with Joseph Edgar (09095325791)
The rash of kidnapping and banditry has thrown so much insecurity on the land. But what most worries me was what I read in one article Segun Adeniyi wrote, I think sometime last week. I was on a flight to Uyo, and those of you who know me very well, know how much I fear that thing. To be suspended in the air and the thing will be going and be making noise and be creaking, and you have nothing but the Perth bottoms of the hostesses to be looking at.
You know they say they do not take voluptuous women as hostesses – a clear discrimination against people like us. But what do we do but manage what we have? So on the flight as the plane was shaking and I was feeling like dying and the hostess’ small bottom was doing nothing to my self-confidence, I said let me read papers to hold my breath. Segun was brilliant as usual. The bobo can write and this time it was something like the economics of banditry and kidnapping.
He painted a whole web and tied it through international monetary routes to its endgame of funding insurgency and terrorism. From that write-up, one could see that this was a complex web that is getting more sophisticated than the checkpoints and semi-ready soldiers and policemen we throw at them. In this regard, we should be looking at cutting off the source of funding and the endgame, purchasing arms.
So paying ransom under any guise is fueling the situation. This is why the Niger State government’s position, which mirrors that of the American and Israeli of not negotiating or paying a ransom, looks like the most practical approach.
If we add this with strengthening border controls and the CBN tightening money flows we just may dry this thing up.
The kidnapping and banditry is beginning to look like the downstream retail structure of the whole enterprise. We cannot always be doing gra gra in everything, let’s add some small sense in some of these things. All the soldiers and policemen and declaring of state of emergency on insecurity will not solve this thing. Let’s add small common sense abeg.
Mr. Bello please let this your own be a starting point. No ransom, please.
