development.

There seems to be duplication of efforts between the authorities and development partners that deploy their aid to provide rural electrification, stand-alone water hand pumps, among others, in rural communities. These agencies have huge budgetary allocations but the outcomes point to the fact that governance has broken down in the rural communities.

Worthy of note in the breakdown in governance is the emergence of ungoverned spaces which are found in various communities, and which gave birth to the infamous activities of bandits, terrorists, kidnappers, among others.

The ungoverned spaces have been existing alongside engagement in meaningful and profitable activities by people in such areas, but the reality is that lawbreakers have converted those communities to their abodes thus making them unsafe.

The delinquent elements reside mostly in the bushes and thick forest reserves from where they map out their criminal acts, and this has been a major security challenge. In the northern part of the country, for instance, criminals hide in ungoverned spaces to carry out heinous crimes, and this is further exacerbated by the lack of successive state government’s commitment to tackling the nagging security matters faced by ruler areas.

All of these issues arising from ungoverned spaces are traceable to poor governance, growth of informal settlements or shanties, among others, which have given rise to rural-urban drift. And the local councils that should accommodate the majority of the people have virtually been left bare, creating a vacuum which raises the question of prioritisation that has been the bane of our governance system. Truth is, when people do not believe that there is an existing authority that can check them or one they can rely upon, then there is the tendency they will create their own system.

Theoretically, the local government chairman should have administrative control over his location, but this is not so. For instance, in 2019 an attack on a location in Zamfara State that lasted from 9:00a.m to 1:00p.m claimed 30 people. The fact that the bandits came in broad daylight on a market day to perpetrate the bizarre act without timely action by security agencies, apparently affirms lack of governance at the local government level.

Security is on the exclusive list and this is supported by historical reasons. However, the reality, or demands of today, make it almost untenable as security has constantly been put to the test in many instances.

Clearly, there has been a failure by past administrations, especially the Federal Government, to effectively implement meaningful policies that will see to the evolution of a vibrant rural Nigeria. Powers and functions of the traditional institutions to play fundamental roles in governance have been severely eroded. This has delegitimised their activities, as their functions have been placed in the hands of civil political authorities otherwise referred to as local government councils.

Functionally, the local government councils are not autonomous. And it is not about financial autonomy that has always been seen as the agitation by the elite to democratise corruption,  in the sense that since the federal and state governments enjoy relative autonomy as far as resource allocations are concerned, the local governments should also not be left out.

It is impossible to have peace and security in any environment without effective social order. When unwanted persons are put in positions of authority, it is difficult to cultivate the goodwill or inputs of the people in addressing insecurity. This borders on leadership recruitment system or deficient human capital planning. We have stopped planning to capture adequate manpower that can govern and develop the local communities. And this would have paved the way for a bottom-top approach where people are involved in what is needed to improve their communities.

The provisions in the 1999 Constitution as amended are sufficiently defined in terms of realising the federal nature of the Nigerian state, and the foundation of any nation is the local government; the people at the grassroots. In order to have a sustainable development in Nigeria, we need strong local governments.

There is also the need to strengthen governance at the state and local government levels by developing a framework of administration in the communities to suit their peculiarities and characteristics. Local government administrative system should be restructured in a way that traditional institutions can play their roles effectively. This was one of the focal points of the 1976 Local Government Reforms.

Collaboration between the various levels of government is also a way forward. The current focus on the Federal Government should be reduced significantly for improvement of humanity at the local government level which has been described as the nucleus of our existence in Nigeria.

TERRORISM IN AFRICA: OWNING THE PREVENTION AGENDA: By MOSES AMADI

One of the most significant problems in Africa today is the issue of conflict resolution and

tackling insecurity. This was referred to as “Silencing the Guns” on the continent which ties in

well with the theme of the past Aswan Forum in Egypt tagged “The Africa We Want.”

In terms of the gains of the Aswan Forum, one takeaway was the sideline meeting between

President Muhammadu Buhari and the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, about the

security situation in Africa. Both leaders agreed to synergise and combat the menace of terrorists.

Already, Nigeria has shown commitment in fighting the scourge in the West African sub-region

by providing huge funds for the multinational ECOWAS standby force. Such intervention may

appear to be a significant plank of the solution but it is largely hollow and ineffective. Bandits

seem unstoppable as they carry out their agenda of violence and terror.

Conflicts in Africa can be very expensive in terms of the economic loss among other shortfalls in

the polity. It is estimated that the African continent loses about $18 billion annually to conflicts.

From statistics, conflicts have displaced about 65.5 million people globally, majority of whom

are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Africa is losing its youth and innocents to conflicts. Right now, the situations in South Sudan,

Somalia and many other parts of Africa do not present a happy picture. Libya is also in turmoil.

There is the issue of forced migration as a lot of Africans are leaving their countries because of

such tension.

Part of the reasons for the persistence of the hostility is that a lot of African countries do not have

the capacity institutionally to prevent conflicts which flare up in different places. There is a rise

in the number of non-state actors or terror groups and the franchise they are initiating and leaving

behind in the world including Africa. We have seen Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabab in East

Africa and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the West African sub-region.

The now undeniable crisis is beyond the capacity of any government built on accustomed and

regimented thought process, with its debilitating baggage of sectarian interests. The quality of

security on the African continent has been exposed to ridicule in the wake of the alarming rate at

which non-state actors are spreading from one country to another. The reasons are not far-

fetched. There is virtually no government presence in many rural communities; there are no

comprehensive health care centres; people are not uplifted; in some places, there are no roads,

and government officials hardly visit those places to share the feelings of the people, among

other factors. The local population is neglected as non-state actors and terrorist groups take

advantage of the situation to radicalise and recruit youths to perpetuate banditry and barbarous

acts against the soul of Africa.

What this has shown, beyond producing inverted results, is that the spiral of violence is blind,

and government intervention so far has not been able to put an effective handle to the problem.

Many African countries have inadequate numbers of security forces and insufficient weaponry to

successfully check insurgency. For instance, records indicate that Nigeria has only about 150,000

soldiers who are engaged in various joint task forces in almost all the thirty-six states of the

federation, carrying out policing duties. Equally worthy of mention is the fact that the required

number of personnel to man the various border posts within neighbouring countries is lacking.

No doubt, weak border control has led to porous territorial boundaries. This is evident in the

National Security Plan for 2020 released by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA)

which revealed that Nigeria is located on the periphery of some ungoverned spaces in

neighbouring countries particularly in the Sahelian region where drug trafficking, organised

crime, terrorism, challenges to democratic governance and piracy, hold sway. Some of these

challenges are also prevalent in some West African countries.

The issue of herdsmen and farmers’ clashes between Nigeria and Mali, for instance, is recorded

as having the highest number of deaths compared with Boko Haram in some of the sub-regional

countries that have had encounters with herdsmen and cattle rustling.

Agents of death such as terrorists, herdsmen and bandits move unhindered especially around the

Lake Chad Basin which consists of mostly West African countries. There are also unchecked

movements across boundaries as they transverse the borders of Central Africa Republic,

Southern Sudan, Sudan and Libya. Such porous borders aid arms proliferation, insurgency,

among other crimes.

It is very disheartening and discouraging for Africa to be facing security challenges and it

appears there are no concrete mitigation measures put in place to ensure that these emerging

threats are checked. That is why drawing attention to the peace and security architecture in

Africa is very critical. But there are certain factors that are lacking especially in terms of

coordination including collaboration on the implementation of coherent and cogent regional

strategies for stabilisation and recovery.

Africa cannot develop in the absence of peace and security. The Pan-African dream and vision

cannot be achieved in the absence of integration and unity. Our consciousness has to be

reawakened in terms of the need to act collectively to develop mechanisms to protect the

continent against conflicts.

There is a need for African leaders to concentrate on how to resolve conflicts and prevent them

from happening in the future. Steps should be taken to strengthen capacities of African

governments and states to develop resilience and mechanisms for conflict resolution. The

African Union Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) must be localised and decentralised to

regional and country levels so as to develop architecture for prevention. De-radicalisation and

counter-violence extremism should be some of the major ingredients of the security plan.

African leaders should learn from what happened in other countries, for instance, Pakistan and

Afghanistan. These two countries have been able to put in place international collaborative

efforts towards addressing terrorism and have drastically reduced the number of terror

organizations in their individual countries to very manageable levels.

Arab countries in Africa should emulate what has been put in place in the West African sub-

region so that they too can checkmate the infiltration of elements of al-Qaeda and the Islamic

State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Arab-Maghreb axis. The Lake Chad Basin multinational

joint task force should combine efforts with the G5 of the Sahel countries instead of operating in

silos. These will help in building strong partnerships and creating the synergy that are required in

countering terrorism.