Nigeria, forest of a million kidnappers

Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Every Nigerian is now a kidnapper. When you don’t see human beings to kidnap, you kidnap the truth. This is the Nigerian way of the here and now.

I can prove it by swearing in front of the dreaded Okija Shrine. Or even the Sanctuary of Fela, think about it!

The “Forest of a Thousand Demons” that Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka described in his translation of DO Fagunwa’s period novel is pale in comparison to the blind captors who took control of the graying green and white forest known as name of Nigeria.

Kankara schoolchildren in Katsina State have just been kidnapped as a welcome gift to President Muhammadu Buhari as he spends his vacation in his home state of Katsina.

Katsina governor Masari lamented that the 333 students were kidnapped only for President Buahri’s spokesman Garba Shehu to respond that only 10 schoolchildren were missing.

I am concerned that our friend Garba Shehu will test positive for taking performance enhancing drugs while in government office.

Before a positive drug test nullifies the kidnapping numbers game, let’s just recognize that the kidnapping of the Kankara boys is an equalizer for the kidnapping of the Chibok girls.

Buhari and his supporters will never allow us to forget that anything former President Goodluck Jonathan could do, Buhari can do better.

If Jonathan has seen the kidnapping of girls, Buhari has raised the bar with the kidnapping of boys. Now the Bring Back the Girls Brigade will bow, tremble, and faint before the true champions of Buhari’s time, chanting, “Bring back the boys!”

In this kidnapping case, it’s cool to start from the beginning when Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was accused of kidnapping the Nigerian presidency of the so-called “northern core”.

At the time, supporters of northern hegemony could not believe their eyes that a rank foreigner from the Niger Delta had succeeded in “kolobi” the presidency, that is to say, using a slang of kidnapping in the Niger Delta which means “grab by the neck”.

In 2015, there was a strong alliance between the self-proclaimed political sophistries of the Lagoon Buccaneer and the feudal Mandarins of the Desert Shepherd with not a little help from the Letter Writing Navigator to lift the ransom needed to retrieve the Kidnapped chair from the lair of the Ijaw man of Otuoke named Goodluck.

After paying the ransom necessary to reclaim the kidnapped top location, there have been muffled rumors here and there about the total abduction of the presidency in the North-North without any regard for other geopolitical areas of the country.

No kidnapper worthy of his tribal AK47 cares about futile discussions about federal character, constitutional order, democratic standards and so on!

Only the kidnapping of cows arouses the anger of the new sheriff of the city. Kidnapping humans is a free ride – from school kids and girls to all common mortals running for their lives in the kidnapping jungle of the Nigerian forest.

In this way, Nigeria today is like a punch drunk boxer harassed from pillar to post with no manager in sight to throw in the towel.

The department heads are glued in one spot with the special type of glue known as Northern Glue.

Every Nigerian is now obeying the mantra of kidnapping or being kidnapped alone by unprecedented fuel price hikes, sky-high exchange rates, romanticized shepherds, duplicate border closures, and more.

In the vast kidnapping playground of the so-called African Giant, anything can happen and no one is sacred.

Parents who protest the kidnapping of their sons end up being tear gas in the service of the kidnapping emperor.

Instead of clearing all the forests in Nigeria to get rid of the kidnappers once and for all, there is the national will to champion the cause of planting more Ruga trees, thus creating more forests for the kidnappers.

What could be more user-friendly than that?

If the southern area ended up being transformed into a vast forest through the Ruga Grass and Forest exercise, I am sure the kidnappers would enjoy free reign in Nigeria.

If you think I’m jiving, wait till I clear my eyes with Shine-Shine Bobo!

Now, with my very clear eyes, I can clearly see kidnappers lurking in every corner of the promised nation.

As if to further substantiate the fact that kidnappings are everywhere in Nigeria, I unfortunately have to point out that I just got kidnapped in mid-sentence …

My kidnappers want a ransom of 116 million naira, the exact amount kidnapped by the oil ministry led by Oga-at-the-Top to buy biros and letterhead.

With their AK 47 rifles pointed at my big head, the kidnappers forced me to call Aso Rock to demand payment of the ransom.

My one prayer rings loud that Garba Shehu’s legendary performance enhancing drugs should be active like never before.

The voice at the Aso end heard me without saying a word in response.

The kidnappers ordered me to repeat the call only so that I could hear from the Aso Rock phone: “The number you are calling is currently disabled. Please try again later!”

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