The burgeoning kidnapping industry

impact their funding. If this is the case, it is necessary to re-orientate these top security personnel and re-think the link between the security structures and their funding formula.

Adequate funding is essential. A situation where kidnappers and terrorists are better equipped than our security officials is unacceptable. There is a need to integrate local intelligence, community participation, and government security apparatus in the fight against kidnapping. A massive sensitisation programme is needed to educate youths to eschew violence and kidnapping activities whilst being tough on those who choose to become kidnappers. The carrot and stick approach are essential.

Security is a joint venture. Everyone must be involved in the protection of lives and properties. Kidnappers are human beings who live with people, interact with them, and buy things from them. It will become easy if everyone is keen to work together to eradicate them. Leaders of communities that harbour kidnappers knowingly must be made precariously liable. It behoves them to know people living in their communities and liaise with security agencies to rid the community of anyone who is a kidnapper.

Finally, you can turn the country into a police state, but kidnapping will continue to flourish if you do not address the economy and create jobs. This macroeconomic reality stares all of us in the face. A country where almost 50% of its youths are unemployed, underemployed, or unemployable is a fertile ground for criminality such as kidnapping. A country where stupendous riches co-habit with ravenous poverty and the gap between the rich and the poor is widening each day creates a conducive socio- political and economic milieu for kidnapping. The Nigerian state must rise to the occasion and create apolitical, social, and economic environment that discourages crime while  promoting progress, growth, and  development.