That kidnap incidents hardly attract newspaper headlines any more in this country is just stating the obvious. The metastasizing nature of the malfeasance should ordinarily be a guide in this direction.
What may attract public attention to this criminal activity is perhaps, the new dimension it assumes from time to time and its gravity. That was precisely the situation when an Abuja-Kaduna train was attacked with fatalities and scores herded inside impenetrable forests where they languished for months.
The same sentiments coloured the recent kidnap of 20 medical students somewhere in Benue State on their way to an event. The significance of the later incident does not lie as much in the sheer number of the abductees as in their would-be profession.
Before this incident, many commercial transport buses had been waylaid by bands of criminals and herded into the forests where they had horrifying encounters, securing their freedom after paying huge sums of money as ransom. If such incidents were reported at all, not much attention was given to them.
When last week, national dailies came awash with headlines on the busting and arrest of a five-man kidnap gang terrorising Obinze and Avu in the Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, one was taken aback as to the reason for the special media attention. What is the big deal in smashing a gang of five seemingly amateur kidnappers? Is it in the sheer number of those arrested, borne out of special interest in security issues in Imo State or what?
But a cursory reading of the story began to indicate that there was really a revealing dimension to the story that may have been responsible for the headline focus. And that has to do with the dramatis personae in the alleged criminality.
What were the issues? The story told by the Imo State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Henry Okoye in a statement was that the police anti-kidnap squad arrested a five-man gang of kidnappers terrorising Obinze and Avu communities in the Owerri West LGA of the state after the kidnap of a 26-year old woman from her Obinze residence. The gang which was said to be behind most of the kidnappings in that vicinity had held their victim captive in the forest for days before she was freed by the police, unharmed.
Among the items found on gang members were one pump-action gun, five cartridges, two daggers, a cutlass and an assortment of items suspected to be charms. That was not all.
When they were profiled by the police, their identities gave them out as, Umaru Usman, from Mauree, Sokoto State, Tukur Yau from Dawakin Kudu in Kano State, Musbau Sabo from Warsaw LGA in Kano State, Abdul Ibrahim from Sokoto and Jubrin Idris also from Sokoto State.
It was only then it struck that the reason the arrest attracted generous reportage in the national media may not be unconnected with the identity of the arrested suspects. All of them are non-indigenes of the state; having come from the far northern parts of the country to hibernate in the forests at someone else’s backyard to commit crimes.
It was therefore not for nothing that the Imo State Police Command took pains in detailing the names of the suspects and their states of origin. In matters of this nature, it is not unusual for the security agencies to withhold such details just to play down the fault-lines of our federal order.
But that consideration was waived apparently on account of the mortal harm kidnapping and sundry criminalities have wrought on lives and properties in the state in the last couple of years. What we have seen since the festering insecurity in the state has been a tendency by security agencies to blame any and every criminality in the southeast on purported self-determinations agitators. And it has been serving their purpose even at the risk of obfuscating the complexity of the issues at play.
This mind-set has tended to blur full comprehension of the character and dimensions of the criminalities that have left sorrow and awe on many families with socio-economic activities at their lowest ebb. So if the police busted a notorious kidnap gang terrorising some communities and it happens they are all strangers to the area, that is something worthy of note. You cannot effectively fight crime if you do not understand its character and dimensions.
That may have been the rationale for giving out the names and states of origin of the suspects as well. We now know that some of the criminal activities in the state are solely organised and directed by bands of stranger elements taking refuge in the forests. It also gives an inkling into the mortal danger allowing people of questionable motives unhindered access to the forests and bushes at the backyards of the indigenous population portend.
This is not the first time a band of stranger criminals terrorising the same local government will be unmasked in Imo State. In January last year, the state police command in conjunction with local vigilante similarly stormed a forest between Avu and Ihiagwa in the same local government and arrested five kidnap suspects.
Their names given by the police in a statement then were, Muazu Awuta, Abdullahi Abubakar, Ozeru Sabo, Saddam Sulieman and Bashir Yahaya. All of them were from Jau LGA in Jigawa State.
When the forest was combed, two decomposing bodies, telephones, shoes and wristwatches among other items, were found. Five operational motorcycles belonging to the suspects were also found within the vicinity.
When the two incidents are paired, certain facts begin to emerge. The first is that the kidnap rings are non-indigenous to the state as they are composed exclusively by stranger elements. The other which is a corollary of the first, is that the forests provided them the cover for their illegal enterprise. The discovery of motorcycles also suggests they may have hidden under the cover of commercial bike riders to perpetrate their heinous crimes in the state.
These are the clues the law enforcement agencies are expected to work on to diminish crimes and render its manifestations a dangerous enterprise. But the revelations by the two incidents are not entirely new. They are encapsulated in the age-long agitations against open grazing of cattle.
The main grouse against open cattle grazing in recent years has been on account of the cover it gives sundry criminals to hide in the forests to levy war on the rest of the society. Ungoverned forests and bushes have been the greatest impediment to the war against kidnapping and ancillary criminalities.
Incidentally, the complex politics of open cattle grazing as opposed to modern forms of animal husbandry has not helped matters. And with the presence of herdsmen in the forests, it has been a daunting task drawing a line between the genuine herders and the criminal bands taking advantage of the situation to commit sundry crimes.
Had the ban on open cattle grazing in parts of the southern states been effective, it would have been pretty difficult for the criminal ring of stranger elements to find abode in the forests at the backyards of the indigenous people. Then, no stranger element would have had any excuse to lurk around the forests at other peoples’ backyard.
So the issues are clear. The reason somebody will come from Sokoto, hide in the forest at my backyard and attack me at will, is because of the presence of herdsmen which blurs differentiation between the genuine ones and the criminals. The solution is simple. Whether our leaders find the political will to address this time bomb, will be a measure of their seriousness in finding lasting solutions to festering insecurity fast drifting the country to the precipice.
But there is another activity in the forests that injects complications to the security of host communities – the activities of another band of stranger elements purporting to be hunters. Writing under the title, ‘Hunters or criminals in disguise’, this writer had in this column drawn attention to complications this activity injects into the festering insecurity.
The article followed reports from Imo, Ondo and Delta states of the presence of stranger elements dropped off in various locations with dogs and some ammunitions purporting as hunters. A social crusader in Imo State, Chinonso Uba had in a widely circulated video, queried their motive and called for regular combing of the forests.
Ondo State security outfit, Amotekun had arrested 149 of such people in black spots notorious for kidnapping and sundry criminalities. But the Delta State police command which arrested and profiled some others curiously certified them as genuine hunters even when guns were found on them. Despite the curious verdict by the Delta police, the puzzle remained what business stranger elements with zero knowledge of the forests had invading those areas in such numbers. What kind of gaming will take them from the far north with their dogs and arms to the forests of the local people without authorisation from the local community? The answer can be located in the busting of the two criminal gang of stranger elements hiding under the cover of the forests to terrorise Imo communities.
