Obasanjo: Govt must adopt carrot-and-stick approach against kidnapping for ransom

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the issue of kidnapping for ransom must be addressed with carrot-and-stick approach, noting that payment of ransom encourages the crime.

He also said the Federal Government including the administration of Goodluck Jonathan paid ransom to rescue kidnapped persons.

The country has recorded a series of mass abductions and students especially in North have been victims. And their abductors often demand ransom to release them.

Obasanjo, who spoke on Wednesday when members of the Tiv Professionals Group visited him in Abeokuta, Ogun State, said governments had been paying ransom.

He added that if ransom would not be paid, the situation must be dealt with using other methods.

“Some people are still reaching out, and hoping that lives can still be saved. But a situation whereby anybody thinks paying ransom is the way out, that person is folly. He is a folly,” he said.

Obasanjo said, “This is because when you pay ransom, you encourage. But if you are not going to pay ransom, you must have the means to deal heavily with it. You must have the stick to deal with it.

“Government has always paid ransom. Not only this government, even during Jonathan (administration). They paid ransom, but they denied it.”

He also said leaders must ensure that 2023 births a new federation in Nigeria to stop the country from sliding into disintegration.

Obasanjo expressed the fear that the people beating drums of division in Nigeria had not put the interest of the minority ethnic groups into consideration.

He said, “I do believe that whatever else we do we have to make the year 2023 a watershed for Nigeria. The year 2023 should give us the beginning of the emergence of a new federation or feeling that the rot continues, and then, we are going to be sliding back to dissolution. God forbid.

 

“And he would say to me if the Yorubas can stand as a country, if the Igbos can stand as a country if the Hausas/Fulanis can stand as a country, if you major tribes decide to break up from the country, where do you want the minority ethnic groups to stand? That, many Nigerians don’t know about it, unfortunately.”