A Nigerian-American, Tope Owolabi, was in August abducted near Ogbomoso by kidnappers. The young man came to Nigeria to invest in the hospitality business in his ancestral home of Ogbomoso, Oyo State before he was kidnapped and subsequently murdered even after a ransom of N5 million had been paid to the kidnappers. The criminals have not been caught, as I write. The body of the murdered Owolabi was taken back to the United States for internment by his American family.
Neither the Oyo state government nor the Nigerian government has said anything about their determination to catch the heartless criminals responsible for terminating the life of this young and enterprising Nigerian-American. Yet the federal government and the president went with a huge delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, UNGA, in October with the justification of attracting American direct investment without doing anything to tighten the security loophole in Nigeria.
Judging by the country-wide insecurity with the situation in the north, a great concern for everyone expecting foreign direct investment to increase remains a pipe and delusional dream. The economic situation in the rural areas of the country is dire indeed. Farmers in many parts of the country dare not go to their farms for fear of being murdered. There is little incentive to sow seeds that they will not be permitted to harvest. The Middle Belt which is the bread basket of the country has been rendered a no-go area by herders and other criminally minded kidnappers and killers on the prowl. Whatever food that is harvested in the area cannot be moved to the centres of consumption in the south and the far north because of virtual blockade of the highways by kidnappers and killers who after collecting ransom kill their victims for apparently no reason but for the joy of killing and bloodletting.
The situation is becoming incomprehensible to many observers. The question being asked is what do these criminals actually want? What is their plan after bringing the country down after the success of their campaign of terrorism? As it stands today, many people cannot visit their homes outside the big cities which are now armoured stockades. Essentially, people are marooned in places like Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta, Osogbo, Akure and Ado Ekiti in the southwest. Outside Benin, Asaba, Warri, Yenagoa, Port Harcourt, Uyo and Calabar, only intrepid travellers dare venture out. The situation in the Southeast is not better and most of the people are cowering in their homes in the state capitals and trying to avoid being killed by so called “unknown gun men”, armed herders and kidnappers and some renegade members of the IPOB (indigenous people of Biafra).
The story is the same all over the North. Not even Abuja is safe. There is neither safety nor security outside such fortified capitals like Jos, Makurdi, Lafia, Minna, Ilorin, Bauchi, Sokoto, Birnin-Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Dutse, Damaturu, Maiduguri, Yola and Jalingo. The entire Zamfara is a no-go area and this has been the case for almost a decade and internecine war between the Fulani and other tribal minorities and Hausa has been going on and life has become short and brutish. It is amazing that the Nigerian state and economy soldiers on when in fact it is no exaggeration to say the Nigerian state has failed. The responsibility of government is to secure peoples’ lives and property. People like me can no longer go home to pray at the graves of our parents. We now send money to strangers to keep the resting places of our loves one clean and not become eyesores. Yet in our culture, this is the only honour the living owes the dead! People who still make interstate and intercity travels do so at the risk of their lives .Yet life must continue.
Two weeks ago, Professor Adigun Agbaje and four students, two girls and two boys and a middle aged man were kidnapped along Lagos – Ibadan expressway, just some few kilometres from Ibadan. Reports have it that the terrorists were apparently looking for a foreign investor in some kind of avian industry in the area. The inability of the terrorists to locate their target led them to blocking the high way and kidnapping and killing at random of innocent and unsuspecting travellers who are trying to make a living in the collapsed economy of this benighted country of ours. At the end of this tragedy, the highly cerebral political scientist, Adigun Agbaje and others were kidnapped and spirited away into the forest between Ogun and Oyo states. A demand of N50 million was placed on their heads.
Where on earth will a poor teacher find such a humongous amount of Naira? After the intervention of concerned people, the professor was released and some of the other victims were released after apparently paying a huge ransom. One of the encouraging side effects of this tragedy was the instant mobilisation of funds by his colleagues at home and abroad to save the life of the unfortunate professor who narrowly, as it turned out, escaped from being shot on the head. This would have been the second high profile killing in Oyo State in recent times while both federal and state governments lie prostrate.
Yet we have policemen, soldiers and the Amotekun self-help irregular force which the federal government has decided to render almost useless because it has refused to let the states arm them while herders and criminals carry Kalashnikov precision rifles and yet state governors, according to the constitution, are the chief security officers of their states.
Why can’t the governors test the meaning of “chief security officer” in the law courts? We are hopefully still in a state of laws and not yet under a dictatorship. Why should we put all hopes for our lives on a poohbah distant from our day to day security concerns as if we are slaves?
In the 1970s, our highways had highway patrols mounted by the police on a 24-hour basis. Is the hand of the police force shortened that it can no longer protect us? What is the use of having a police force that cannot keep the road arteries of Nigeria protected and safe from ragtag armed irregulars? The Ibadan-Lagos expressway under construction since 2007 is the lifeline linking the North and the main port of Lagos and also connecting the same ports with the East, the South-south and the western hinterland with Lagos. If this road is rendered useless by the action of kidnappers and killers, then Nigeria is finished!
The police should be ordered to reintroduce the highway patrol on all major roads that worked in the past and if needs be, they should be supported by the army. We are at war and the country’s security forces should be put on war footing until this countrywide state of siege is lifted. Habeas corpus should not operate in the tackling of the terrorists and summary punishment including capital punishment should apply to kidnappers until the situation subsides. The governments, both state and federal, should not allow the insecurity to deteriorate to a level where people will resort to self-help. We are rapidly approaching the tipping point .Enough is enough.