SOME say it is as a result of the hard times bestriding the country like a colossus, others attribute their heinous act to the unemployment situation in the country.
Many pinned Kidnappers chosen career as wicked especially when after a victim has been made to undergo different tortures, subjected to all forms of humiliations, inhuman treatment, and ransoms running into huge sums of money paid on behalf of the victim by family members, other sources, and the victim is eventually killed.
Many instances abound when a victim’s family after managing to gather money as ransom and paid eventually for the release of their loved one, the sad news that later greet their ears is that he or she kidnapped is killed. What a sad and heart-breaking omen!
Sad enough, families of the kidnapped sent to the world beyond after payments of ransom are kept in perpetual agony.
One of those concerned citizens who expressed dismay over this is the One Good Turn Support Group (ONGOTSUG) Founder/Coordinator-General, Prince Ben OBCA Nwaobi Okonya, who is also a Public Affairs Analyst.
Okonya says the whole heart is wrenched when a family after receiving a distress call that a member of the family is kidnapped, is asked to pay a certain ransom for his or her release, most times, highly-pitched ransoms, and all effort made to raise the money, and having succeeded in giving them (the kidnappers), the family is greeted with the heart-breaking news that the kidnapped victim has been killed.
The ONGOTSUG boss said he had heard news of people being kidnapped in Europe, United States of America (USA) and other countries he had visited, that victims of such kidnapped are most times kidnapped to serve as warning to the victim himself or his family perhaps over what he did that did not go down well with them, and not outright elimination of the victim after some settlements had taken place, adding that such victims are hardly killed.
Okonya, also a media consultant, whose socio-political pressure group, ONGOTSUG cuts across the 36 states of the federation with Asaba as its national headquarters, decried the high-level of kidnapping which some idle youths have now taken as their major source of income and sustenance in a country where insecurity now at its peak, thrives with impunity.
Though he admitted that the security agencies are trying their best possible way to be check-mating these kidnappers and others engaged in other heinous crimes, he strongly desire a situation where their war on these kidnappers is beefed up, saying that the war presently declared on the kidnappers is not enough. ‘All uniformed men and women whether the core military or Para-military should be involved in the fight against kidnappers in Nigeria because of the hardships being created in some families, particularly when the person kidnapped is the bread-winner of the family.
He said the excuse that there are no jobs in the country when these kidnappers are apprehended, is not tenable, uncalled for and un-admissible, saying that people unemployed still involve themselves in legitimate business that have helped to shape their lives.
He said the word ‘Negotiation’ irritates him greatly, asking why criminal elements should be engaged by some families in negotiating for the release of their kidnapped ones when security experts are supposed to track them down, arrest them and bring them to book.
Though he admitted that it was the fear that their kidnapped ones in the kidnappers’ den would be killed for any slight delays in the payment of the demanded ransom families of such victims hurriedly pay, he was of the opinion that such link after kidnap, should be channeled to the appropriate security agents who are expected to use their expertize to track down the hoodlums, get them arrested and made to face the consequences of their action in the court of law. The ONGOTSUG Boss tasked security experts to be more alive to their duties so that the fear of people who are well-to-do in the society, mostly the target of these kidnappers, would be ameliorated.
He blamed Nigerian youths who have talent to go into other legitimate endeavours but who chose to be the desperados simply because they want to amass wealth over –night, for not using such talents, pointing out that different opportunities abound in the country aside the fact that unemployment rate is high.
He, however, called on the various state and federal governments to help find a lasting solution to the unemployment syndrome rocking the country, saying some moribund industries are there to be revived but no efforts being made by various governments to have life re-injected into them while many graduates leave school to be introduced into the unemployment markets.
He says if government of Delta State can bring back some companies that used to have good number of workforce, like the moribund Asaba Textile Mills Plc, that many unemployed youths in the state would benefit, and commerce, economic boom and social life would be on the increase.
The Public Affairs Analyst from Ika Land, said he was always filled with reminiscences, going down memory lane each time he passed the premises of Asaba Textile Mills Plc, which used to be a very busy spot, and made more popular with the defunct Asaba Textile Mills Football Club (also popularly known as Asaba Tex FC) which reigned alongside other popular football clubs like Enugu Rangers, Bendel Insurance, Kano Pillars , Calabar Rovers etc, and fizzled out like its mother company, the moment the textile mills became moribund.
