Kidnappers on rampage in Nigeria’s Plateau

NIGERIA

A recent wave of abductions in Nigeria’s north central Plateau State is raising fear across the State, our correspondent in the Africa’s largest country said.

Unlike kidnappings which take on political dimensions, such as those involving militants who agitate against oil companies in the south, or Islamic group, Boko Haram in the northeast, this wave became largely suspicious among a tribe known as Fulani who has constantly rain terror through kidnap along Abuja, Kaduna express way, an axis near Plateau State, Sky News Africa learnt.

The ordeal hitting Plateau especially in the city capital of Jos, is driven largely by economic hardship, as hungry youths can corner and kidnap their victim for a miserable amount of N20,000 or less.

Although big time kingpins in the illicit business are smiling to banks as their victims are made to pay a whooping sum of between N400, 000 – N10, 000,000 or more, our correspondent gathered.

A middle aged Deputy Director of Press to the Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, became a victim on the 1st day of 2020, as his wife, after singing praises to God in a glorious Church service to user in the New Year was kidnapped and taken away to an undisclosed location within the city.

She was later released on Friday, after an undisclosed amount was paid to the abductors, our correspondent reports.

Speaking to a Journalist, who does not want his name in print, he told our reporter that the abduction of the wife of the deputy director of press to Governor Lalong, was a high profile climax of a series of kidnapping operations that characterised life during the Yuletide in and around Jos, as innocent citizens were forced to move with their tails in-between their legs for fear of kidnappers, daredevil cultists, or other hoodlums who literally took over the social space in the state and forced those who quested for fun to sit at home with berthed breath.

“Before the Kidnap of the wife of the deputy director of press to the Governor, cases of kidnap of children from the hands of their parents at home had occurred in the Bukuru part of the Jos Metropolis where the Theological College of Northern Nigeria, (TCNN), is located, while others also occurred successfully behind the old Government House, Rayfield; another behind Jossy Royal Hotel, along Bukuru Road, others at the Rukuba Road, Kufang, and Dadin Kowa area, all within the Jos-Bukuru Metropolitan area”, he said.

Nigeria is seeing a wave of kidnapping that is cutting across every socioeconomic class.

According to police, 685 kidnappings occurred nationwide in the first quarter of 2018, an average of seven per day.

A Security expert told Sky News Africa that the recent abductions are the result of Nigeria’s economic hardships and poverty.

“In fact, most of us saw it coming because there’s hunger in the land and Nigeria has been on economic doldrums for years now and crimes will increase definitely because people will become more desperate,” he said.