Nigeria Loses When Kidnapping Becomes Normal

The abduction of 20 travellers — including prospective members of the National Youth Service Corps — along the Owerri-Onitsha Road in Umunoha, Imo State, on October 1 should have shocked the nation. It did not, at least not for long.

The young graduates were travelling from Ibadan to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom when gunmen intercepted their buses. Families say the kidnappers initially demanded N50 million per victim before reducing the ransom to N5 million each. Parents report beatings, monitored phone calls and a 24-hour ultimatum. Police say 10 passengers escaped, while the Inspector-General of Police has deployed a Deputy Inspector-General to Imo. A joint Army, Police and DSS operation is searching Amakohia Forest. Yet, five days later, the 20 remain in captivity.

That alone should constitute a national emergency. But it is happening alongside an even more painful tragedy.

In Borno State, 78 schoolchildren remain missing. Forty-two pupils were abducted from Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School on May 15, while 36 students and a teacher from Government Day Secondary School, Lassa, were taken on June 29. As of October 5, the victims have spent 143 days in captivity. Parents say they have received repeated assurances but no rescue. A 15-second proof-of-life video was released in July. Meanwhile, families are planning to protest at the Presidential Villa.

Two incidents, one disturbing pattern: kidnapping is becoming routine, and that normalisation is dangerous.

When parents calculate ransom before school fees, when NYSC posting becomes a security risk assessment, and when farmers and travellers must weigh movement against abduction, the state is losing ground.

Kidnapping is not merely another criminal offence. It threatens freedom of movement, education, agriculture and commerce. It tells citizens that the roads they travel and schools they send their children to can no longer be assumed to be safe.

The recurring cycle is particularly troubling. Abduction happens. Outrage follows. Security agencies announce operations and deploy additional personnel. Then attention fades until another group is taken. In Borno, that silence has lasted nearly five months.

This cannot continue. Kidnapping must be treated as organised crime, not a collection of isolated incidents.

Security must become preventive, not merely reactive. The ongoing operation in Imo, involving intelligence-led tracking and joint action by security agencies, demonstrates what coordinated action can achieve. Such cooperation between the police, military, DSS, NSCDC and credible local intelligence networks should be standard.

The ransom economy must also be dismantled without blaming victims’ families. No parent should be condemned for negotiating to save a child. But security agencies must follow the money and pursue the wider networks — informants, financiers, weapons suppliers, transporters and operators of safe houses. If kidnapping remains profitable, it will continue.

Rural security must also be treated as infrastructure. Poor telecommunications, slow emergency response and inaccessible forest corridors create opportunities for criminals. Roads, mobile networks, surveillance and rapid-response systems are therefore security assets.

Communities have an important role because locals understand their terrain better than outsiders. But community intelligence must feed into lawful security structures rather than uncontrolled armed groups.

And rescue cannot be the end of the state’s responsibility. Survivors will need medical care, counselling, financial support and help returning to school or normal life.

For us in Peoples Daily, kidnapping must not be politicised. The victims in Borno and Imo are Nigerians first. Protecting them is a national duty.

Nigeria cannot afford to normalise abduction. If children can remain in captivity for 143 days and young Nigerians travelling to serve their country can be seized for ransom, criminals are learning that kidnapping works while citizens are learning that the state may not come.

We must, therefore, reclaim our roads, schools and forests — and bring home the 78 children from Mussa and Lassa and the 20 from Umunoha. Their safe return should not be treated as isolated victories, but as a declaration that kidnapping will never become normal life in Nigeria.