Everyman should have a gun. The policy of one man, one gun should be affected as a viable solution to frequent kidnapping in Nigeria, opins Obi Anene.
The first major case of kidnapping of foreign oil workers in the Niger Delta in April 2002, when some youths from Ekeremoh Local Government Area of Bayelsa State abducted ten workers of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC). The militants asked for and were given a ransom, according to reports.
This event signalled the advent of a phenomenon that has grown exponential and dangerously too, shifting from economic to religious considerations.
Religion based kidnapping started with the Boko Haram invasion of 2009. This invasion was instigated by the morbid hatred of the Goodluck Jonathan regime by the North and in the Northern quest to unseat the man, the Boko Haram was instituted to ensure that Nigeria was made ungovernable from what every one has learnt from the Boko Haram boys. Some prominent Governors in the North were sponsors of the organization. Backed by some foreign interests, who were looking for avenues of getting in-ward into Nigeria, they went on rampage, condemning “Western” education, killing, pillaging and capturing territories in the North-East. They, of course, added kidnapping to their trade. Before you knew it, they had captured some local government areas and declared their independence and the creation of a new Islamic state. Kidnapping had become an art form. Once Jonathan had been bounded out of power, Boko Haram now had a life of its own and developed different faces in the North-Central and the North West. Then the ethnic factor came in. Some politicians from the North, who should have condemned the kidnappings outright, played the ethnic game by referring to the kidnappers as people engaged in “business”.
All these spiced with a flair of politics and religion, of course, encouraged the kidnappers to go on rampage.
They went to the extent of carrying their nefarious activities into the south, with some people in the south in collision with them. Thus, armed with arms supplied by some Northern elements who saw their exploit as means of Jihadism, and armed also with the guns from the renegade troops from Northern Africa, they came to the south, kidnapping and killing kings, chiefs and ordinary human beings from whom they demanded ransoms.
In Anioma for example, way back in 2016, the Obi of Ubulu-Uku, Obi Edward Ofulue III, was kidnapped and killed by Fulani kidnappers. Up till today, the killers have been locked up but not killed. Indeed, the establishment wanted to transfer the case from Asaba to Abuja, where the killers would have been soft landing. The reaction of the people stopped that nefarious attempt. In 2024, at kwale, Umutu and elsewhere in the Ndokwa area, kidnappers killed Chiefs and ordinary people. In the same 2024 and in 2025, Issele-Uku, and Ubulu-uku witnessed the kidnapping of several people, and the killing of at least 5. As late as February, two people were kidnapped in Ubulu-uku with a ransom demand of 30 Million naira by the Fulani Marauders and kidnappers. The Ubulu-uku Vigilante chases them off, but they escaped with one citizen still detained by them as of the time of writing. Kidnapping is wrong for several reasons. First, it displaces people from their homes and farm lands. The rise in cost of farm produce today is partially due to the displacement of people from their farmlands by kidnappers. Thus there is scarcity of food as farm lands become desolate. Secondly, kidnapping leads to enmity among groups, farmers against herders, tribe against tribe, christians against muslims, region against region. What all this does against the desired unity and cohesion of Nigeria can only be imagined. So what is the solution to kidnapping in our land? Several solutions have been offered, some insist that the best solution is the kinetic one - use the military - all arms of it to flush out the kidnappers and killers. Some opt for the use of vigilante groups. Some opt for the use of hunters alongside vigilante security forces in a joint effort (joint task force) to knock sense into the outlaws. As far as I am concerned, the above suggestions are in order. But the most effective method of stopping kidnapping is the self-help method. Everyman should have a gun. The policy of one man, one gun should be affected. It was effectively utilized during the American war of independence when all Americans were asked to grab a gun so as to fight off the invading British colonial masters. In my opinion, this is the viable solution. Then kidnappers who kill their victims should be killed, and anyone who kidnaps and frees the victim, when caught, should be sentenced to a long jail term. Any measure beyond all these is a waste of time.
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