BANDITRY, KIDNAPPING AND OSUN SECURITY

President Muhammadu Buhari and the 19 state governors in the north should as a matter of urgency study and implement Osun 2014 security architecture to tackle the scourge of kidnapping and banditry. With the Osun security architecture, former Governor Rauf Aregbesola purchased a helicopter for aerial security surveillance and presentation of sophisticated 25 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) to the Nigerian Police Force, a feat that has never been achieved by any government in the 36 states. The procurement of the helicopter and the APC was the security architecture that particularly drove away many undesirable elements from the state. I challenge any state governor to prove me wrong.

The lesson from Osun 2014 security strategy is that former Governor Aregbesola strengthened the effectiveness of the Nigeria Police Force which required improving trust with local communities and better response to citizens’ security needs. Doing so requires systemic reforms in governance and accountability. Tackling modern security threats in Osun, then, was directly tied with improving the governance and oversight of the security sector, especially the police. This is the security architecture President Buhari needs now in north-west and north-east.

Osun 2014 security architecture did not leave issues of security at the door step of federal government but filled the gap between the security agencies. Former Governor Aregbesola used the security architecture to equip and motivate the security agencies to stop armed robbery and other security challenges in the state. Osun 2014 security architecture will assist President Buhari and northern governors to checkmate the spate of kidnappings, banditry, and other criminalities. Osun 2014 security architecture will tackle terrorists in the north east, bandits in north west and north central. Nigeria has, in recent years, witnessed a rise in banditry across the country, including in the north-western states of Sokoto, Zamfara and Katsina.

Osun 2014 security architecture developed comprehensive strategy and home-grown solutions to security challenges. It developed a security plan to resolve challenges such as robbery, cultism, drug abuse and arms proliferation, among others. President Buhari should deal with corruption in the security agencies, which engenders connivance with criminal elements. The nation is at a critical juncture and kidnappers should not be allowed to hold the people in bondage. It is not time for sermonizing but for the president to brace up for action.

With virtually all criminal groups – Boko Haram, bandits, cattle rustlers, Fulani herdsmen, militia, and sundry criminal gangs – getting into kidnapping, the nation is getting dangerously close to that state of anarchy. The greed associated with kidnapping is exemplified in situations where some people organize the kidnap of their relatives, while individuals even fake their own kidnap to extort money from relatives, all in the craze to make easy money.

Studies indicate that between 2016 and the first quarter of 2020 in Nigeria, about $11 million (about N60 billion) was paid as ransom, making kidnapping a very lucrative business for the criminals. A report by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations of May 29, 2020 showed that when interviewed on insecurity, the first thing Nigerians raise is “their fear of kidnapping’’.

This is not surprising. While the Boko Haram insurgency, cattle rustling and herdsmen-farmers’ conflicts are generally limited to the north and armed robbery and ritual killings are more prevalent in the south, kidnapping is pervasive in all the 36 states of the federation and Abuja. In the beginning, kidnapping, which was targeted at high net worth individuals with millions of naira paid in ransom, has degenerated to a state where anybody can be a kidnap victim as villagers, artisans and bus passengers become targets of kidnappers for as low as N10, 000 ransom in what has been described as democratization of kidnapping.

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Inwalomhe Donald, Osogbo