By Okey Ndibe

Abductions for ransom have become another weird part of life in Nigeria. Two and a half weeks ago, this ugly fact hit home in a wrenching way. Like many, I was horrified to read about the abduction of Elechi Amadi from his country home in Rivers State. A soft-spoken man with a radiant smile, Amadi is one of Africa’s finest writers, the author of such superb novels as The Concubine, The Great Pond, and The Slave.

My first reaction at the news was one of shock. It was a macabre beginning to the New Year. I had met Amadi as recently as last September in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, where he and I participated in the inaugural edition of the Garden City Literary Festival.

True, I knew that the adduction of people as a tool for extortion has become another Nigerian disorder, especially in the oil-rich Niger Delta that seems richly cursed with its natural resource. Even so, I just could not fathom what strange motivation would lead abductors to this writer’s door. Were they after tomes of manuscript? Did they begrudge the man his computer, or covet his typewriter?

Relief came – in the form of Amadi’s release – the day after his abduction. His captors had not harmed him physically, thank God, but what mental anguish they must have inflicted on the man – to say nothing of his family’s torment! Given Amadi’s considerable stature and global reputation, I suspect that many others, Nigerians and foreigners alike, were also deeply upset.

If Amadi was admired before his abduction, his response to that harrowing experience marked him out as a truly extraordinary man. In press interviews, he gave unvarnished accounts of his travails. He told about being blindfolded by his captors – a prudent move, it seemed. His young nemeses would not want a writer’s knowing eyes prying into their souls’ inmost – sordid – secrets. Amadi talked about the nightmare of sleeping on bare marshy ground. And then he offered snatches of the conversations that finally convinced his abductors that they had taken the wrong man.

Amadi’s captors had demanded N300 million, but released him for “nothing”. They doubtless realized that their quarry had no way of garnering cash anywhere in the neighborhood of their demand. Freed about 6:30 p.m., the author walked some five miles in the bush before he emerged at a Shell location – and into the arms of a search party of friends.

Two things stood out for me in Amadi’s recollections. One was the absence of rage or bitterness in his language. He was also clearly reluctant to dwell on his own suffering. Instead of calling down curses on his tormentors, or painting his woes with indulgent glee, he chose to be a solicitor of sorts for his abductors.

The headline of The Guardian of January 8, 2009 captured this uncommon largeness of spirit. The caption read: “Free Elechi Amadi sings: Save my captors”.

That Amadi recognized that his captors were not simply vermin or compulsive villains is a tribute to his capacity for fellow feeling. Armed with a poet’s insight into the systematic pauperization and dehumanization of the Nigerian space, he perceived his young tormentors as also, even in a fundamental sense, victims.

His gift to them – which is to bring to us their story of desperate privation – is worth as much as N300 million. Or more, if his eloquent witness will persuade Nigeria’s crass politicians to unclog their ears and hear his plaintive cry on behalf of youth forced into crime in order to eat. Amadi told the world that his young abductors “complained that they were unemployed and accused the government of not doing enough to ameliorate the plight of the jobless in the region.” Is there anybody out there who would dispute the truth of this portrait of destitution?

Abductions, armed robbery and other crimes are on the rise in Nigeria because of rising unemployment and deepening poverty. And the rapacious greed of our political “elite,” a class with no vision and little conscience, is a major reason the nation’s resources are not bettering the lives of the populace. After years of walking the streets without finding meaningful jobs or opportunities to engage in licit private enterprise, many graduates reluctantly take to armed robbery and 419 scams. I suspect that many armed robbers prowling at night would prefer to have day jobs that confer dignity and guarantee a livable wage. But when jobs are scarce, and the state rewards gubernatorial and ministerial thieves with national honors, many hapless citizens embrace crime as a strategy of survival.

That’s why Elechi Amadi’s empathy for his abductors struck me with its pertinence and power. His solicitude for those who gave him grief recalled the similarly admirable example of Nadine Gordimer, the South African-born 1991 Nobel laureate in literature. In October of 2006, four young men robbed the then 82-year-old writer in her home near Johannesburg. After stealing cash and jewelry, the robbers locked Gordimer – one of the most notable voices against apartheid – and a 66-year-old domestic servant in a storeroom. Then the robbers escaped.

Like Amadi, Gordimer refused to focus on her losses. A writer of penetrating insight into the vestiges of apartheid that continue to haunt her beloved nation, Gordimer realized that her attackers were, in a profound sense, victims as well. She regarded the robbery as an opportunity to highlight the plight of “young people in poverty without opportunities.” Of her robbers, she waxed magnanimous: “What a waste of four young men. They should have jobs.”

Amadi has essentially brought back the same message from his scary contact with the dispossessed of Nigeria. My fear is that those who run – make that, ruin – Nigeria are too deaf or morally comatose to hearken to Amadi’s warning. In their arrogance, they tell themselves that their victimized citizenry is too docile to stir in rebellion against the thieving class. Yet, sooner or later, the monster that corruption incubates will knock on the doors of the hope killers. Then, when it’s too late, those whose gorging greed blinded them to Amadi’s timely entreaties, may wake to realize that there’s hell to pay. Unless these leeches and parasites learn to mend their ways, tuck in their bellies and rein in their greed, they may – will, actually – one day find implacable hell right at their doorstep.

Robot  # 1 | 25.01.2009 04:10

Elechi Amadi and the coming hell By Okey Ndibe Abductions for ransom have become another weird part of life in Nigeria. Two and a half weeks ago, this ugly fact hit home in a wrenching way. Like many, I was horrified to read about the abduction of Elechi Amadi from his country home in Rivers State. A soft-spoken man with a radiant smile, Amadi is one of Africa’s finest writers, the author of such superb novels as The Concubine, The Great Pond, and The Slave. My first reaction at the news was one of shock. It was a macabre beginning to the New Year. I had met Amadi as recently as last September in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, where he and I participated in the inaugural edition of the Garden City Literary Festival. True, I knew that the adduction of people as a tool for extortion has become another Nigerian disorder, especially in the oil-rich Niger Delta that seems richly cursed with its natural resource. Even so, I just ...Read the full article.

budelux  # 2 | 25.01.2009 07:18

Great deliverance, i love the poetic style adopted for the last paragraph. I hope Nigerian leaders read the writtings on the wall one day for sure.... the rug will be pulled off their foot.

aguabata  # 3 | 25.01.2009 12:51

Dr Ndibe, i dont think our leaders will pay for their misgovernance, it is us the masses that will suffer more from kidnappers, and armed robbers. We are paying for our inaction to change our leaders.

TEchi  # 4 | 25.01.2009 13:44

Abductions, armed robbery and other crimes are on the rise in Nigeria because of rising unemployment and deepening poverty. And the rapacious greed of our political “elite,” a class with no vision and little conscience, is a major reason the nation’s resources are not bettering the lives of the populace. After years of walking the streets without finding meaningful jobs or opportunities to engage in licit private enterprise, many graduates reluctantly take to armed robbery and 419 scams. I suspect that many armed robbers prowling at night would prefer to have day jobs that confer dignity and guarantee a livable wage. But when jobs are scarce, and the state rewards gubernatorial and ministerial thieves with national honors, many hapless citizens embrace crime as a strategy of survival. Dear Mr. Okey It is hard to believe that every armed high way robber or human abductor would prefer to have a job instead of thieving and abducting people to extort money from them. Many of them have made up their mind from the onset of their criminal careers that armed robbery or human abduction would pay them more than being gainfully employed. Although when their parent or someone confronts some of them with the grim reality of their sordid activities they rationalize it by blaming the government and giving all kind of excuses. These criminal elements are not just stealing and abducting people but they kill many innocent Nigerians in the process. The members of the public who are neither political godfathers nor politicians are robbed and killed quite often in what you are describing as justifiable course. You do not need to rob your nose in excrement to smell the odor. These people and those around them know what they are doing is bad and so they have to justify it. And yet there are many relatives who are enjoying the fruit of these callous criminal elements. Luckily for Amadi he was released without harm. What about those others who got killed in the process of abduction or armed robbery attack? Can we still see their action as justifiable? Why do they have to kill anybody at all during robbery or gun whipped some of us near inch of our lives who are neither in politics or political godfathers but simply members of the public doing business. A friend who came with me from the US to Enugu was critically wounded and had to be flown back to the US for serious medical attention. This is the first time I have read you writing half heartedly. Our Eastern region is turning into a lawless; money hungry bunch of pick –a-ninny no good bunch. And we are supposed to be better off in that region???? Please do not blame everything on the unscrupulous politicians. Cast the blame on them and may be on their parents and relatives. Here is a news report of what just happened in that region a few days ago. I am sure you read many of them, and you still write this half hearted article. 50 robbers bomb bullion van, 2 die. Biola Azeez, Umuahia Thursday, January 22, 2009 ARMED robbers attacked a bullion van and its accompanying security vehicle at Arungwa junction, on the Port Harcourt-Aba expressway, three kilometres from Aba, ( on a day Governor Theodore Orji was busy inaugurating projects in Ikwuano Local Government Area), carting away unspecified amount of money. Nigerian Tribune investigations revealed that the armed robbers used dynamite to cut open the back of the bullion van belonging to a commercial bank, to get access to the money while all the policemen in the security vehicle were killed and set ablaze inside the vehicle. It was also gathered that the robbers, who first used gunshots in an attempt to open the bullion van without success, later resorted to the use of dynamite and hand grenade to blast the back of the van. The robbery operation reportedly lasted for over two hours without any interruption. Members of the state vigilance team later intervened, killing one of the armed robbers, while the rest escaped with their loot. Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune on the development, the Police Public Relations Officer, (PPRO), Alli Okechukwu, requested that he should be given some time to compile a report on the incident. However, when Okechukwu spoke with the Nigerian Tribune on Wednesday, he said the armed robbers, numbering 50 and dressed in military and police uniforms, with bulletproof vests, killed only one policeman and the driver of the bullion van. He said that the command was still looking for some of the policemen who went on the operation at the time of filing this report. The PPRO said the armed robbers fired sporadically into the air to stop the bank’s convoy on the expressway and held it for over 30 minutes. He said the police reinforced with Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), which he said the armed robbers demobilised with the use of dynamite, executed with precision. Okechukwu said the police command later on Tuesday despatched its men with five patrol vans, together with members of the state vigilance team, to a village in Abala in the Obingwa Local Government Area of the state when it got information that the same gang of armed robbers was busy sharing their loot there. He said the armed robbers, who had already laid ambush for the policemen before their arrival in the village, set all the five patrol vehicles ablaze with the help of the villagers..

Gbolly  # 5 | 25.01.2009 14:48

I read about Elechi's story in The Punch. Let's thank God that he was released unharmed. What else to say? Pray for Nigeria.

akuluouno  # 6 | 26.01.2009 02:17

Dear ON, I have learnt not to take Nigeria and Nigerians too serious. It is not good for the heart. liver and kidney.:twisted:

lionking  # 7 | 26.01.2009 02:40

=aguabata;317628>Dr Ndibe, i dont think our leaders will pay for their misgovernance, it is us the masses that will suffer more from kidnappers, and armed robbers. We are paying for our inaction to change our leaders. Indeed, the lootocrats have battalions of MOPOL and other armed goons to protect them while we the masses take the brunt of the brigades of armed robbers.

denker  # 8 | 26.01.2009 03:02

=akuluouno;317894>Dear ON, I have learnt not to take Nigeria and Nigerians ... serious. It is not good for the heart. liver and kidney.:twisted: you, too, have seen the light...praise the lord.....befor i was thinking we had complex constellations dat gonna involve implementation of complex thought patterns, na lie, the problem be say nigerians are not grow-ups...if you like see dem as unserious children....wat a big job reproducing wat others had successfully accomplished:icon_ques...na only in nigeria the reverse is the case......:rant::rant::rant: ...i have never imagined in my life dat copy and paste is a complicated task...:confused1

Ranter  # 9 | 26.01.2009 03:28

=akuluouno;317894>Dear ON, I have learnt not to take Nigeria and Nigerians too serious. It is not good for the heart. liver and kidney.:twisted: you missed out lungs.

datuouwadaberechi  # 10 | 27.01.2009 08:59

everyday na for d thief, one day na for d owner. it looks bad now, but am sure they can't get away with the rape forever...one day go one day, monkey go go market, e no go return. God dey