Authors :  Abraham Achirga and Libby George

Reuters is a global news agency founded in 1851 in London and bought by Thomson Financial Corporation in 2008.  With a staff of 2,600 journalists, editors, photographers and cameramen, Reuters covers more than 200 countries around the world, and reports in 16 languages.

Auteurs: Abraham Achirga et Libby George

Reuters est une agence de presse mondiale et généraliste, fondée en 1851 à Londres et rachetée par la Thomson Financial Corporation en 2008.  Avec un effectif de 2600 journalistes, rédacteurs, photographes et cadreurs, Reuters couvre plus de 200 pays dans le monde, et publie dans 16 langues.

Date of publication: August 2021

Link to the original document

Organisation’s site : Reuters

Dans un contexte de crises  sécuritaire, sanitaire et économique, où les personnes de 15 à 35 ans sont les plus touchées par le chômage, soit 42,5%,  où le taux de pauvreté, endémique dans le pays, est estimé à 43% de la population en fin d’année 2020 d’après la Banque mondiale, le kidnapping de masse est devenu une activité lucrative pour beaucoup de jeunes dans le nord-ouest du Nigéria. Ces enlèvements de masse, qui ont généralement pour cible les jeunes écoliers et étudiants, semblent tirer leur origine de l’enlèvement des 200 jeunes filles de Chibok, dans le nord-est, par le groupe islamiste Boko Haram en 2014. Environ 30 000 individus sont impliqués dans ces organisations criminelles, selon les estimations officielles.

Malgré les efforts du gouvernement, les populations ont le sentiment que rien n’est fait pour décourager les criminels. C’est au point que ces populations, notamment les familles des victimes d’enlèvement, tentent par elles-mêmes de ramener leurs enfants enlevés, en payant les rançons par la vente de leurs terres ou de leur bétail. Chose qui ne fait toujours pas ses preuves, bien au contraire, cela suscite de nouveaux enlèvements avec des demandes de rançons plus élevées.

WATHI a choisi ce document parce qu’il présente cette nouvelle forme de criminalité qu’est le kidnapping de masse au nord du Nigéria, une région sujette depuis quelques années à de nombreux problèmes d’insécurité, principalement la menace terroriste. Ce document met aussi en exergue les conséquences graves dues à ces enlèvements de masse sur la fréquentation des écoles et l’économie de la région. Ce document présente aussi les réponses apportées par les différents acteurs, notamment les tentatives de solution menées par les populations elles-mêmes pour retrouver les membres de leur famille kidnappés et les efforts du gouvernement que les populations estiment sans succès véritable.

Why did we choose this document ?

In a context of security, health and economic crises, where people aged 15 to 35 are the most affected by unemployment, at 42.5%, and where the poverty rate, endemic in the country, is estimated at 43% of the population by the end of 2020 according to the World Bank, mass kidnapping has become a lucrative activity for many young people in northwestern Nigeria. These mass kidnappings, which typically target young schoolchildren and students, appear to have their origins in the abduction of the 200 girls from Chibok in the northeast by the Islamist group Boko Haram in 2014. About 30,000 individuals are involved in these criminal organizations, according to official estimates.

Despite the government’s efforts, the people feel that nothing is being done to deter the criminals. As a result, the population, especially the families of kidnapped victims, try to bring back their kidnapped children by themselves, paying the ransom through the selling of their land or livestock. This does not always prove to be effective; instead, it leads to new kidnappings with higher ransom demands.

WATHI selected this paper because it presents this new form of criminality, mass kidnapping, in northern Nigeria, a region that has been plagued by many insecurity problems in recent years, primarily the threat of terrorism. This document also highlights the serious consequences of these mass kidnappings on school attendance and the economy of the region. It also presents the responses of the various actors, especially the attempts by the populations themselves to find their kidnapped family members and the efforts of the government, which the populations consider to be without real success.

Cette situation sécuritaire qui prévaut au nord-ouest du Nigéria contraint les autorités à renforcer les mesures, déjà prises, sur le plan sécuritaire, mais aussi à trouver de nouvelles mesures sur le plan socioéconomique.

Les forces de sécurité doivent renforcer la surveillance des terres, notamment au niveau des forêts où sont installés ces groupes criminels. Il faut renforcer la présence militaire en termes d’effectifs et d’équipements dans les localités concernées. L’Etat doit également renforcer le contrôle du commerce des armes et empêcher leur prolifération.

Les réseaux de télécommunications pourraient aussi aider dans la lutte contre ces groupes, en faisant un traçage grâce à l’émission et la réception d’appels de leurs membres qui contactent souvent les familles pour les demandes rançons. Pour ce faire, les populations,  notamment les familles des victimes, doivent collaborer avec les forces de sécurité une fois que les ravisseurs entrent en contact avec elles, et arrêter de verser des rançons qui sont des facteurs favorables à d’autres enlèvements.

L’État doit également apporter des réponses structurelles aux enjeux économiques et sociaux du Nord. Il devient impératif de résoudre la question du chômage, en créant les conditions favorables à l’emploi aux jeunes. C’est aussi l’opportunité pour l’Etat et tous les acteurs de la société civile nigériane de promouvoir les valeurs d’intégrité et morales face à une jeunesse qui se laisse de plus en plus tenter par l’appât du gain facile.

What lessons for the countries of the WATHI zone ?

The security situation in northwest Nigeria is requiring the authorities to strengthen the security measures already taken, but also to find new measures on the socio-economic level.

The security forces must strengthen the surveillance of the land, especially in the forests where these criminal groups are based. The military presence must be strengthened in terms of numbers and equipment in the localities concerned. The government should also strengthen the control of the arms trade and prevent their proliferation.

Telecommunications networks could also help in the fight against these groups, by tracing the sending and receiving of calls from their members, who often contact the families for ransom demands. In order to do this, the populations, especially the victim families, must collaborate with the security forces once the kidnappers make contact with them, and stop paying ransoms which are factors that encourage other kidnappings.

The government should also provide structural responses to the economic and social challenges of the North. It is becoming imperative to resolve the issue of unemployment by creating the conditions for youth employment. It is also an opportunity for the State and all actors in Nigerian civil society to promote the values of integrity and morality to a youth that is more and more seduced by the lure of easy money.

After armed men snatched seven of Abubakar Adam’s 11 children in northwestern Nigeria, he sold his car and a parcel of land and cleaned out his savings to raise a ransom to free them. He sent his 3 million naira ($7,300) into the bush, together with payments from other families in his town of Tegina. The kidnappers took the money, seized one of the men delivering it and sent back a new demand for more cash and six motorbikes.

“We are in agony,” the 40-year-old tyre repairman told Reuters, still waiting for any sign of what happened to his children three months after the mass abduction. “Honestly I don’t have anything left.”

Kidnappers have taken more than 1,000 students since December amid a rash of abductions across the impoverished northwest. Around 300 of the children have still not been returned, according to a Reuters tally of reports. President Muhammadu Buhari has told states not to pay anything to kidnappers, saying it will only encourage more abductions. read more Security agencies say they are targeting the bandits with military action and other methods.

Kidnappers have taken more than 1,000 students since December amid a rash of abductions across the impoverished northwest

Meanwhile, hundreds of parents are facing the same quandary: do everything they can to raise the ransoms themselves, or risk never seeing their children again. “We are begging the government to help,” said Aminu Salisu, whose eight-year-old son was taken in the same daylight raid on Tegina’s Salihu Tanko Islamic school in May, alongside more than 130 students.

Salisu cleared out his own savings and sold everything in his shop to raise his contribution. The owner of the school sold off half the grounds. Together, with the help of friends, relatives and strangers, the people of Tegina said they raised 30 million naira. But that still wasn’t enough for the bandits.

Kidnappers collected more than $18 million in ransom from June 2011 to March 2020 in Nigeria, according to an estimate by Lagos-based analysts SBM Intelligence. That flood of cash brought a flood of new kidnappers, said Bulama Bukarti, an analyst in the Extremism Policy Unit of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. He estimated there were currently around 30,000 bandits operating in the northwest.

“It’s the most thriving, the most lucrative industry in Nigeria,” he told Reuters. Kidnapping has become a tempting career choice for young men at a time of economic slump, double-digit inflation and 33% unemployment. “From December, we saw the Pandora’s box open. They saw it was possible. They saw that nothing happened to the attackers,” Bukarti said.

In December, gunmen kidnapped 344 boys from the Government Science Secondary School in the northwestern state of Katsina during a night-time raid. The kidnappers released the boys a week later, but it set off a spate of similar kidnappings across the region.

Kidnappers collected more than $18 million in ransom from June 2011 to March 2020 in Nigeria

The bandits took a page from the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which seized more than 200 schoolgirls from the northeastern town of Chibok in 2014. That group had ideological aims and forced some of the girls to marry fighters.

The abductions have piled more pressure on President Buhari, who promised to tackle insecurity at his inauguration in 2019. They have also tested the security services. The military – pitted against the kidnappers in the northwest, Islamist insurgents in the northeast, separatists in the southeast and piracy in the Delta – is deployed to at least 30 of Nigeria’s 36 states.

The armed kidnappers in the northwest are motivated by money

Information Minister Lai Mohammed, in an interview with Reuters, defended the strategy not to pay ransoms. Instead, he said, the government had destroyed multiple bandit camps and tried other approaches to tackle banditry. He declined to give details, citing the need for secrecy around ongoing operations, but said all levels of government are working to free the children. “We are winning the war against insurgency and we are winning the war against banditry,” Mohammed said.

The government of Niger state, which includes Tegina, declined to comment. Officials working with the governor said they needed to keep their efforts secret. Meanwhile, the challenges keep mounting. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), an NGO, tracked a 28% increase in violence nationwide in Nigeria in the first six months of 2021, compared with the previous six months.

Reported fatalities from violence nationwide rose 61% to 5,197

It all explains, Bukarti of the Extremism Policy Unit said, why Adam and other parents are willing to sell everything they have to pay ransoms themselves. “They cannot afford (it) by any means. But it’s a life-and-death matter. And they know security agencies cannot free their loved ones.”

Source photo : Reuters