our prominent members of Nigeria's Fourth Estate of the Realm recently grappled with a monstrosity that has plagued their country for a few years now. This is the spate of kidnappings which has taken over certain areas of the country.
It is true the scourge of holding others for a fat ransom is now endemic in the Eastern part of Nigeria where the four journalists --- AbdulWahab Oba, Adolphus Okonkwo, Sylva Okereke and Shola Oyeyipo, along with their driver, Azeez Abdulrauf ---were recently held. But the phenomenon did not start there. That dubious distinction belongs to the states of the Niger Delta area, where kidnapping of employees of oil companies and well-heeled private individuals was fashioned into a potent weapon by armed militants active in the area up till a year ago.
But since the amnesty for Niger Delta militants took effect others have taken the seed first sown in the Niger Delta and re-planted it in the core Eastern states of Imo, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Abia. The four journalists were kidnapped and held in Abia State before they regained their freedom after about a week in captivity. Earlier, in October last year, the father of erstwhile Central Bank governor, Charles Soludo, was kidnapped in his home located in Aguata local government area of Anambra State. The old man was subsequently released after a hefty ransom was believed to have been paid to the hoodlums.
Shortly after Pa Soludo's abduction, foremost Nollywood actor and singer Nkem Owoh---he of the "I Go Chop Your Dollar fame---was kidnapped while driving along the Enugu portion of the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway, in November 2009. He was freed a week later after a yet-unknown sum was paid to his abductors. Earlier, in August 2009, another Nigerian thespian Pete Edochie was kidnapped while driving along the Afor-Nkpor road near Onitsha, in Anambra State. He, too, was believed to have been freed after some money was paid to the kidnappers.
Even when the mother of ex-Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) President, Sani Lulu, was kidnapped from her home in Kogi State and held for a week this past July before being released, she was found in a location in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State after her abductors set her loose.
The scourge of kidnappings may have found an uneasy abode in the Eastern part of Nigeria; but the factors that engender the sad phenomenon can be located within the higher echelons of the country. Abdulwahab Oba, one of the four journalists recently captured and who is also the Chairman of the Lagos State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) said their captors told them the never-ending hardships of everyday existence as ordinary citizens of Nigeria pushed them into the crime.
While their action is condemnable in every sense, the source of the unending frustration that pushed the kidnappers into their unfortunate vocation is not hard to seek. As with the situation in the Niger Delta that first gave rise to the phenomenon of kidnappings, Nigeria's political leadership and elite have continued to show scarce attention to the plight of the millions of ordinary citizens of the country.
A case in point is the National Assembly, populated with men and women supposedly elected to serve the Nigerian people by making good laws that would promote the general and greater welfare. Instead---especially with those of them in the current electoral cycle---the lawmakers have only been pre-occupied with keeping an eagle eye on promoting their own welfare. Senators and members of the House of Representatives vote outlandish salaries and allowances for themselves and earn far bigger emoluments than their counterparts in countries with admirable infrastructure and social safety-net programs. Senators in Nigeria are believed to have allocated to themselves about 60 million naira per quarter for a so-called "Constituency Allowance", while their "junior" counterparts in the House of Representatives make do with only a "paltry" allocation of 45 million naira per quarter.
Perhaps this puts the grasping nature of Nigeria's "lawmakers" in clearer relief: the man who leads the richest and most powerful country in the world, President Barack Obama, earns the equivalent of 60 million naira per annum as salary (at $400,000 per annum). In contrast, an all-important Nigeria Senator has unilaterally allocated to himself 60 million naira per quarter, as Constituency Allowance only. He or she collects this princely sum thrice a year, which does not include the sums paid for salaries and other allowances. By year's end, a Nigerian Senator would have spirited away salaries and other allowances totaling 1.6 million dollars in its Nigerian equivalent. His counterpart in the House of Representatives does not do too badly either: at the end of the year, each member of "The House" would have earned a whopping 1.2 million dollars in salaries, allowances and other "allocations".
Talk about kidnapping the Nigerian treasury!
What makes these outlandish payments even more irksome is that they are contrary to every existing constitutional and procedural guideline set out to govern such payments. While the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC), the body charged with setting the emoluments of National Assembly members, set the total payments in any fiscal year at 15 billion naira, monies paid to the National Assembly members last year is believed to have been at least six times that number, at 90 billion naira. This year that figure is expected to be well over 100 billion naira. This for a body that has only 469 members.
In contrast, the total budget for the federalized Nigeria Police Force for the 2010 fiscal year is about 216 billion naira. This for an organization that has close to half a million men and officers within its ranks, and who have to be trained , clothed and armed to face the numerous security challenges that confront the country. Perhaps even more frightening is the personal financial challenge members of the Force must be facing, especially the low-level ones: a Sergeant in the Nigeria Police Force is believed to earn the equivalent of 250 dollars per month.
Many have certainly heard of or witnessed the stories of individual and institutional corruption that have trailed the Nigeria Police Force as an institution and crime-fighting unit. We have read about or heard tales of Nigerian policemen who "accidentally-discharge" to death innocent motorists that refuse to part with amounts as low as 100 naira (66 cents). Surely, a person like the Inspector-General of Nigeria's Police Force would be aware of such grating realities too, right?
Don't be so sure. At the height of the nationwide anguish that trailed the abduction of the kidnapped journalists, Inspector-General of Police, Ogbonnaya Onovo, missed a golden opportunity to highlight the institutional obstacles placed along the path of police personnel striving to assure the security of lives and property in Nigeria. Rather than draw attention to an illogical scenario where the equivalent of half the budget of an institution with nearly 400,000 persons is used to cater to the comforts and caprices of only 469 (yes, just 469) legislators, the Police IG chose to beat about the bush---and not in search of the four kidnapped journalists.
Instead, the Police IG proclaimed he had recruited and deployed members of Israel's famed Mossad Intelligence service to join the hunt for the kidnappers and free the journalists. The kidnappers, probably aware of the Mossad's exploits all over the world, especially the recent instance of the assassination in Dubai of Palestinian activist Mahmud al-Mabhuh, quickly released the abducted journalists!
While IG Onovo basks in the glow of his threat's "effectiveness", one wonders why he did not consider it necessary to deploy Nigerian Intelligence officers in search of the kidnappers and their victims. Even if the IG could not find any effective Nigerian officer among the ranks of the State Security Service (SSS) and the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA), he could have given a thought to having some of his men trained by the Mossad officers, or by officials of any other country with a world-class Intelligence service.
Where would the money to fund such a training come from? Let's start with the National Assembly…
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