Kidnapping for ransom in the Southeast has been a major headache for stakeholders, including security agencies, residents, the government as well as the traditional institutions.
With an unenviable status as the zone with the highest rate of kidnapping in the country, the heinous crime is, indeed, a scourge in the Southeast.
Immeasurable human and material resources have been committed to fighting this menace and it is gradually scaling down. The reports are no longer damning, there is almost a heave of relief. The security chiefs are satisfied with their feat in defeating the bandits, at least technically, the people are getting relaxed and businesses are picking up again.
But it is not yet time to say uhuru. The kidnappers are not giving up; instead they have devised another tactics.
They now ‘kidnap’ corpses from mortuaries, where they will encounter little or no resistance and thereafter demand some ransom from owners of the corpses.
They have returned to business and on daily basis corpses are missing from the morgues and the owners are parting with huge sums of money to reclaim the bodies of the dead.
It is indeed a disturbing trend, it is an abomination, but the allure of raiding an unguarded morgue and carting away defenseless corpses is irresistible to the kidnappers.
Kidnapping of corpses is now in vogue in the Southeast. One can imagine the agony and frustration of a family that has made all preparations for funeral ceremony only to get to the mortuary and discover that the remains of their beloved one have been ‘abducted’ and hours later they will receive phone calls for ransom.
One may be tempted to ask what the negotiating power of the kidnappers is, when their victim is already dead and decomposing. How do they get the relatives to part with money, unlike when they abduct a living person and threaten to kill their victim if ransom is not paid?
But the answer is not far-fetched, burial ceremonies in the Southeast are attended by great fanfare and festivity. The rich and the poor alike invest huge sums of money to bury their loved ones under the illusion that it is a mark of love and respect for the dead. It is a serious stigma on any family that could not give their dead ones befitting burials.
The new trend of kidnapping of corpses may sound unreal, but the Imo State Police Command recently paraded two suspected kidnappers who stole a female corpse and demanded N5 million ransom from the owner of the morgue.
The suspects, Chukwudi Chukwu and Bethel Ibe both from Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State, were reported to have broken into the Jesus Hospital Mortuary also in Ikeduru and carted away the corpse whose identity was concealed from reporters.
They thereafter contacted the owner of the morgue, Prince Bright Njoku and demanded ransom.
But the police smashed their hideout, arrested them and rescued the corpse before the ransom could be paid.
The Imo State Commissioner of Police, Dasuki Galadanchi, described the trend as disturbing, but assured that the Command will continue to make the state uncomfortable for all manner of kidnappers.
He said: “It is an abomination to desecrate the dead. How can people invade a mortuary and carry away corpses? But everyone involved in this heinous crime will not go unpunished.”
Meanwhile the suspects, who claimed that they were introduced to the business by some of their friends that specialised in abducting dead people, blamed the devil for their action.
Narrating how they stole the corpse, the suspects said: “We went into the mortuary that night and carried one corpse and took it to the bush where we hid it. We didn’t know the identity of the woman. After that we called the owner of the mortuary to give us N5 million. We were still in the bush waiting for the money when policemen came and arrested us”.