Mysteries of the kidnapping economy

One interesting piece of fiction resurfaced in the Nigerian jungle of the Internet last week and succeeded in proselytizing readers who had wild theories of the kidnapping conundrum in Northern Nigeria.

The story, which was attributed to various authors and sometimes uncredited, says when the mother of a foremost Nigerian oil tycoon, Alhaji Nagogo Mamman Shema, was abducted, an idea was created: To checkmate the kidnappers, who at first demanded N100 million and, reluctantly, settled for N20 million, the Katsina-born businessman approached the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and obtained “serially arranged” Naira notes. This thriller, rendered in a sensational and conspiratorial tone, has triggered interest in the forensic analyses of this criminal enterprise.

Before handing the money over to the kidnappers, the story goes, the businessman had “approached all neighbouring banks and requested them to report anyone who came to deposit money, in large sums, bearing the numbers associated with the money.” The villains unmasked comprise a Police Inspector, an Army Lieutenant, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, and “a top brass in the security (sic).” The perplexed Shema, the tale continues, was advised against blowing the whistle for the sake of “national security.”

This story first went viral in the wake of 2020 and was disproved in a February 13 press statement by the management of Shema Petroleum, on behalf of Mr. Shema. The Hollywood-style sting operation never happened. That this fiction went viral about 10 months after it first did, indicts the policy vacuum in our quest to make sense of this madness. The citizens who’ve fallen for the story imagine a country institutionally wired to track their killers, but also sabotaged by criminals in sensitive offices. Some of the assumptions, however, are based on narrow interpretations of the kidnap-for-money culture.

Sometime in October last year, a car mart in Lagos welcomed three unsuspecting customers asking for the price of the 2013 model of Toyota Camry XLE. The dealer, named Makinde, told them N5 million, and so they took his bank details. Two days later, he received N3 million from the buyers. They came back, three days later, with an apology that they weren’t in the position to pay up the balance and asked the dealer to refund N2.5 million and keep N500,000 for his inconveniences. Poor Makinde only realised he had been an unwitting player in a kidnap transaction when, four days later, an investigation led operatives of the recently-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) to his mart.

I asked my uncle, who heads a top bank, about the seeming lack of collaboration between the relevant law-enforcement agencies and banks. Families of abducted people, he said, often keep their communications with the kidnappers and transactions away from the Police, as instructed in stern threats. They are not unaware of the implication of a sting operation because the kidnappers tend to have ears at local police stations. “That’s if they even choose to use the bank,” he added, referring to the offline cash transactions similar to the approach by the fictional Shema.

Like the authors of the disproved Shema story, I’m also curious about the channels through which the ransoms are laundered. Understandably, the solo and secret operations of families rushing to have their loved ones back, are an obstacle. The confession of one Abubakar Yakubu, also known as Habu Dogo, revealed the complexities of kidnapping. Along with his goons, Habu Dogo, a commercial motorcyclist on the Samaru Campus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, masterminded abductions in exchange for a paltry N30,000 or N50,000 by ransom-collecting leaders who instructed from the shadow. We still don’t know the shocking identities we are likely to unravel when the torch begins to point towards the right shadows.

“But it’s really easy to launder these ransoms,” said a banker friend. His thesis was built on the fact that ransoms can easily be given to unknown Bureau De Change operators in exchange for hard currencies, and without any suspicion. I got his explanation that the word ‘kidnapper’ isn’t written on the forehead of citizens patronizing money changers, who offer unregulated and unmonitored services in the parallel market.

The idea of adopting the fictional Shema approach is appealing, but a quick headcount of the security operatives also kidnapped or reportedly involved in kidnapping, makes one forgive the families of abductees for refusing to rely on, and collaborate with, law-enforcement agencies. In September, an operative of the Department of State Services (DSS), Sadiq Abdullahi Bindawa, was killed by his abductors in Katsina after receiving the sum of N5 million as ransom. In the same month, gunmen ambushed officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) along Mararaba-Udege road in Nasarawa State, killing two, and kidnapping ten. They were a part of 26 officials travelling in two buses from Sokoto and Kebbi command of the corps for a training programme at FRSC Academy in Abuja.

In October, Colonel SB Onifade, an officer of the Nigerian Army, was abducted along Abuja-Kaduna expressway and, a few days later, various media platforms carried that he was killed by his abductors despite payment of N10 million ransom. November came with the report of abduction of twelve police officers along Katsina-Zamfara road.  Earlier in the year, a naval officer, Uchegbulah Amadi, was kidnapped along Owo-Ikare Road in Ondo State. The list goes on.

But our security operatives are also characters of wild suspicions and conspiracy theories in this market of blood money. The story of Bala Hamisu, more known as Wadume, drives this narrative. In 2019, the Taraba-based head of a kidnap syndicate escaped when the policemen transporting him to the state police command were intercepted by a hail of bullets. Behind the guns were Army personnel. Three police officers died in the attack. The soldiers, in their defence, claimed they thought the policemen were kidnappers. The Police Force, believing the attack was to aid the kidnap kingpin’s escape, charged the soldiers, along Wadume—who was later re-arrested in Kano—for terrorism, murder, kidnapping and illegal arms running.

A police officer friend, stating that the Police Force is dangerously overstretched by the maddening internal security crises, attributed the evolution of this dystopia to the inadequacy of database of Nigerians. The fact that it’s almost impossible to track criminals via biometrics, he observed, is a setback from the word go in criminal investigations. He emphasized that the National Identification Number (NIN) scheme as timely in a society where mobile phone details aren’t enough to identify and hunt a criminal.

This dysfunction created the anarchy that’s become a money-laundering paradise. But the scariest dimension is the operations of bandit syndicates, with which the government, especially at state levels, negotiate, almost cordially. The release of the 344 abducted Kankara schoolboys after six days of uncertainty, with the intervention of the Miyetti Allah group—shaming Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, who had released propaganda video to claim 520 of the students were in his custody—confirms that the government no longer has a monopoly of force within its jurisdiction. The Katsina state government has claimed that no ransom was paid to free the young boys, but the plausibility of this claim is even scarier than paying the ransom.