By Emma Amaize, South-South Regional Editor and Ozioruva Aliu (Benin City)
Abducting people and whisking their victims into the impenetrable forests, where the killer herdsmen/kidnappers demand various ransoms from relatives, has turned into not just a mere business but a systematized and money-spinning venture in Edo State.
Hitherto, money-making kidnappers target wealthy people whose movements they track, snatch them wherever convenient, blindfold them, and take them to sequestered houses where they demand a payoff.
This was the method usually applied by Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, popularly known as Evans and ‘The Billionaire Kidnapper,’ a native of Nnewi, Anambra State, and his gangsters, convicted for kidnapping in 2022.
Not peculiar to Edo State, as the neighboring Delta State is also under siege, there is something strange about the kidnappers whose comfort zone is the dense forests in Edo State.
Co-conspirators known as “monitors” start the supplier network by mounting surveillance on victims and alerting the next group of people on the network, referred to as “grabbers.” Locals typically serve as the monitors and grabbers.
According to our findings, kidnappers themselves enlist members of their type to act as monitors and grabbers to hide their tracks.
In many cases, the grabbers take their prey to a spot in the jungle and sell them to the group known as “off-takers.”
The criminals negotiate payments after relocating the victims to their forest hideouts.
There are “collectors” in the supply network who receive the payoffs and give them to the off-takers for their payment.
Many victims recognized the region of the country from which the kidnappers hailed by their language. They would explain to you who abducted them, what language they used, why they were taken, how they treated them, and lots more
The unemployed youths and recent graduates who engage in kidnapping typically hide their victims in unsuspected buildings and demand ransom from their friends and family instead of taking them into the woods. They mostly speak Pidgin English.
Igbo kidnappers and Yoruba kidnappers also speak their dialects when they reach their “safe” zone, while the Fulani and Hausa kidnappers, whose looks are distinctive, communicate in their vernacular.
The Fulani kidnappers particularly like to bundle their victims into the forests, where they have built several rickety camps.
Fulani herdsmen before the infiltration
In Edo State, it used to be a joy to see the migrant Fulani herdsmen, who arrived during the dry season and left during the rainy season because of the tsetse fly, which was harmful to their cows.
The Fulani herdsmen armed themselves with sticks, arrows, and knives to protect themselves from attacks by other dangerous animals in the bush and to discipline their straying cows.
Now that the problem of tsetse fly infection has been resolved, their presence is year-round, and their wives sell their local milk in different towns and villages’ markets.
Then, they led their cattle off farmlands, and because of their religious convictions that they should not eat certain animals, they gave farmers rodents, guinea fowl, and animals they killed in the bushes whenever they saw them. Though they later started to sell them.
If their cows eat and damage crops on people’s farms, they pay compensation through their community leaders.
With the check on the effects of the tsetse fly, some wealthy men from the areas saw cattle rearing as profitable and took to the business, engaging the Fulani herdsmen to rear their cows alongside their own in the forests.
A royal father confirmed to Saturday Vanguard that some Fulani herdsmen have lived with them in their communities for upwards of 70 years and more without violence until lately.
Indeed, some Fulani herdsmen were granted access to build temporary camps in the forest, and their wives/children reside in the community.
Encroachment by kidnappers and killer herdsmen
The state began to experience problems with some Fulani herdsmen’ violent tendencies in the middle of the 2000s, and they peaked around 2012.
Vanguard’s investigation reveals that the criminally inclined Fulani, some of whom were not native to Nigeria, began to migrate to the southwest, south-south, and southeast after learning about the people’s hospitality to another Fulani living there.
Additionally, in response to pressure from nearby states such as Ondo, which ordered all herdsmen within its forests who were not registered with the state government to either leave the state or come and register in 2021, following the establishment of the Western States Security Network, also known as Amotekun.
Amotekun moved into the forests to enforce the directive when the seven-day ultimatum to illegal herders expired.
According to Amotekun, Ondo State’s Commandant, Chief Adetunji Olu-Adeleye, who oversaw the operation, some herdsmen consented to register and were already registered. He said those who agreed to leave the state, and its forest reserves were escorted to the neighboring states’ borders.
Since Amotekun operates in Osun and Ekiti States, adjacent to Ondo State, Kogi and Edo States were the armed herdsmen logical successors.
The herders were expelled from the Owo axis at the Sobe area, and they meandered into the Owan West local government area and Ibilo in Akoko-Edo local government area, both in Edo State. The Amotekun operatives escorted them from the Ore and Akoko axes of Ondo State to the Ofosu end of Edo State.
Since Edo lacked a robust security system like Amotekun’s, the herders sought refuge in the state, where they were able to associate with other Fulani criminals who had been terrorizing the state from all points of entry and departure.
They hung around in their camps and mixed with the other Fulani herdsmen, but soon they returned to their illegal activities until the secret was revealed.
This set of criminally minded hoodlums who pretended to be herdsmen lorded it over their fellow Hausa and Fulani tribesmen, who sheltered them because they were heavily armed.
Enraged residents of some Edo communities sacked the original Fulani people they had allowed to build camps in their forests for squatting the criminals.
At this point, some of the armed criminals advanced further to Delta State, later Bayelsa State, and other parts of the Niger Delta.
However, some Fulani herders resisted their forced relocation, saying they paid money to the traditional rulers to stay in their forests and camps.
Because the hands of some monarchs and community leaders were already soiled, they allowed some herders, supposedly the ones with genuine businesses, to stay, insisting the criminally minded ones should not visit or stay with them anymore.
The crooks departed to other communities, pretending to be herders, but returned later to the camps where they sacked the herders, took over their camps, and started building a fresh supply network from which the money-making kidnapping that exists today sprang.
The criminals also paraded cows like the normal herders, but they know when to drop the camouflage and carry out abductions, which pays better.
Collaboration with locals
But there is a curious dimension to the kidnapping saga, which indicates a strong connivance between the criminal herdsmen and locals, who act as informants and negotiators.
Testimonies from victims reveal that the kidnappers are very familiar with the terrain, even more than the locals who have dwelled in these same places over the years.
About two years ago, an Edo State-born journalist based in Bayelsa State was kidnapped on his way to Delta State. According to him, the kidnappers have a network of those who picked victims from the road where the driver of their vehicle was shot dead.
They handed them over to a group of armed Fulani kidnappers who guided and guarded them all through their stay in captivity.
Another person, believed not to be a Fulani, came every morning to find out how their family members were negotiating with them.
Similarly, a well-known immigration official in Edo State was abducted and subsequently freed after her family paid a ransom. She stated that people believed to be from the southern part of Nigeria abducted her and handed her over to the Fulani people, who settled her initial kidnappers before they started negotiating for her release from her family.
In Ugha, along the Benin–Auchi Road, the community, through the vigilante with support from the traditional ruler, decided to clear their forest of Fulani herdsmen, and in the process, discovered a palm wine tapper in the community acting as an informant and errand boy for the kidnappers tucked in the forest.
He buys food and other supplies for the kidnappers and relates information on what is happening in the community.
A prince from one of the communities in Edo Central, but based in Benin City, recently told Saturday Vanguard about the experience of his friend who visited home. “My friend told me that he was in his room in the village when they (kidnappers) called and told him the design in his room, the clothes he was wearing, and all his planned movements while at home.”
“He had to abandon his village immediately, return to Benin in disguise, abandoning his vehicle in the village.”
The issue of collaboration was also confirmed by an estate agent kidnapped at home shortly after he traveled to do his father’s burial. He said his abductors told him how he spent money on his late father’s burial.
Flashpoints
They operated mainly on the federal highways and then built some camps in the bushes. But gradually, they have taken over the forests in the three senatorial districts of Edo State.
In the Edo South senatorial district, home to seven of the 18 local government areas that comprise the state, the most notorious area for kidnapping had been the Benin – Auchi – Okenne Road until the previous government of Godwin Obaseki pushed them out, and they started operating from the interior forests, close to the communities.
The forest at Ahor by the bypass that takes road users to the Ugbowo axis of the Benin–Lagos Road has been one of the hottest spots in the area for kidnapping. Many lives have been lost in this axis, and the security agencies rescued quite a number. It is a large forest spanning several kilometers.
Ovia Forests and Ogbemudia Farms, near the Okada Wonderland, along the Benin–Lagos Road, are notorious for kidnapping.
The abandoned Benin–Abaraka Road and the vast farmlands in the Orhionmwon local government area are not left out of kidnappings and killings. Farmers in the affected communities have abandoned their farms and relocated to other cities with their family members.
Along the Benin – Auchi – Okenne Road, hostage takers have taken over the Ugha, Igieduma, Iruekpen communities, and their forests.
In the Edo Central senatorial district, the forests before Iruekpen, Ewato-Ewohimi Road, and Igbanke-Ekpon, off Agbor Road, are kidnappers’ strongholds; the woodland areas along Igueben Road from Uromi are another flashpoint, and the kidnappers have turned the large forest between Ewohimi and Onicha-Ugbo in Delta State into a danger zone.
In the Edo North senatorial district, the forest by Eghono in the Etsako West local government area, along the Benin – Okenne – Lokoja Road, is a fortress for kidnappers.
The same applies to the forestry in Okpella, a boundary town between Edo and Kogi States. Auchi–Warrake–Iruekpen Road, the Uzebba axis along Ifon–Sobe Road, a boundary area between Edo and Ondo States, and the grassland along the Ekperi – Anegbette Road in the Etsako Central local government area.
Speaking on the forests that killer-herdsmen had commandeered in the Akoko-Edo local government area, which shares boundaries with Ondo and Kogi States, a vigilante group leader said, “It is a terrible situation here. These criminal herders have mastered the forests in Aiyegunle, Eshawa, Imoga, Lampese, and Ogori in Kogi State.”
“They move around these forests, if you find them in one today, the next day, they will move to another location. There is a forest after Ojirami by Dagbala; they are there, and they are in the forest that takes you from Ojirami to Uneme-Erhurun.
“We also find these kidnappers in the forests in Enwan, Akuku, and then the old NEPA office in Igarra. There is a hill surrounded by bushes, which used to be a cattle ranch, but they have taken over the place.
“There is a forest behind the Glo mast, near Sasaro, along the express road; they are there. They are in the Sasaro forest, Ogbe, Ogugu Hill, behind Geoworks, and on a hill close to the Gloryland Secondary School, along Okpe Road.
“Remember, these forests are also our people’s farmland, so farming deep into the forests is at its lowest ebb because of the activities of these criminal herdsmen. We need vehicles; we require motivation for our men to comb these places,” he said.
How abduction became rampant in Esan land—Prince Olumese
Speaking on how the activities of the criminal herdsmen became rampant in the communities, a resident of Uromi, where suspected Fulani herdsmen/kidnappers, who turned out to be Hausa indigenes and supposed hunters, were set ablaze, Prince Eugene Olumese said kidnapping and terrorism were strange to the natives.
“Uromi has always been peaceful. I do not know if other towns in Edo State welcome visitors like Uromi. We coexist as brothers and sisters, and there have not been all these things that we see now, like kidnapping and killings. The highest you will see is maybe cult-related killings and fighting but acts of terrorism and kidnapping have never been here.
“Kidnapping usually occurred on the highways from Benin City to Ekpoma and downward. It was predominant then, around the period that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole was governor, and then when Godwin Obaseki took over as governor of the state.
“It used to be on the express road, but when Obaseki took decisive action, cleared bushes along the road and other measures, and deployed soldiers, the kidnapping on the highway reduced.
“But because some of the culprits were not apprehended, they migrated into the suburbs around the highway. Uromi, Ekpoma, Irrua, Igueben, and other places with forests around them became targets. This is when the latest mode of kidnapping started,” he said.
Security agents’ failure
The police have failed to live up to expectations in the face of the horrific kidnappings; after a victim is freed, they only make statements, most of which are later shown to be untrue, about how they rescued the victim.
The police claimed that the recently abducted Reverend Father in the Ivukwa community, Etsako East local government area of Edo state, had been rescued, but ransom was paid for his release.
Victims’ relatives have described how kidnappers would request the description of the cars they would like to use to deliver the ransom and promise that the police would not pull over at checkpoints. Ransom was delivered near security checkpoints in certain instances.
A group of University of Benin geology students were abducted while conducting fieldwork in the Akoko-Edo local government area. The local vigilante had to step in to save the students after the driver fled and fled to the nearest checkpoint to alert the police.
The students demanded that the vigilante, not the police, escort them back to Benin, as they were ready to be returned to school. This was done to ensure they would not be left behind in an attack on the road.
In February, Friday Ehizojie, the Onojie of the Udo-Eguare community, was abducted and held captive for four days. According to the police, he was freed without paying ransom for his rescue.
But a villager told Saturday Vanguard, “We are unaware that our monarch was released without ransom. His abductors called us, and the villagers rallied around for money, which we paid to them before they released him. Why are they saying that no ransom was paid?”
“The truth is that our police officers dearly love their lives and do not want to face kidnappers in the forests. And as long as they do not take the battle to them in the forests, the Fulani kidnappers will continue to reign in our forests, where they have hijacked our forests and farmlands.”
SOS to Okpebholo
A retired security officer, who stated that his community was under siege, said, “The biggest threat to many communities in the state is the reality that Fulani kidnappers, armed with sophisticated weapons, have seized their forests and farmlands, and they have no weapons to challenge them.”
“We do not know if the invasion is part of their plan to subjugate other towns and claim ownership after some decades in future, as they have done with so many communities in the Middle Belt.
“We call on our governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo, to take decisive action against the killer-herdsmen and kidnappers, who have occupied our forests and use them as a base to take people hostage. He (the governor) ordered vigilantes to surrender all the weapons in their custody, which they complied with.
“They (killer herdsmen and kidnappers) make more money than those who sell cows, which explains why they leave the northern part of the country to hole up in our forests.
“As the southwest governors did with the Amotekun, our governor should contact the other south-south governors and let them set up a joint security network, comprising the army, police officers, vigilantes, and hunters, to enter the forests in the state to destroy the camps, and evict the killer-herdsmen and kidnappers.
“Some people have suggested that the government establish forest guards; it is necessary because, as farmers, we do not go to farm anymore because of the herders.
” The anti-open grazing laws set up by the state governments in the South-South are ineffective as herdsmen breach them with impunity.
“Policemen even tell you that it is not their duty to go into the forests to look for herdsmen, saying we should tell our vigilantes to go there,” he added.