Emmanuel Amaize, Regional Editor, South-South

*GOVERNOR Emmanuel Uduaghan

GOVERNOR Emmanuel Uduaghan is not a stranger to criminals and their devices, especially kidnappers. In fact, some years ago, as Secretary to the Delta State Government, he was a member of the Federal Government team, headed by the current president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who was then the vice president, which was established to end kidnapping in the region.

At that time, kidnapping was carried out by militants in the creek. Now, the action is on land, and, lately, profit-making hostage-takers are on the loose. The governor was cornered, penultimate Friday, by Sunday Vanguard, shortly after a prayer session at the Government House Chapel, Asaba, and he spoke on what the state government was doing to rein in the criminals. Excerpts:

You are just coming from church. Is this a daily thing or once in a while?

The Government House Chapel is just by the gate, as you enter the Government House. I have taken it as a practice, part of our daily activities to seek the face of God in the morning before doing any other thing in the office.

I know you believe in the Holy Ghost and its power, so did you rain Holy Ghost fire on criminals, particularly kidnappers, who are currently on the rampage in your state in the church?

(Long hilarious laughter) In actual fact, we prayed against everything, not just kidnappers, against anything that is evil. But having said that, let me correct an impression because when you used the word rampage, it is like you are saying the thing has become uncontrollable, that is not quite true. Yes, the number has increased, the rate of kidnapping has increased in certain parts of the state but it has not gone beyond control. It is still under control.

The first body you constituted on assumption of office in 2007 was the Delta Waterways Security Committee. That was when kidnapping was happening in the creeks. Today, it has shifted from the waterways to land, what is responsible?

Well, the history of kidnapping in the state goes beyond 2007, it was when I was Secretary to the State Government, SSG, that we had the first set of kidnap cases in which the current president was made the chairman of the team to go and rescue the victims and I happened to have represented Delta State in that team.

That time, the reason for kidnapping was mainly as a result of the Niger-Delta agitation, I think the armed youths engaged in kidnapping as a way of drawing attention of the Federal Government and the oil companies to the struggle. And so, it was mainly expatriates working in the oil industry that were being kidnapped and, because they were expatriates, they got attention whenever they struck.

Unfortunately, criminals now saw kidnapping as a quick means of making money, much more lucrative and “easier” than armed robbery. So, we now have cases of kidnapping all over, virtually every part of the country has been affected, but became worse in the South East at a time.

Now, the federal authorities have moved heavily to the South East, so what we now noticed is that many of those people who used to do kidnapping moved to some other states and, unfortunately, Delta State is one of the states they have moved into, eh, because from the records we have, from the number of people we have arrested, we have arrested over 30, many of them are from the South East, not even from Delta State. So, it has become a commercial venture, much more lucrative than armed robbery. That is the way it is now.

Kidnapping in the state is more in the Delta Central Senatorial District. Are people rebelling against something or what?

Yes, for now, it is more in the Central, although reasons have been mentioned as to why it is like that and one of the speculations is that it has to do with the amnesty programme in which there is unhappiness about the programme not extended to youths that did not carry arms, they felt that it was only youths that carried arms that government recognized and they kind of concluded that they should do something now to be recognized. That is one of the theories that is being bandied about.

Well, some people think that with the way kidnapers are practising their trade in Delta, the state is now the kidnapping capital of the country.

No, no, no, that is very wrong, it is very wrong and we must correct that impression. I was reading a report that the mother of somebody was kidnapped and it was in Delta that the plot was hatched (laughs), which is not quite correct.

You said that situation is not uncontrollable. How you are handling the matter, as the chief security officer of the state?

There is very little I can say about our strategy because once you start revealing your strategy, of course, the criminals know what you want to do and they move ahead of you. But you would have noticed that I stepped up a few things and we had an emergency security council yesterday, and by this morning, a few operations are going on. I am expecting good results.

The complaint, nevertheless, is that there are no jobs and government is virtually staring at the problem without solving it?

I usually disagree with people who tend to justify criminality with joblessness. A criminal is a criminal. Why do I say so, during his tenure, the former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, gave some allocation to the Niger-Delta for employment into the security agencies, especially the police and I can tell you that till today, we have not been able to fill our quota.

Why, because many of these youths do not want to join the police, they don’t want to do this, they don’t want to do that, they want jobs that will give them very heavy money, they don’t want to gradually build up, they want quick money, so it is not quite correct that it is joblessness that is pushing people into kidnapping, criminals are just criminals.

There is also the contention that the Niger-Delta governors have not even managed available funds well.

Let us not go into managing and mismanagement of funds. Those are issues that if anybody wants to know how funds have been spent in Delta State, for instance, the records are there. We do our audit every year, audit report is there and nobody refers to audit report. I think we have gone beyond that.

Delta State House of Assembly passed a bill on anti-kidnapping, but you have not signed it into law. Why?

That law stipulates death sentence for kidnappers and I don’t believe in death sentence. I don’t believe that it will solve the problem because we have precedence; there was death sentence for armed robbers, in fact, it was open execution then, where the late Lawerence Anini and co were executed but that did not stop armed robbery.

Indeed, what happened was that armed robbers became more deadly, so death sentence has not stopped any sort of crime. I don’t believe in it. So, I think we are going to meet ourselves midway to arrive at something.

What is this midway because it is assumed that it is because you did not sign the bill into law that kidnappers are emboldened in the state?

Whether I sign the bill or not, there is already a law against kidnapping, kidnapping is a crime (laughs), there is already law against it. So, it is not this one that we are doing now that will stop it, this one is just putting an extreme condition.

They have to be sentenced to death, which I don’t agree with. So, by our law today, if kidnappers are found guilty, they will go to jail. What we are discussing with the House of Assembly is how long the person is going to stay in jail if found guilty.

You mean Deltans should be rest assured that the government has put feasible measures in place to save them from kidnappers?

Oh yes, a lot of measures have been put in place and anybody who gets involved in kidnapping will have himself or herself to blame.