KIDNAPPING: Police Get Advanced Equipment, as 1,290 Abducted in 2024

To curb the surge in kidnappings across the country, the Nigeria Police Force has procured advanced tactical equipment to enhance its tracking capabilities.

This is as new data revealed that no fewer than 1,290 people may have been kidnapped in the country since the beginning of the year.

The figure, according to an investigation, further confirms the high rate of abductions for ransom in Nigeria.

The figure was derived from an analysis of Nextier’s Nigeria Violent Conflict Database reports, published between January 1 and June 22, 2024.

Nextier, an Africa-focused multi-competency public sector advisory firm, provides weekly reports in a database that collates media-reported violent conflicts across Nigeria.

Earlier this year, some civil society groups, under the aegis of the Civil Society Joint Action Group, said no fewer than 17,469 Nigerians were abducted between 2019 and 2023.

This was even as the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative and Advocacy Centre, Auwal Rafsanjani, said insecurity had persisted in the country, with 24,816 Nigerians killed and 15,597 persons abducted throughout the two terms of President Buhari.

Rafsanjani said 90 per cent of the 17,469 cases were recorded under Buhari, while 10 per cent were recorded during the last six months of 2023 under President Tinubu.

However, it was gathered from Nextier’s insecurity database that between January 1 and June 22, 2024, no fewer than 1,290 Nigerians were kidnapped across the country.

 The database also revealed that about 800 people were kidnapped between July 2023 and December 2023 under the current administration.

This implies that the number of kidnapped victims has increased by 490, which is 61 per cent more than the number of victims abducted during the last six months of 2023.

Reacting to the steady rise in crime, the NPF said the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, had recently acquired tactical equipment to tackle the scourge of kidnapping across Nigeria.

The NPF’s spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, disclosed this to our correspondent on Friday, noting that ransom payments had made kidnapping a lucrative business in the country.

He said, “About two weeks ago, the IGP acquired additional tactical equipment to enhance our tracking capability. We do this, but the payment of ransom has made kidnapping a lucrative business.

“We should not allow that. We should discourage it, so that many young people will not venture into this criminal act. Let us see it as a criminal offence.”

He also lamented that the payment of ransoms had encouraged criminals to continue abducting people.

Adejobi said the police had been educating Nigerians on the danger of paying ransom.

He said, “We have been educating Nigerians not to make kidnapping a lucrative business. We have been educating people through various media, forums, and lectures. Even religious platforms are being used to educate Nigerians not to pay ransom. Kidnapping is not a business; it is a criminal act.

“Kidnappers always work on the psyche of the relatives of their victims. Kidnappers tell the relatives that if they talk to the police or other security agencies, they would kill their loved ones. But, it’s not so. The reason for kidnapping is to make ends meet.

 “A kidnapper wants money. Any incident where the victim is killed is not about ransom or kidnapping. We need to widen the scope of that investigation to understand the psychology of that crime.

“Every kidnapper demands ransom, because it’s a business. We don’t want people to just play to the gallery of these kidnappers who work on their psyche to make them pay. They need to talk to us (Police) in confidence.

“There are many things we tell our people that we don’t want to be in the public domain. There are security measures to curb kidnapping. It is not all the time that we put these things in the public domain. But, they should always work with us.

“When they work with us, we know how to go about it. Our tactical equipment and devices are very functional. We have been using them to apprehend kidnappers, and we’ve been arresting them in large numbers. I don’t want Nigerians or the relatives of victims to believe that we are incapacitated and unable to rescue any victim.”

According to the Director-General of the Institute of Professional Security, Tony Ofoyetan, stressed that kidnapping should first be recognised as an illegal business and a major means of terrorism financing, which could have devastating effects on people’s psychology.

He noted that the Nigerian Communication Commission had the capacity to track the locations of kidnappers from their phone calls, adding that security operatives should comb all the forests in the villages, as kidnappers had turned them into their hideouts.

He said, “The solutions are always with the government. That’s just the truth, but whether they have the political will to implement those solutions is a different thing entirely. Kidnapping is a business, albeit an illegal one. If we identify the fact that it is an illegal business, and that it has an effect on the psychology of people, both individually and nationally, we will see that it is as devastating as terrorism. Incidentally, many times, they also work together, because kidnapping is one of the major means through which terrorism is financed globally. There are different approaches to curbing it, and it includes the use of technology.

“We’ve been hearing about the Bank Verification Number, National Identity Number, and others. I can assure you that the NCC has the capacity to track any phone or communication device, whether it is switched on or off, and they know the exact location of where such calls are coming from. The issue is whether they are going to go all out against such perpetrators, except if it is a kidnapping that has political undertone.”

Also speaking on the issue, a security consultant and Fellow of the Institute of Security, Nigeria, Chigozie Ubani, said there was a critical need for a comprehensive approach to national security.

He noted that despite repeated recommendations to the Federal Government, current efforts were ineffective.

Ubani lamented the cycle of arrests, detentions, and subsequent bail of suspects without addressing the underlying social and economic factors contributing to insecurity.

He said, “We are running a reactionary police system. When it happens, we then move. We arrest people, detain them, and later bail them. The other day, we charged them to court. It’s just reactionary. What we’ve not done is to look at the social and economic angles to security. We might be lucky, but if not, we might have a bloody situation, because people are hungry. This is one of our major problems.”