Security experts have warned of imminent rise in robbery and kidnapping for ransom incidents during the forthcoming festive season.
Chief Executive Officer, Background Check International (BCI), Kola Olugbodi; and National Security policy analyst, Christopher Orji, disclosed this at the weekly e-Discourse organised by Platforms Africa.
They also expressed concerns over the recent surge in ritual killings in hotels, as they offer personal security tips to lodgers and travellers during the yuletide and beyond.
Platforms Africa is an e-community of intellectuals, policy moulders and opinion leaders in the continent.
A statement signed by Adeola Yusuf, Team Lead, Platforms Africa, quoted Olugbodi, as saying that “kidnappers will pick a so-called ordinary man, knowing that his extended family, friends, associates and even his community members would all rally together to pay a N20 million ransom.
“Things have seriously changed these days. Insecurity has become an every day affair. Yeah, I know that armed robbery incidence increases during the Christmas season because the guys that have plans to go spend the season in their country homes are the main targets.
“But the scenario now is that armed robbers have upgraded to kidnapping. They can make a whole year’s ‘gain’ by just picking a whole bus load of passengers.”
He said “an average African is religious and so philosophical. So we don’t pay so much attention to personal security but the prevalent criminal situations in our countries have proved that those situations now happen randomly,” he said at the event moderated by Nairobi, Kenya-based veteran journalist, Kurian Musa.
On his part, Comrade Oji, an ex-president of the Crime Reporters Association of Nigeria (CRAN), said that “crime rate is always on the rise between September and December because of pressure from family members.”
Orji added that in order not to be seen as failures, people commit crimes more when Christmas and New Year approach.
“There is pressure from relatives. They don’t care how you make it but just get the money and you will be applauded. Not many have the ability to resist family pressure,” he said.
