Port Harcourt — If you were the Governor of a state and someone kidnapped one of your Commissioners, that would be a slap on your face and a direct challenge to your authority, and you’d leave no stone unturned in efforts to free the honourable captive. This scenario played out in Bayelsa State on 20 January this year when the Commissioner for Commerce and Investment, Mr. Federal Otokiti was kidnapped at his residence at Otuokpoti in Ogbia Local Government Area. Kidnapping is booming business in the Niger Delta and other parts of Nigeria. You can be taken from anywhere and payment of ransom is not a guarantee that you’d live to tell the story. News reports on this kind of incidents are the new normal, but the taking of such a high profile victim beamed a fresh spotlight on the crime, and Governor Duoye Diri unleashed the powers of his administration in search of his Commissioner.
The efforts worked. Five days later, Mr. Otokiti, who said he nearly died in captivity, was freed, with black eyes and a bandaged back and arm, as tokens of his ordeal. Governor Diri swung into action again. He dethroned the traditional ruler of Otuokpoti, Chief Theophilus Wongo, and sacked the Community’s Development Committee Chairman and the youth president. The replacement for the traditional ruler is appropriately named Chief Rescue Abe! The Governor said he took the action because of reports linking these men with the kidnap. Some community members protested the removal of their traditional ruler but the Governor said the decision was “final.” We’ve seen traditional rulers in Bayelsa and in other states being removed in the past.
In 2018, the then Bayelsa State Government suspended the Ibeyanaowei of Oluasiri in Nembe Local Government Area, for “flagrant abuse of the state government directive and threatening the peace and security of the area.” Four years later, precisely in 2011, the Bayelsa State Government dethroned the paramount ruler of Otuasega community in Ogbia Local Government Area for reasons that were not disclosed. But perhaps, the most recent high profile dethronement happened in Kano State on 9 March 2020, when Governor Abdullahi Ganduje removed and banished the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II for “insubordination and disrespect to constituted authority.” A year later, the deposed traditional ruler went to court to challenge the method of his banishment and won, but he’s nowhere near the throne he ascended in 2014. The traditional institution in Nigeria and Africa has changed unrecognisably over the years. Unlike in the days of our ancestors when these rulers determined who lived and died, modernity has brought them to earth, such that, rather than the sanctity of office they enjoyed in the past, they now exist at the pleasure of government.
And yet, we still expect them to play pivotal roles in communal life as if they enjoy the same power and prestige. With rampant kidnap cases in the Niger Delta, state governors have threatened to remove traditional rulers in whose domains kidnapping and illegal bunkering are rampant. Indeed, the kidnap of Mr. Otokiti was allegedly linked to illegal bunkering and artisanal refining, because he was said to have opposed a plan by crude thieves to set up an illegal refinery in the community’s forest. It was further reported that, two days after the man was seized, the gang leader contacted the now-deposed paramount ruler of the community, and informed him that they had the victim. The gang reportedly did not demand any ransom but stated that they would free Mr. Otokiti only on the condition that the police would release the father of their leader who they had arrested as part of their investigation. The gang also reached the Community Development Committee chairman with the sane demand.
Perhaps, these conversations led Governor Diri to identify a link between the kidnap incident and the sacked traditional ruler and community officials. If this is true, and if these men aided the incident, then the Governor must go beyond merely relieving them of their posts and roles. They should be made to face the law so people elsewhere can know that it is no longer business as usual in kidnapping. Thankfully, Governor Diri is also thinking along this line, as he has made clear that “the state’s laws prohibiting kidnapping would be followed to the letter against the kidnappers.” The follow-through prosecution is important because anything less will give the impression that the removal of the traditional ruler and the other officials is a ruse and not a definitive action in the fight against kidnapping and related vices. It will also compound the weakness and impotence of the traditional institution if governors can remove and install rulers at the drop of a hat.
I rejoice with the Otokiti family on the freeing of their breadwinner. An acquaintance of mine was not so lucky. My man was travelling to Kogi State to attend the burial of his father in-law when gunmen abducted him on the way. They demanded a ransom of N5 million and the family, already grieving a loss, paid. His corpse was later picked up in the bush.
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