Following the sensational arrest of suspected kidnapper, Evans recently, Mike Ozekhome has explained why we all are kidnappers.
Mike Ozekhome
The story is now notorious, of Chukwudubem Onwuamadike, aka Evans,
whom a section of the media has profanely glorified as a
“multi-billionaire kidnapper”, thus, unwittingly edifying and ennobling
kidnapping and such vile crimes.
Kidnapping is the abduction or unlawful transportation of a person,
usually to hold the person against his or her will and consent. This
may be done for ransom or in furtherance of another crime. It refers to
the crime of seizing, confining, abducting, or carrying away a person by
force or fraud, often to subject him or her to involuntary servitude in
an attempt to demand a ransom. Most countries consider it a grave
offence punishable by death or long prison sentence. In Nigeria,
kidnapping is a felony. Section 364 of the Criminal Code Act that
operates in the Southern part of Nigeria provides 10 years imprisonment,
while Section 273 of the Penal Code, which operates in the North
prescribes 10 years, plus fine.
Many Nigerians have argued that the extant anti-kidnapping laws in
the country are not stringent enough to dissuade criminals from finding
kidnapping a lucrative business of making quick money. They clamour for
stricter penalties. This is why some states like Edo, Delta, Rivers and
Oyo have passed the anti -kidnapping laws and imposed the death penalty
for convicted kidnappers. Whether this has achieved its objective is
another matter entirely. Kidnapping has been used since the dawn of
mankind to gain advantage in a conflict, for political reasons, ransom,
or to settle scores.
Mexico is the world capital of drug cartels and quite a good
example for organised crime. Here, kidnapping is focused on tourists and
members of groups in conflict. An average of 7, 576 people have been
kidnapped in the past five years. Mexico is followed by India, where
about 4, 921 persons have been kidnapped in the last five years.
Surprisingly, Nigeria now ranks top in the world, where an average of 1,
529 persons are kidnapped annually. Pakistan (320 average per annum);
Venezuela (245 average per annum); Lebanon (198 annually); Philippines
(120 annually); Afghanistan (100 annually); Colombia and Iraq, also rank
in this group.
We are all Evans, one way or another. Simply summarised, Evans had
viciously kidnapped targeted and profiled wealthy members of the
society, especially on the FESTAC, ASPAMDA axis. He would manacle and
shackle them, hands and feet, in his inhuman detention dungeons spread
across Lagos and some other states of the federation. He would then
dictate to the trembling victims, how much money they must pay in
pounds, euros and dollars, to secure their precious lives. He was in
total control. Though barely literate, having dropped out in form three
in secondary school, his educational inadequacy is hugely compensated
for in his elephantine native intelligence. He would never negotiate
with his captives’ relations and friends. That was too risky. He rather
dictated, not negotiated, directly, with his squirmy victims under
threats of death.
To aid his horrendously lucrative blood “business”, he had about
170 telephone lines. Two of his handsets were Thuraya and Vertu, costing
N2.4 million and N2.6million, respectively. This princely sum of N5
milion for only two telephone handsets is enough to set up a thriving
business for a Nigerian; or build a four-bedroom bungalow; or buy 35
commercial motorcycles to empower struggling unemployed graduates, whose
only “crime” is that they went through pains and pangs to study in the
university, while Evans was busy acquiring the latest global kidnap
tactics and strategies. The good news is that the long arm of the law,
though slow, has finally caught up with Evans. But, the bad news is that
we are all certified kidnappers in the mould of Evans.
I will tell you why. Evans never kept his victims in lonely,
desolate, eerie jungles where owls hoot ominously and monkeys do tricky
“janglover” jumps on tree branches. When I was kidnapped for three
weeks, I was kept in the jungles. But, I could hear church music, native
drumming and singing, not far away. I could decipher the local language
from the lyrics. Our kidnappers used cars and motorcycles to purchase
food stuff and fuel. I was convinced that the locals very well knew what
“profession” my kidnappers were into. They obviously condoned it or,
perhaps, enjoyed the resultant blood money. God, I thank you eternally
for saving my life. It was most horrific an experience. Death by
installments! Fear of death; fear of fear! But, Evans unusually kept his
captives inside busy neighbourhoods and estates. From the pictures and
videos shown of his detention cells in new Igando town and Jakande
Estate, Isolo, Lagos, Evans daringly operated right inside busy
communities. Did neighbours not see suspicious movements over the years?
Did they not do simple inquiry and due diligence, as to who their next
door neighbours were; and what they did for a living? Did neighbours not
observe unusual vehicular traffic, taking in and ejection of
passengers, some skirmishes and then sudden dead silence? Were they not
worried that their immediate neighbours did not come out openly in the
day time to associate and interact with others? If they did, could they
not simply interview such neighbours in a friendly manner, as to their
names, what they did for a living; where they worked; their state of
origin; profession, etc.
We become automatic complicit kidnappers when, out of negligence,
indifference and sheer idiocy, we allow vicious, murderous kidnappers to
live in our midst, and keep our brothers and sisters in dungeons next
doors.
How many Nigerians actually know the true identities, places of
origin and next of kin of their house-helps, drivers, intrusive
electricians, plumbers, dry cleaners, and the very “security” men that
“guard” their homes? They are mostly the unseen, lurking link to
kidnappers. We are, therefore, all certified kidnappers in every sense
of the word. After all, some greedy members of the legislature have
kidnapped our common purse and our national patrimony. Some corrupt eggs
within the judiciary have kidnapped our blindfolded Justitia, the Roman
goddess of justice, by auctioning her to the highest bidders. The
draconian, tyrannical and despotic executive has since kidnapped our
individual and collective rights and liberties, good governance, rule of
law, transparency and accountability. Instead, it has unleashed on the
hapless citizenry many Evans, by billowing out acute hunger,
nerve-racking poverty, abject penury, fear, despondency, haplessness,
pains, pangs, blood and sorrow.
Some professionals have kidnapped our professional sense of decency
and dedication to duty. Our parents, through bad examples, have
kidnapped our cherished family values, endearing societal ethos and
moral rectitude. Our churches and mosques have kidnapped our collective
spiritual, celestial and even terrestrial values, turning sacred houses
of God into bacchanalian bazaars of merchantilistic barters. Our
traditional institutions have kidnapped our noble traditional ancestral
values, by doling out chieftaincy titles to kidnappers, “Otokotos”
(ritualists), drug pushers, armed robbers, prostitutes, advance fee
fraudsters and notorious criminal elements. Titles awarded to such
miscreants always end with “one”, never “two”: “Ogbigbi I”, “Osofia I”,
“Otunba of the Universe”, “Maigworo of Gagudu”, etc. Our citadels of
learning have since kidnapped our lofty educational and intellectual
standards by awarding degrees to half baked graduands, who can pay the
right fee; and by awarding honorary doctorate degrees and fellowships to
celebrated misfits, whose only claim to importance is belonging to the
top echelon of despicable money bags. Our children have kidnapped our
once cherished parental values, by turning themselves into vicious
cultists, common prostitutes, heartless kidnappers, dangerous armed
robbers, incorrigible drug pushers, serial murderers, etc.
Now, you see why we are all certified kidnappers? Yes. Certificated
Kidnappers of our cherished customs, traditions, cultures, history,
values, ethics, morals, decency, godliness, integrity, honour and
dignity. God, exorcise the kidnappers in us, amen.
The anti-graft “war” and pathetic historical revisionists at work
The leadership of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against
Corruption (PACAC), at a programme recently organised by the National
Association of Seadogs (the Pirates Confraternity), was said to have
lambasted the Attorney General of the Federation, for allegedly not
seriously fighting the anti-corruption war.
I had been invited, as a guest speaker to the programme, but
unfortunately could not make it, due to prior professional engagements,
which I duly communicated to the understanding organisers. I had desired
to speak to PACAC members, eye ball to eye ball, as I did in June last
year, and March, this year, when I spoke truth to authority at an
anti-corruption seminar they invited me to.
Specifically, one professor Femi Odekunle, a member of PACAC, in
unjustifiably castigating the AG, Abubakar Malami, SAN, as not being
committed to the anti-corruption “war”, was said to have moaned, in
lachrymal effusion, thus, in the Vanguard of June 22, 2017:
“Is the Attorney-General of the Federation, who is to lead the
anti-corruption fight, going by the way things have been going in the
past two years, as committed as others who could have done the job
better?”
Odekunle was literally recommending the AG’s sack. It is quite
shameful, painful and disheartening that Professor Olufemi Odekunle, who
was himself implicated in a phantom coup with his master, General
Oladipo Diya, in 1997, horrifically manacled and chained down like an
animal, by Abacha’s goons, awaiting death, has continued to advertise
“rofo-rofo” fight against corruption (an euphemism for crude, bestial,
violation of cherished rights and liberties of Nigerian citizens).
At page 5, Vanguard, Thursday, 22nd June, 2017, Odekunle queried:
“Does the Presidency realise that routine crime prevention and
methodology, instruments and processes are not adequate in fighting
corruption in this country? That is, does the Presidency realise that
fighting corruption must be a ‘rofo rofo’ fight? That it is not a
question of due process, long process, fair hearing and all those that
will give you technical justice instead of real justice?”
I do not usually discuss individuals by name, except where the
story is not detachable from them, as in Odekunle’s particular case. I
dwell on ideas; issues, challenges and solutions.
But, I am appalled that Professor Odekunle, a once pathetic victim
of a crude process that we strenously protested against on the streets
of Lagos and Abuja to save from the jaws of death, no longer believes in
fair hearing and due process! What is in this Aso Villa – acquired
power that changes intakes into monstrosities? Their grouse with the AGF
is that the AGF, a decent man, is not, unlike PACAC members, employing
crude, gestapo-like, inhuman and degrading methods to cow opposition,
critical voices, try and convict them in the media ever before the real
trial commences. The “problem” with the AGF is that he is too mature and
knowledgeable in the Constitution and laws than their warped,
vindictive and puerile stance.
Odekunle, for the records, was, on December 20, 1997, at 3.00am,
woken up in his Abuja home, by the dreaded Abacha “Strike Force” and
captured like a common criminal. He had been appointed Chairman,
Advisory Committee (he must be an expert “Adviser”), to General Oladipo
Diya, the then Chief of General Staff, on Socio-political and Economic
Matters. He was beaten black and blue, like a stubborn goat that
stupidly went frolicking into a busy market on a market day. These were
his personal words. He was made to urinate and defecate in the full
glare of gun-totting soldiers, with a short time line given to complete
both. He literally froze in the cold harmattan wind. He was only
released from cell 4 in Jos gulag, on July 15, 1998, at 10.30 pm. This
is the same man who later supported the unholy midnight raid on judges
by hooded DSS operatives, same hoods some of his captors had worn on
that fateful day. They even wanted Odekunle to implicate himself. And
this man no longer believes in due process, rule of law and respect for
human rights. Oh, God, you are just too patient and tolerant of man’s
inhumanity to man.
Last year, PACAC had trenchantly defended CCT Chairman, Danladi
Umar, because it felt it was a done deal for Umar to convict Saraki. As
soon as Umar rejected blaring sirens of power and freed Saraki, they
turned against him. They initially supported N250 million grass-cutting
Babachir Lawal, but later turned against him when he was suspended by
PMB. What manner of characters are these? They simply blow hot and cold;
they approbate and reprobate. No principles, targets, aims, objectives.
Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, a seasoned lawyer, has since done the right thing
by appealing. But PACAC, which glorifies the handcuffing of suspects,
media trial and brazen dictatorship, are weeping. The HAG has certainly
done better than they. It is their blatant usurpation of the HAG’s
powers under Section 174 of the Constitution, playing to the gallery,
noise making, brute force, unguarded statements and narcism, that have
irredeemably wrecked their so-called, still-born anti-corruption
“fight”.
I challenge PACAC leadership disclose to Nigerians, how much money
and what properties, the EFCC, DSS, ICPC, Police, DIA, etc., have so far
recovered from the “looters” of our common treasury. I challenge them
to display to the public, their filled assets declaration forms, if any,
with the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB). If they cannot carry out these
simple anti-corruption indices, they should forever keep silent and save
us the insults and ridicule of our collective sensibilities.
***
Written by Mike Ozekhome/Sun News
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