One of the prevailing tragedies of the Nigerian situation today is kidnapping for ransom. In many cases, kidnapping for ransom is a double tragedy of varying proportions. The ransom payers often find themselves in financial tragedy, which may involve scuttling around to raise funds, while the victim will experience torture or may even get killed. There is suffering enough to go around.

That’s why kidnapping has become the focal point of the insecurity debate in the country today, outpacing the Boko Haram insurgency in spread, frequency, and unpredictability of occurrence. While Boko Haram insurgency remains mainly an ideological and religious struggle, kidnapping is essentially a commercial venture, exploring the fault lines in the national economy, typified by corruption, poverty, and high unemployment. That’s why the ransom to be derived from kidnapping is the major attraction for those who engage in the nefarious activity.

It is the commercial attraction of kidnapping that recommends it to those who want to make money quickly, by converting themselves into kidnapper and victim at the same time. These are self-kidnappers, that is, people who hide somewhere and declare themselves kidnapped. They then call out, or arrange with an accomplice to call out, for ransom to family members, friends, co-workers, or church members. In such a situation, an otherwise tragic outcome for both victim and ransom payers could be modified to the advantage of the self-kidnapper.

In such a situation, the tragedy may be restricted to the ransom payers who may have to scuttle around in search of funds, while the collected fund turns into a booty for the self-kidnapper. If the scam is successfully executed, a reversal of role could occur in which the ransom payers become the victim and the self-kidnapper the torturer and beneficiary of the funds raised.

This outcome reminds one of tragicomedy in dramatic literature in which elements of tragedy and comedy are blended. The proportion of each type doesn’t matter. There could be more tragedy than comedy or vice versa.

However, if the self-kidnapper is nabbed by the security agents, his or her joy may turn to sorrow. As the long arm of the law catches up with him or her, a prison cell may be the next destination. A reversal of the tragicomedy occurs in which tragedy befalls the self-kidnapper while the last laugh goes to the ransom payers.

Three recent cases in Nigeria will illustrate the tragicomic form of self-kidnapping and its implications for the present Nigerian situation. The international dimension of the practice will also be discussed.

Just recently, a Methodist Church pastor, Adewuyi Adegoke, hid himself in an hotel in Ado Ekiti and arranged with an accomplice to call to his church and congregation that he had been kidnapped. His sympathetic congregation raised the N3million ransom fund demanded by the purported abductors and took the money to the agreed location. In the meantime, security forces had traced the location of the ransom-seeking calls and had been in hiding at the pick up location for the ransom. At the end of the day, the kidnapper and the kidnapped became one.

Although no motive was given for the pastor’s self-kidnap, his wife reportedly confessed that here husband had been planning the kidnapping for months and she had tried to discourage him.

Nevertheless, financial motivation was the prime motive. It is an open secret that Methodist Church pastors are typically owed arrears of salaries, especially in less affluent towns and neighbourhoods.

In another case, a housewife, Hadijat Kabiru, connived with others to fake her own kidnap to defraud her husband. Her accomplices demanded as much as N15 million from the husband. However, luck ran out on them as the police traced the ransom calls to a location in Ado-Odo Ota area of Ogun state. The woman and her accomplices were arrested, leading the woman to confess to the crime. According to her, the husband had over 12 houses but would not give her money to take care of herself and her mentally ill daughter and three other children.

In the final example, Abdullahi Mohammed faked his own kidnap in Bauchi state to defraud his family, following the collapse of his vegetable business. When the accomplice, Haruna Saidu, appeared to collect the negotiated ransom of N1 million, he was promptly arrested by the police. It was eventually discovered that Mohammed was in fact hiding in Saidu’s residence.

What is clear from these examples is that self-kidnapping, like other cases of kidnapping, is financially motivated. It is therefore part of the economically motivated insecurity gripping the nation. With social and  economic indices of illiteracy, poverty, and unemployment in the negative across the country, people tend to take to crime in order to make a living. It is not the best way to live; but there are people for whom it has become the only way.

The three cases also puncture the Fulani-herdsmen narrative in which kidnapping cases are typically enveloped. It was this mindset that led some reporters to name Fulani herdsmen in the Ekiti case even before the case was investigated.

However, the fact that people could now exploit kidnapping to the point of kidnapping themselves for money speaks volume about how widespread kidnapping has become and how it is viewed as a money-making venture. Far from being a diversion on kidnapping, self-kidnapping is a sad commentary on the Nigerian situation as it is symbolic of the extent people are prepared to go in order to make money.

What is needed to break this practice is beyond a strong anti-kidnapping law and its enforcement. However, that should be the starting point. The cycle of incessant kidnapping can only be broken by strong law enforcement. It is necessary first to prevent the kidnapping of innocent victims since the underlying social, political, and, especially, economic causes of kidnapping could not be addressed overnight.

It will take more than the Federal Government to address these problems. State and local governments also have a role to play.

Nevertheless, the government’s responsibility is pivotal to the solutions:

Stop the looting of federal, state, and local treasuries.

Provide more funds for infrastructure, especially power supply, roads, and public utilities.

Provide more funds for education.

Emulate the Osun model of developing various social investment and social protection programmes.

Give more Nigerians a share of their patrimony now.