By Femi Macaulay
Where are the kidnappers of retired Brig. Gen. Maharazu Tsiga, former Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), who was kidnapped from his Katsina State home on February 5? The National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, said nothing about the kidnappers when he reunited Tsiga with his family at the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Abuja, on April 3. He had spent more than 50 days in captivity before he regained his freedom. He narrated his hellish experience in captivity, saying he endured “beatings.”
Eighteen other kidnap victims were reunited with their families at the event. They included Amb. Gideon Yohanna, former Deputy Chief of Mission to Pretoria, South Africa, who was kidnapped in January, in Kaduna State.
Ribadu said: “We have done a couple of handovers in the past as a result of the work of our armed forces and other security services, we are able to rescue and bring back.
“Now we have done it again. This time, it involves very powerful and important personalities… We are grateful to those who made their rescue possible.”
He added: “These people have been rescued, but those perpetrators of this evil will pay for it, dearly. The work we are doing today is a work in progress. We are not there yet.”
Was this a hint that the kidnappers had not been captured? If that is the case, why is it so? To say the victims were “rescued” suggests that they were taken from their abductors. If that was the case, what happened to the abductors? A rescue suggests physical action on the part of the rescuers. If the abductors released the captives, possibly after the payment of ransom, that can’t be strictly described as a rescue.
A “Note of Appreciation,” dated April 4, 2025, signed by Brig. Gen. Ismaila Abdullahi (retd), surfaced online. It gave an insight into how Tsiga regained his freedom. Abdullahi said after the abduction, Tsiga’s friends and associates had created “a WhatsApp platform that we named simply “TSIGA.” He stated that the kidnappers had demanded N400 million as ransom.
“We decided to solicit donations on our TSIGA PLATFORM. The response was overwhelming. On this platform, we had over 300 members,” he said, adding, “I feel fulfilled as our collective efforts have finally yielded a very positive outcome.”
Does this mean that Tsiga was released after his kidnappers had collected ransom? This contradicts the official narrative that he was rescued by security agents.
When the authorities are silent about kidnappers in kidnap cases in which kidnappees regain their freedom after the intervention of security agencies, it suggests that the kidnappers are free and may well strike again. That’s dangerous.
It is disturbing that kidnappings not only continue in the country but are also on the rise. More than 3, 600 people were kidnapped in Nigeria last year, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data figures; this was described as “the most ever” recorded.
More than 2,000 people were reported kidnapped across 24 states of the country between January and July 2024, according to SUNDAY PUNCH. The newspaper’s research focused on reports of kidnapping published in four Nigerian newspapers in the period, namely The PUNCH, The Guardian, The Nation, and Vanguard.
The research showed alarming figures of kidnap victims in the seven-month period: 193 people in January, 101 in February, 543 in March, 112 in April, 977 in May, 97 in June, and 117 in July, totalling 2,140. Among these were 280 pupils and teachers kidnapped by bandits from Government Secondary School and LEA Primary School, Kuriga, Kaduna State, in March; and about 500 people abducted by bandits from 50 villages in Zamfara State, in May.
Also, the research showed that the families of 62 kidnap victims paid N389 million as ransom to kidnappers for the release of their relatives in the period. The cases of ransom payment included N60 million paid to kidnappers for the release of five sisters abducted from their house in Abuja, in January; and N50 million paid to kidnappers in May before the Paramount Ruler of the Mbo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, Ogwong Okon Abang, regained his freedom.
Notably, in August 2024, the kidnap story of 20 medical students made the headlines. They were kidnapped by gunmen in Benue State, on their way to a conference, and freed after more than a week in captivity. The authorities said no ransom was paid for their release.
The range of kidnap victims indicates that those involved in kidnapping for ransom are no respecter of persons. The gravity of the problem prompted a law in 2021 that controversially prescribed at least a 15-year imprisonment for paying a ransom to free someone who has been kidnapped. The law also made the crime of abduction punishable by death in cases where victims die.
Last year, the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, inaugurated officers of the new Special Intervention Squad, saying it was created “to confront the most formidable challenges that beset our nation today — challenges like kidnapping, banditry, and other violent crimes that have sown discord and fear across various regions.”
The creation of the 169-man squad to fight kidnapping and banditry further underscored the country’s security crisis, and also suggested that the authorities were taking the issue more seriously. However, it was unclear how the new security squad will operate, and whether its operations will make a difference.
Egbetokun said the officers had been trained for “advanced tactical operations, intelligence gathering, crisis negotiation, and community engagement,” among others, and described their work as a “critical national assignment.” They were trained for seven weeks in Lagos and the Police Mobile Force Training College, Ende Hills, Nasarawa State.
The scale of the country’s security crisis, which includes kidnapping and banditry, demands more than establishing a new ad hoc squad of less than 200 officers. In August 2023, Egbetokun was reported saying the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) “requires an additional 190,000 personnel to be at par with the United Nations (UN) recommendation,” adding that inadequate manpower had resulted in “low police presence.” The UN-recommended ratio is one police officer to about 450 citizens.
There is no doubt that the country needs to increase its police personnel, particularly in the context of a complicated security crisis. Nigeria is critically under-policed, which is bad for security as well as law and order.
Ultimately, there are more questions than answers on the Tsiga kidnapping incident and its resolution. Who will answer the questions?
Culled from The Nation
