Is outlawing ransom payment the best way to proceed?

In a bid to “discourage the rising spate of kidnapping and abduction for ransom” the Senate recently passed a bill imposing 15 years imprisonment for anyone found guilty of paying for the “release of any person who has been wrongfully confined, imprisoned or kidnapped”. According to a report by SB Morgen (SBM) Intelligence, at least $18.24m was paid to kidnappers between June 2011 and March 2020.

Sadly, the nation’s failed internal security system enables armed gangs to kidnap students in school, villagers at home and travelers on the highway with little risk of being caught. The Senate’s bill will now be sent to the lower chamber for consideration.

UEFA bans Russian clubs from next season’s Champions League

Disquiet in Lagos, Ebonyi APC over endorsement of Sanwo-Olu, speaker

Legislating laws, which achieve their purpose must be based on an understanding of the local environment, and an examination of the incentives and obstacles to making such laws effective. The problem with the bill is that outlawing ransom payments doesn’t give kidnappers any incentive to stop their activities, while the threat of imprisonment doesn’t remove the incentive for victims’ families to pay.

People who find themselves in a desperate situation as a result of lawlessness cannot reasonably be expected not to break the law in seeking a way out. For this reason alone, a hurried and sweeping ban on ransom payment is counter-productive, and will only serve to increase the number of criminals when ransom payers are added to the number of kidnappers!  Furthermore, it will undeniably constitute a grave injustice if, without even apprehending and jailing the kidnappers, the police arrest, prosecute, and jail those who paid ransom to “rescue” victims, which they serially prove incapable of doing.

A law simply criminalising ransom payments fails to capture all aspects of what is indisputably a complicated issue. The bill is unclear as to the status of people who were kidnapped and then arranged for ransom payment from their bank account. Having saved their own lives  and regained freedom, will they now be prosecuted and jailed by the government? Or perhaps returned to the kidnappers? Is it the kidnappers at large who will give evidence in court that ransom was paid?

The bill fails to address two important questions surrounding kidnap ransom payments. Firstly, why would any law-abiding peace-loving citizen pay ransom knowing full well that it contributes to more criminal activity? Secondly, why should anyone not pay if it means saving the life of a loved one? The answers are rooted firmly in Nigerian societal norms where protection and care of family is paramount. The bill may give rise to scenarios where those who paid a ransom for released relatives will proudly go to jail, with their heads held high and the blessing of family elders, while those who refused to pay and lost their relations will be condemned to shame with family curses rained on their heads!

It should be obvious that the end result of the bill is likely to be that many kidnappings will go unreported, making its provisions difficult if not impossible to enforce.

Whenever it suits them, Nigerian politicians claim to be practising the US style constitutional democracy, but in the US, the law generally does not prohibit paying ransom for the return of people or goods, rather it criminalises the receiving, possessing or disposing of money that at any time has been delivered as ransom.

Disappointingly, the Senate habitually makes laws whose ill effects don’t apply to them. The chances of any Senator ever being kidnapped are virtually nil as they are routinely accompanied by a plethora of mobile policemen, even then cynics are convinced that if they, or their family members, were kidnapped it would become a matter of “national security” handled quietly without public knowledge or prosecution!

There is, of course, no disputing that ransom payments provide funding for criminal activity, but as many commentators point out, monies paid to “repentant” Boko Haram members to stop killing, or Niger Delta militants to stop destroying pipelines is also a form of ransom known as “ransomware”. If private individuals are to be restrained from paying ransom for their lives or property, then such payments by the government should also be outlawed.

The bill singularly fails to differentiate between public harm and private response. If a ban on ransom payments is to be part of a credible national security strategy to stop kidnapping, then surely an essential pre-condition must be a more effective state intervention and response to kidnap attacks. The crux of the problem is that kidnappers operate with little fear of being caught because they use tactics, techniques and procedures superior to those of the nation’s undermanned, compromised, inefficient and outdated police force. Prohibition of ransom payments does absolutely nothing to solve these issues. Rather than legalise a practically unenforceable ban, a far more considered solution to the problem would be to enact laws forcing police to increase manpower and maintain best international practice manning levels; enhance their Information Technology capacities; use drone technology; form statewide helicopter gunship airborne rapid response squads; and provide appropriate emergency telecommunications alert systems at short distances on the highways.

The House of Representatives should not even consider passing such a poorly thought out bill. If they do, then the president must not assent. It is a profoundly short-sighted, ill-considered and minor attempt to address a major pressing problem. Quite simply put, outlawing ransom payment is not the best manner in which to proceed.