Nkem Owoh Kidnapped

I am from America and would like to donate my newly found money from some one who died and left me his millions as was told to me in a email I randomly received from someone in Nigeria I have never met. I After I give this very generous person my name, address and bank account information I was promised a huge sum of money which I have pledged in it’s entirety for the release of Nkem Owoh. God save the Queen!!!

Naija Naija , terrible country what a jungle..how can NKem be kindnapped ? a guy who makes us laugh to chase away stress..in this worrisome society we need someone like that to be amused by..it is sad and shameful.. these perpetrators will never go free.. may god bless Nkem ,hopefully we pray he is alive.

thanks God he was released unharmed.but my question is how did the pepetrators get hold of the money while police are there and earning monthly.Nigerian government must protect its burgers.Am staying in South Africa and I personally loves this actor.he is so amusing with everything he is doing

Nigeria problem is created by Nigerians– we worship money, we give respectable positions to questionable characters, we hail corruption and we uphold injustice. I cry for Nigeria– day by day investors are pulling out their investments and the few sons and daughters of the soil who wanted to invest in Nigeria to employ our sons and daughters are being chased away by kidnappers and Armed Robbers. People in authority are only concerned about their pockets. Police are busy looking for bribes and renting their weapons to Robbers. It is hard to believe that over 80% of Nigerians are either Christians or Moslems– daily they yell through their church and mosque loud speakers calling the name of God and Allah in vain. If only we practice what we learn in churches and Mosques Nigeria would have been heaven on earth. Compare Nigeria and Ghana– President Obama visited Ghana and refused to step into Nigeria due to corruption– shame on all of us. Few years back we were saying “Ghana must go” we even had a bag still called Ghana must go; today what is happening, Nigerians are moving to Ghana for greener pasture– of course, why not, there is constant power supply, at least police do their duties and their leaders are held accountable. Thanks to Jerry Lawrence– We need a revolution in Nigeria—My people we need to take back our country from these Rapist, Robbers and Murderers. Arise my fellow country people and fight for your right– right to peace and justice, right to freedom, right to security and right for a better future.

What do you expect in a countary where there is no law. This is why Nigeria will never grow up, moreover, why Osuofia, why not those people sitting on top with empty heads.
Kidnappers, please leave innocent people alone, you know where your shares are

I never had no clue at all at what is happening there in Nigeria, Its scary to know all these things and now Im fear for my unborn babbies. i wanted them to know thier fathers country but now Im freaking out. We all know its regarded as a corrupt country but never thought of such horrifying incidents like that.

Am so dissaponited in them,I hope the dont kidnapp Ghanaian Actors as well

These area boys need to be caught and strung up. Its crazy how they keep kidnapping the movie stars, imagine what its like for regular folk. They all need Jesus.

Nkem is an absolute Legend, national treasure even.

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I am so embarrassed with this news of kidnapping in a nation I am so proud of. How did the people of Nigeria allow this new trend of kidnapping escalate this far? The government of the federal republic is a big disgrace to allow the Niger delta crisis eat deep to give birth to a new strain of kidnapping. I myself is afraid to come home before I get kidnapped. This means I would loose all my friends and extended families that cannot join me here, because thesame country is so corrupt that they don’t get approved for visas, to the smallest countries that have nothing like we do, we need to go through hell to get issued visas. And those who blame the Ibos, is this going to be a tribal blame now? Remember Nkem is also Ibo! Why have n’t you bury the hatchet and move on than pointing accusing fingers on a tribe. Remember that criminals are more united than we ordinary people. We don’t know what tribes are involved so we should not take the subject away from what it is.
Nigeria is a forgone country for people like us in the diaspora, our luggages get robbed even before we set our foot into Lagos, and that is after we have gone through the discrimination we face in countries we transit from because of our passport. Talk of getting into the country and get robbed, kidnapped and killed. Blacks from other part of Africa are happy to go home, look at Ghana, is it not a shame to Nigerians, that a country like Ghana can take over in everything, from safety to economy to our movies. It was because someone like J.K Rawlings took the step in eliminating the old generals. Nigeria need to do thesame. If they are left alone, Nigeria would be a no go country in the near future.

In recent months, a segment of the Nigerian society has been quarantined by the growing scourge of kidnappings for ransom. Nightlife that had already been hard hit by the menace of armed robbery and the banning of Okada has taken a further pounding as a result. The well to do now stay indoors and when they do venture outside they do so incognito for fear of being kidnapped. The South-south and south-east zones of the country have been particularly hit hard. Over the years, foreign oil companies in the country have had to deal with the kidnappings of their workers for ransom. For some moot reasons, some Nigerians felt this was a problem for the not too popular oil companies to deal with, especially those who saw the kidnappings as representing crude efforts to redistribute the proceeds of oil exploration in the region. Now this very deadly business that started in the Niger Delta is spreading its tentacles to other parts of the country, fuelled by government neglect, corruption, inefficient and corrupt Police Force, greed, unemployment and the battering of other sources of illicit income like 419 by the global economic meltdown.

At one stage during the evolution of this monster called kidnapping, the practitioners kidnapped mainly the rich or members of their families because they had the millions to pay as ransom and many of them paid. A former senior official of the oil industry during Obasanjo’s government who hails from the Niger Delta reportedly paid N500 million to secure the release of his wife after the kidnappers threatened to take turns raping her. Some people may not feel sorry for this individual because of perceived opinions as to how he got the N500 million in the first place. Whatever the validity of this view vis-à-vis the kidnapping, it looks like the dynamics of the trade is changing and changing very quickly.

The rich and foreign oil industry workers who were the initial victims of kidnappings have implemented security measures to protect themselves, thereby making it harder for the kidnappers to seize their potential victims. The state and federal governments are even providing some of them with more police and military protection at the expense of ordinary Nigerians. But the kidnappers are not about to give up on this lucrative business. They have re-tooled and in some cases re-engineered their modus operandi.

The kidnappers have now expanded the sources for their “supplies” They are no longer restricting themselves to finding their victims from the groups of expatriates or rich and famous. It looks like they are prepared to unleash a pandemic of kidnappings by targeting anyone with a few bucks to pay and this is where it becomes very scary. Most of the kidnappings we hear about often involve demands for ransom in the millions but several kidnappings occur daily in which the kidnappers are demanding just enough money to buy booze, pay their rent and replenish their tools of the trade. Often times these stories are not reported to the police or the press due to the relatively small amounts involved and the fear and or mistrust of the police. Police authorities in the South-East zone have confirmed that some people have been kidnapped for as little as N20,000.00 (http://odili.net/news/source/2009/jun/6/302.html).

Following the rash of kidnappings that I have occurred in Benin City in the last few months I discussed the issue with a few people this weekend and they were very clear in expressing their concerns that sooner or later the parents and family members of those in the Diaspora would soon become targets. I told some of them that their fears were belated because the brother of Joseph Yobo of Everton Football Club in England was kidnapped and it cost him a fortune to secure his release. Let me state unequivocally that I am not insinuating nor do I believe that the parents and family members of those in the Diaspora deserve or are entitled to any more attention regarding this issue as are Nigerians at home. I have only mentioned members of this class because of their economic attractiveness to the kidnappers.

The states and federal government would want the Nigerian people to believe they are clearly worried about this menace judging by their legislative efforts. State governments, particularly in the south east, have responded to this wave of kidnappings by passing new criminal laws (although I suspect the competence of states to pass criminal laws in Nigeria will be challenged at some point), with some imposing the death penalty for the offence. This knee-jerk reaction to the problem of kidnapping is typical of governance in Nigeria. Governments continue to chase shadows while ignoring the substantive issues of law enforcement, corruption and the desperation and restlessness of millions of young men and women with no sources of livelihood and no hope for a better tomorrow. State governments have passed new laws criminalizing kidnapping as if it is a new type of offence – kidnapping has been a criminal offence in Nigeria since the colonial era. I understand the federal government is also considering a law that would impose stiffer punishments for kidnapping.

I dare to say that the above measures will not work because they do not address the root causes of the problem. Too often in Nigeria, the government believes it can isolate a particular problem and deal with it successfully. This approach often fails because it treats the symptom of a disease as the disease itself. In the Nigerian context, kidnapping is not the disease. It is a symptom of the abysmal decadence that has enveloped the country. It is a symptom of the recklessness and abandonment with which successive governments have handled the issue of training and employment. It is a symptom of the greed and corruption that have brought the country to its knees. It is a reminder of the brutal techniques employed by electioneering politicians who armed their supporters with guns and ammunitions in order to realize their “do or die” ambitions of “winning” elections at all costs. Most of all, it is the BIGGEST symptom of a police force whose morale and professionalism have been devastated by low pay, outdated equipment and poor working conditions to the extent that they have become willing accomplices of armed robbers and kidnappers. These are some of the real causes of kidnappings in Nigeria. Sadly, there are no policies in place to deal with these problems and there is little or no reason to believe that the political will to put the policies in place will arrive soon.

You cannot deal with the problem of kidnapping as a crime in Nigeria while ignoring the many politicians who have looted the country of billions, the very money meant to create employment for some of the kidnappers. The politicians looted these billions without suffering any sanctions. You cannot treat kidnapping as an offense when you have a police force that is not equipped to deal with kidnapping and some will argue are conspiring with the kidnappers. You cannot win the fight against kidnappers and kidnapping in a society where government’s only responsibility to the poor and unemployed citizenry is reduced to promises that are never kept and statements of intentions that are ignored the moment after the speeches are delivered. You cannot say you want to eliminate or reduce kidnappings in the country when each new day brings forth stories of government officials embezzling billions from the nation’s coffers, the surfacing of billionaires from nowhere and millions being found in bank accounts belonging to government cooks. You cannot say you want to deal with kidnapping while lacking the willingness to deal with the bank officials who collude with the kidnappers to move their ransom payments through the banking system. You cannot be serious about dealing with kidnapping in a society where the only measure of success is money, with the source of such wealth being irrelevant.

The above is a circumscribed elucidation of the background in which the states and federal government are attempting to eradicate or reduce kidnapping in Nigeria. I invite Nigerians to judge for themselves what they think the outcome would be. For decades, our society has cultivated the environment for the fertilization of this menace. It has now been fertilized, hatched and is growing into a gargantuan monster. I am afraid, the sad stories and extortions associated with it may touch many more innocent lives and families before we start to see it for what it is: kidnapping is a symptom of a bigger problem that can only be solved through a holistic approach to the problems of Nigeria.

Before anyone goes away thinking he or she is too secured to be kidnapped, permit me to remind you of the story of Aldo Moro, one of the longest serving Italian Prime Minister. He was kidnapped in Rome in March 1978 on his way to the Parliament after five of his bodyguards had been killed. He was found dead about two months later. Not even the offer by then Pope Paul VI to exchange himself for Aldo Moro could save the politician’s life. The point of this example is to drive home the point that nobody should safe from kidnapping because nobody is. save