Last week, a notorious kidnapper and robbery kingpin in Delta State,KELVIN IBRUVWE , appeared from his hideout and issued an ultimatum to the FG provide infrastructure for his Urhobo kinsmen in Delta State or face devastating destruction of oil and gas production facilities in the area. Same man who had been declared wanted by the POLICE spoke amidst cheers by his kinsmen and he wasn't apprehended.
We now celebrate crime and treat criminals as VIPs........... He definitely got a massive boost from the fallout of the Militancy in the Niger-Delta region where Warlords have become SUPER RICH overnight as juicy Government contracts never ceases to flow.
Not forgetting the several threats and pains the militant group Boko Haram have inflicted on the country. Their defiance despite the state of emergency declared in their core areas of operations beats my imagination and could only mean one thing; THE GOVERNMENT MUST STEP UP ITS GAME.
Read a report by Punch after the cut.............................
THE recent audacity exhibited by one Kelvin Ibruvwe underlines the parlous state of insecurity in Nigeria today. Declared wanted by the police for kidnapping, he nevertheless emerged from his hideout to hand down a chilling ultimatum to the Federal Government to provide infrastructure for his Urhobo kinsmen in Delta State or face devastating destruction of oil and gas production facilities in the area! Add this insolence to the Boko Haram terrorist rampage, mass killings by criminal and ethnic gangs in the North, armed robbery and kidnapping in the South and oil theft and piracy in our coastal waters, and the picture of a failing state becomes stark indeed. These crimes should remind people of the violence that has stalked the nation for several years now.
Though the Delta State Police Command said “the event was stage-managed by some elements”, how long would it take the police to end Ibruvwe’s reign of terror? Stage-managed or real, it is only where the government has lost control of part of its sovereign territory that common criminals would so openly defy the law. Described by the police as the “most wanted kidnapper and robbery kingpin” in Delta State, Ibruvwe pulled no punches: flanked by his heavily armed masked fighters in military combat fatigues and a crowd of cheering villagers, he addressed a “press conference” where he issued his 60-day ultimatum.
Like other criminal gangs in the Niger Delta region and Boko Haram’s apologists, he clothed his evil ways in the toga of self-determination and quest for justice. He said his Liberation Movement for the Urhobo People would shut down all oil wells in Urhobo communities if the government failed to provide basic infrastructure, jobs, cottage industries, schools and hospitals.
Among his many atrocities, the wanted criminal allegedly ambushed a Nigeria Prisons Service vehicle conveying suspects to Warri, and shot dead three warders in an audacious attempt to rescue his gang members awaiting trial. Indeed, he is not alone. In neighbouring Edo State, kidnappers are virtually running a parallel government, abducting doctors, lecturers, primary school teachers and public sector workers. The gang that recently captured a prominent lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, only released him after a three-week ordeal, while two school teachers and their children are still in captivity. When the police fail to act swiftly, crime flourishes as it did when tardiness and collusion by corrupt cops once reduced the South-Eastern states to a lawless zone, where kidnapping became so rampant that ransom could be as low as a telephone recharge voucher!
It is not surprising that Ibruvwe is posing as a freedom fighter. The Niger Delta gang leaders, who for several years, reduced Nigeria’s oil and gas output by half, are now beneficiaries of a skewed amnesty while some have since become favoured government contractors. Unwittingly, the state has sent a signal that crime pays through the corruption of its officials and the incompetence of its security agencies. It is argued that kidnappers cannot operate without the assistance in many ways of the police, whose officers are seen as being immersed in a cesspool of fraud. Some reports say up to 800,000 barrels of oil are being stolen daily in the creeks and the open seas, despite a naval presence, a Joint Military Task Force, Marine Police and civilian security contractors.
The Nigerian government should wake up and act to disprove our classification by the United Nations as a “fragile state” by tackling security with vigour and determination. We cannot attract foreign and local investment when the African Insurance Organisation has designated the country as the global capital for kidnapping, accounting for 25 per cent of all reported cases of kidnap-for-ransom in the 12 months to October 2012, up from its eighth position in 2009. A United Nations publication in 2011 noted that “kidnapping flourishes particularly in fragile states and conflict countries as politically motivated militias; organised crime and the drugs mafia fill the vacuum left by government.”
But our government continues to be lulled into a false sense of safety while groups like Boko Haram, fuelled by a rabid religious ideology, violent ethnic militias like Ombatse in Nasarawa State and Fulani bandits, emboldened by a weak security response, wreak mayhem. The JTF and the police should not allow Ibruvwe’s defiance to fester, gather recruits as Ijaw militants once did by cloaking their criminality in resource-control and self-determination robes. Urgent, concerted and intelligence-led efforts should be mounted to hunt him down and bring him and other kidnappers to justice for any alleged crimes committed. The Criminal and Penal codes operating in the South and North respectively spell out up to 10 – 14 years for kidnapping. Kidnappers should be fished out and prosecuted accordingly.
In countries such as the United States, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and Italy, where kidnapping rate is high, extraordinary measures, including special police, military units and very harsh laws are there to deal with it. Here, even the states that passed the death penalty for kidnapping have not prosecuted kidnappers, thus encouraging wayward youths to take it up as a business. The wisdom of state police can no longer be ignored.
President Goodluck Jonathan has sufficient constitutional powers to arrest this slide into a Hobbesian state of nature. He should demand results from the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar. Criminals and anarchists should be swiftly apprehended and brought to justice before they get out of control like the Boko Haram insurgents.
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