Afolabi Gambari
You could spend eternity in the pursuit of data from the National Bureau of Statistics, otherwise known as NBS. The most you would always get is to be force-fed with patience. Nothing is ever ready for collection there at the asking; you must wait – is it what you seek being key areas of national interest such as security education health housing transport or sports? The office is a web of intricacy for the most part, and it is as if it exists just for the sake of it or, as it is said in local parlance, to fulfil all righteousness.
So, it could only be amazing when, on December 17, the NBS issued a report in the media to the effect that Nigerians paid N2.23 trillion as ransom in one year between May 2023 and April 2024. The bureau also said 52 million crime incidents were recorded within the period.
According to the report, “disaggregation by zone reveals that the North-West (14,402,254) reported the highest incidences of household crime, followed by the North-Central (8,771,40), while the South-East (6,176,031) reported the least crime incidence.”
It went on: “The result also shows that the crime incidence in the rural areas (26,526,069) was higher than that of urban areas (25,360,963). Among households that experienced kidnapping incidents, 65.0 percent paid a ransom. The average amount paid as ransom was N2,670,693, with an estimated total ransom of N2,231,772,563,507 paid within the reference period.”
And on: “In Nigeria, 4,142,174 households experienced home robbery. Less than half (36.3 percent) of the households who were victims of home robbery reported their experience to the police. According to this study, the most common reasons for not reporting crimes include lack of confidence in law enforcement and the belief that police intervention would not result in meaningful action.”
And on: “At the individual level, 21.4 percent of Nigerians reported being victims of crime, and the most common crime was phone theft (13.8%). About 90 percent of the victims of phone thefts reported to the police, and only 50 percent of victims expressed satisfaction with police responses.”
Perhaps, it is needless to ask if the foregoing statistics are accidental or routine. But whichever it is, it calls for scrutiny. The timing of the release likewise calls for scrutiny. But more importantly, the report ignored the updates on security expenditure over the one-year period that it purportedly covered. It also ignored the government updates on how incidents of kidnapping and banditry have been “reduced to the barest minimum” and how the insurgents and bandits have been decimated in their hundreds and peace returned to the troubled areas. Specifically, it ignored the successes attributed to particularly the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, who is said to have devised “sweeping measures” that aimed at making insecurity in the country a thing of the past to make would-be foreign investors be at home in Nigeria. If the NBS would also not elaborate on “the most common reasons for not reporting crimes include lack of confidence in law enforcement and the belief that police intervention would not result in meaningful action”, well, it is within its decision to do so.
But questions, however, must be asked as to how the NBS arrived at “N2.23 trillion as ransom in one year between May 2023 and April 2024” being paid by victims. Considering the “non-disclosure” code attached to many of the kidnapping cases, especially the denial of payment by victims even after the payments had been made, what indices could the bureau have used in determining how much money had changed hands between victims and their oppressors? To say nothing of the reality that those who take the ransom fees have hardly been identified, let alone being arrested and made to give a proper account of how much was given or taken.
It is not quite clear what exactly the NBS sought to achieve with the December 17 report. But suffice it that the bureau must have been mistaken to believe it sought to boost the image of the current administration in Nigeria. To be sure, the NBS is not in any way a security organization. Yet, its report has laid bare the dire security situation in the country vis-a-vis how it has robbed the people of their financial sustenance. If N2.23 trillion Naira were to be an aggregation of revenue accruing from tax payments, it would serve well to boost a few key sectors of the national life. All this going to faceless or ghost-like oppressors who seem to be above the state calls for a serious re-examination of the whole structure of Nigeria.
Safe for the bad image the statistics could cause the incumbent Nigerian administration in the eyes of the world by situating the country as a crime scene, however, the same administration could turn the report to an advantage because of what more work needs to be done in making the country safe. The N2.23 trillion involved in ransom payment by the victims of insecurity alone should spur the administration to fish for and expose the kidnappers, insurgents, bandits and sundry criminals, especially considering that the ransom figure can only escalate in the years ahead if the situation remains the same. The irony involved in an administration that has spared no efforts at restructuring the tax base of Nigeria while at the same not doing enough to save the people from parting with their hard-earned money to non-state actors, that is, criminals cannot be over-emphasized.
