Before the 2023 elections, Nigerians were bedeviled with kidnap activities. The target of the kidnappers had been the well-to-do and popular personalities, but after some time, poor people were not spared.
Drivers, passengers, students and artisans struggling for survival became regular victims.
And heaven help those with no means or family and friends to pay ransom.
A reference is an Ogbomoso case whereby a United States citizen, Gbenga Owolabi, who was into hotel business in Nigeria, was killed by kidnappers alongside a student of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, Rachael Opadele, working temporarily in the hotel during a long strike by the Academic Union of Univesities (ASUU), and a motorcyclist who conveyed the person who brought the ransom.
They had thought that the ransom bearer and the motorcyclist were law enforcement agents who disguised to arrest them.
However, with the redesign of naira notes, particularly N1,000, N500 and N200, by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the attendant non-availability of the new notes, Nigerians became crunched financially.
Survival became hard. It also reflected in the operations of kidnappers as they went out of action. There was no way they could obtain non-available cash as ransom.
With the cash scarcity, kidnapping subsided. Not even a single case was heard of because cash was not available anywhere in the country.
Most people saw the scarcity as a blessing in disguise as people’s fear of being kidnapped reduced.
But no sooner than the elections were held than the naira notes gradually returned into circulation and kidnappings returned in full force.
In Osun State, for instance, two wives of a popular traditionalist based in Imesi-lle, Oba Adetoyese Olakisan, also known as Oba Ogboni Agbaye, were kidnapped.
Though, one of the women was said to have escaped from the kidnappers, the second one, Olori Rashidat Olatipe, was reportedly rescued by a traditional security group from where she was held hostage in Aba Paanu at Ikoro-Ekiti, Ekiti State.