By Chris Ihidero
A week before the mother of the Minister for Finance and co-ordinating Minister for the Economy Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was kidnapped, my friend’s mother was kidnapped at noon on a Thursday somewhere in Edo State. For the next 48 hours, she, her family and friends were subjected to some of the most horrific psychological trauma anyone will fervently pray never to experience.
Held in an open forest, sitting and sleeping in the bush with no covering, no food and guarded by several menacing men holding terrifying weapons; tears and prayers for divine intervention was all that they were all left with. No help came from the land she calls home, no assistance from the security forces that litter the land of her birth. She, unlike the mother of Nigeria’s unofficial Prime Minister, is an ordinary citizen, therefore her fate, like so many other daily realities, were squarely in her hands.
When Prof. Iweala was kidnapped, 63 people were arrested in no time and the leader of the kidnapping gang was summarily executed by Nigeria’s security forces, it was reported. The minister’s mother was returned to her family after 5 days. I have no personal problem with the swift intervention from the security forces; in fact I believe that they did the right thing. To kidnap a family member of one of the top members of the federal cabinet must be one of the most foolish things to do. I mean, how would they not have known that the full wrath of Nigeria’s security forces would be unleashed on them for such unwise daring?
The kidnap, we have now been told, was not carried out for the kind of ransom my friend’s family was asked for when her mother was kidnapped. The Minister says: ‘While she was in their custody, the kidnappers spent much of the time harassing her. They told her that I must get on the radio and television and announce my resignation. When she asked why, they told her it was because I did not pay oil subsidy money. They also said I had blocked payment of money to certain components of the SURE-P programme’. If this isn’t a pointer to how weak Goodluck Jonathan’s government is perceived to be, then please tell me what it is.
The question to ask then is: when will the kind of treatment given to the kidnap of the minister’s mother be available to ordinary Nigerians? Or, to paraphrase George Orwell in Animal Farm, are some Nigerian mothers more equal than the others? If storming the kidnappers’ hideouts and flushing them out is the thing to do, why not do it, irrespective of who has been kidnapped? When people, especially people in government, insist that Nigeria is a developing country and things are getting better, it is instructive to point to instances such as this, where the gaping gulf between people in power and helpless citizens is forever expanding. Until we get to the point where ordinary citizens can expect that the security forces of the country they call home will deploy all means possible in the event of something like a kidnapping happening to them, we should not publicly say were are a developing nation; that would be silly.
I thank God Prof. Iweala is back home with her family. I thank God my friend’s mother returned home alive, hale and hearty. I thank God the actress Nkiru Sylvanus and Ex Mr. Nigeria, who were taken last Thursday, are alive and back home with their families.
Now we wait…who’s next?
