Confessions of Undergraduate Kidnappers

Newswatch

26 November 2011

Confessions of Undergraduate Kidnappers       

Even as students, they own cars and live big on campus. They tell the sordid tales of their involvement in kidnapping, the money they make and how they got recruited into the booming business of holding people hostage for money

The phenomenon began in the Niger Delta region as a freedom fight by militants protesting the degradation of their environment by oil industry activities. But it soon turned into a money making avenue through kidnapping of expatriate oil workers for huge ransoms. Since then, kidnapping has become a daily occurrence and it has spread throughout the South-South states of Edo, Bayelsa, Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and the South-East states of Abia, Imo and Anambra. The South-West has not been left out. There are occasional brushes with the daring young men in Ondo and Lagos states.

Across the states with high incidence of kidnappings, many youths have taken to the business of kidnapping. Many of them even have godfathers working behind the scene. And in states hitherto considered as peace havens, people can no longer sleep with their two eyes closed. This is the situation in Cross River where undergraduates of the Cross River University of Technology, CRUTECH, Calabar, have unleashed terror on inhabitants of the state capital.