I have read recently how wives feign their own abduction to extort money from their husband, how husbands claim they have been kidnapped just to get their wife pay, even how unconscionable couples conspire and agree in unison to hide themselves under the bed, then call relatives, claiming that their imaginary abductors are placing a ransom of a certain amount, depending on what they need the money for, level of greed and volume of consciencelessness. This is how much we have trivialised and commercialised a heinous crime such as forceful abduction.
In the spirit of inclusion and fair balancing, children refuse to be left out of the kidnapping bazaar and bizarre. They took up the gauntlet and accept the challenge our society dangles on their face, by participating in the communion of heartless criminality their parents, aunties and uncles have so commonised.
The recent self-abduction in Ondo State by two teenagers, 13 and 15-year-old respectively openly demonstrates how low our morals have condescended, kissing the dust with such sense of glamour, if not pride as if it is something to thumb the chest about. The word “kidnap” as recent as 20 years ago in this country was almost unheard let alone practiced, the same way “suicide bombing” was very rare in our day-to-day discourse. We only read them on the pages of newspaper, of Middle East and parts of Asia.
What started “like-joke, like-joke” as a tool in the Niger Delta region, albeit a very wrong one for that matter to get the government pay attention to the activities of oil companies, which gave rise to environmental degradation, threat to aquatic life, destruction of farmlands and general jeopardisation of the people’s economic firmament later became a bargaining chip for criminals who want to continue funding an opulent and ostentatious lifestyle that never belonged to them ab-initio, it became a meal ticket for undesirable elements with a luxurious lifestyle, yet no traceable means of livelihood — Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike aka Evans and his disciples readily comes to mind. The guard was later lowered when abduction became a self-crime, in essence, when people learnt to kidnap themselves to get fund to either pay house rent, school fees, buy new gadgets or just to fritter around, including funding a drug lifestyle.
Now let’s go back to the Ondo self-abduction. Even though crime has no gender limit, neither is any gender wearing any arm band as the captain of crime, what makes the entire scenario more confusing is that the two candidates are girls. Oh yes! GIRLS. The same girl-child that is synonymous with piety and national conscience, the same girl-child for whom columnists and writers burn their candlelight making a case, the same girl-child for whom activists and civil society organisations carry placards around the streets, the same girl-child for whom United Nations through UNICEF and other relevant agencies expend billions of Naira, building a brighter future path.
In all of these, what has been evidently established is the wide emotional, physical and psychological disconnect in the family structural framework — parents disconnected from their children, husbands and wives disconnected from each other, siblings disconnected from one another and the family almost on autopilot.
If there was a scintilla of love, children would give it a thought before coming up with the satanic imagination of going somewhere to hide themselves, then start placing calls on their parents to deliver a huge ransom at a location. I dare ask, what is it with this generation and money?
I recall vividly as a bread hawker in my secondary school days, at the end of each day’s sales, I would hand over the entire proceeds to my mother, who would then ask, “Dee nne don’t you need money for anything?” I would quickly respond, mama my fees have been paid and I don’t buy food outside. What will I need the money for?
What has really happened all of a sudden with our moral fabrics? Why the unmitigated desperation and untamed desire for money? No stratum of the society is left out in the aggressive pursuit for money. Money money money! — the aged, adults, teens, kids, even infants are gradually making inroads into the confraternity of worshippers of money. Place ordinary paper and a bank note before your one-year-old baby and see which one s/he chooses.
Upon interrogation, the Ondo teenage self-abductors blamed lack of parental care as reason for their action and placement of N100,000 ransom on themselves. While no justification can be adduced for their behaviour, without mincing words, it is worth noting that some parents have FAILED in discharging their parental obligations. They are only parents by the reasons of biological formation and nothing more. They leave their children at such tender age to form their own attitudes they probably had picket from the gutters, an attitude that would later plaster a bold signature of public embarrassment of the face of lethargic parent(s). “Leave my daughter for me, don’t you know she is still a child, have you finished raising your own” is usually what you hear from a docile parent who is breeding a maladjusted child, at the mildest effort to effect an early correction.
Intuitively, some parents pontificate on how much they understand their children yet lack idea on what they have capacity to do. There is obviously lack of bonding between the two Ondo aunties and their parents. There would have been a level of sympathy, like “my parents don’t deserve this. I can’t do it”. Never. They instead threatened the traditional ruler of Oka-Akoko that if ransom was not paid in 24 hours, they would kill the “abductees”. Really? Girls of 13 and 15 that should learning proper placement of their pampers? The parents would not know these were the descendants of sister Jezebel they were housing under their roof. I dare ask again, my dear reader, do you know your children? How much are you connected with their innermost feelings and needs? How much do you interact with them or feel their pulse? There should be an atmosphere for free and no-holds-barred interaction and bonding in the family. Your home should not be a “command and control centre”.
As I bring this piece to a close, it also paradoxical that the religious houses which used to be the bastion of moral excellence is gradually drifting, with attention shifting to indoctrinating the children’s mind with religious and tribal supremacy or how sudden wealth not backed with hard work is all that matters in life. What does your pastor teach the children during Sunday schools? What does the imam teach at the Islamiyya?
Parents should not be parenting in physical presence but psychological and emotional absence. A mother who pays more attention to her social media notifications, order than the child’s needs will one day pay ransom, for the child to free himself, by himself and from himself. A father who sees a corrective measure on his child as an absurdity will one day live in regret when the law of sowing and reaping hits him below the belt. Did I hear you say God forbid? Then parent well!
Enemanna, Abuja-based journalist, writes via [email protected]
