‘It kills our morale’ — police say crowdfunding to pay ransom is criminal

The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) says crowdfunding to raise the ransom to secure the release of abducted persons “kills” the morale of its operatives.

Speaking in an interview with Channels Television on Thursday, Muyiwa Adejobi, force spokesperson, said crowdfunding for ransom will encourage the “dirty business” of kidnapping.

Recently, the rate of kidnapping in many parts of the country has increased.

On January 2, bandits abducted a father and his six daughters when they attacked their residence in Zuma 1, Bwari area of Abuja.

After about two weeks in captivity, the bandits killed Nabeeha, one of the girls, over the inability of the family to pay the ransom demanded.

The abductors reportedly increased the ransom to N100 million and threatened to kill more girls if the money was not paid.

Bank details were shared on various social media platforms to raise the ransom demanded by the kidnappers.

On January 21, the remaining five girls regained freedom after spending 18 days in captivity.

On Monday, gunmen kidnapped six pupils of Apostolic Faith School, three teachers and a driver at Eporo-Ekiti.

Reacting to the trend of payment of ransom, Adejobi said families of abducted victims do not carry the police along due to the threat of kidnappers.

The force spokesperson said the kidnappers usually manipulate the psyche of families of abducted victims against not informing the police.

“Paying ransom is criminal in Nigeria, according to the provisions of our law. The problem we have in most cases is that families of victims don’t carry security operatives along,” he said.

“They get scared because kidnappers always work on their psyche and tell them that “don’t tell security agencies, don’t tell the police, if you do we are going to kill your relations” and they keep quiet.

“It got to a stage where somebody did crowdfunding on social media. This will not help us in any way. It is criminal. Crowdfunding is not allowed.

“How can you come on social media and be telling people to gather money to rescue victims? It kills our morale.”