• Bank chiefs, politicians and socialites shut their gates raise their fences against criminal masterminds
• The Abuja connection
Steel gates and luxury are never enough to temper the scourge of the random abductor. Ask Godwin Emefiele, CBN governor, and his wife Margaret. Few days after Margaret was released to her family by her abductors, the Emefieles are still in shock. They haven’t recovered from the gruesomeness foisted on them by Margaret’s abductors. But while the CBN governor and his wife struggle through their ordeal, a large segment Nigeria’s filthy rich is in disarray. Industry titans, politicians, bank chiefs and socialites are mired in a haze of fear.
They know their gated mansions can protect them no more. Glamour and peace desert their hearts and homes as twisted, loveless souls, like Margaret’s abductors, swoop on their mansions and lay in wait to abduct their loved ones thus butchering innocence and tagging atrocities under a bloody shroud of greed and martyrdom.
Consequently, the country’s filthy rich have begun to relocate their loved ones to safe havens abroad. A dark pall of fear hangs above the windows and alcoves of Nigeria’s billionaires; many of them are scared of losing their wives, children, parents and other loved ones to hoodlums seeking to kidnap them for ransom.
The Capital findings revealed that even before Emefiele’s wife got abducted, many eminent families of the Nigerian billionaire club have been suffering in silence.
Many of them have been forced to quietly pay ransoms for the release of their loved ones who got abducted by kidnappers. Further investigations revealed that, they often struggled to keep news of such incidents away from the media lest they compromised the safety of their abducted family.
Several billionaires have secretly paid ransoms for the release of their family members and even staff of their companies.
The situation persists due to their loss of faith in the ability of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF). They choose to do the kidnappers’ bidding by keeping quiet and paying the ransoms placed on their abducted relatives.
But no sooner than Emefiele’s wife got kidnapped than the rich upper divide comprising several bank chiefs and politicians, decided to relocate their loved ones abroad. Those that are yet to complete the travel arrangements are doing their best to keep their loved ones off the streets. Their homes are heavily guarded and every inward and outbound phone call is scrutinised for safety reasons.
Indeed, there is no misery deeper than what many of them have encountered by the schemes of criminal masterminds. Many of them are ravaged by fear and despair in the wake of their loved ones’ abduction, like a mother duck whose favourite duckling got snatched from right under her nose, by the predatory eagle.
Recently, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has become a hot zone of crime. Criminals comprising kidnappers and armed robbers have besieged the country’s political capital in a mad dash to acquire money often through dastardly means. Consequently, residents of the FCT live in fear and sleep one eye open. It would be recalled that palpable fear gripped passengers using the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja (NAIA) following the invasion of the facility by kidnappers and other criminals posing as commercial transport operators.
The criminals who have laid siege to the airport and environs, recently kidnapped a National Youth Corps Service member and daughter of a serving House of Representatives member from Edo State. The victim, Eghonghon Jessica Edionwele, happened to be the second daughter of Chief Joe Edionwele, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party representing Esan West, Esan Central and Igueben federal constituency of Edo State. Eghonghon, a graduate of physiotherapy from Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, was serving in Ibadan and had flown with the 4pm flight of Arik Air from Lagos to Abuja to join her father, when she was abducted by her captors. The victim reportedly boarded a vehicle from the NAIA to the Area One residence of her father but was never taken to the house by the driver who picked from the airport.
In the wake of the escalation of criminal activities in the FCT and other parts of the country, the police swung to action and presented six suspected child kidnappers at the Force Headquarters in Abuja recently. The suspects comprising three females and three males were arrested for kidnapping three children to an unknown destination under the pretext of buying biscuits for them.
However, the major targets of the criminal masterminds, according to a source in the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), are high networth individuals comprising industry titans, politicians and their families.
