THIS undoubtedly should rank as the rave of the moment in the crime world. Known only by its street name - One Chance, it is almost entirely unique to the Lagos metropolis.
In fact, some have argued that it was originally exported to other parts of the country by Lagos. As it is, the one chance menace has overtaken the 'agberos' or social miscreants in terms of notoriety in Lagos.
THIS undoubtedly should rank as the rave of the moment in the crime world. Known only by its street name - One Chance, it is almost entirely unique to the Lagos metropolis.
In fact, some have argued that it was originally exported to other parts of the country by Lagos. As it is, the one chance menace has overtaken the 'agberos' or social miscreants in terms of notoriety in Lagos.
Once upon a time, the nation's commercial capital used to be a paradise of some sorts, where residents and indigenes would not only sleep with their two eyes shut and doors and windows to their apartments wide open, they could also literarily jump into any commercial bus or car for that matter, with no second thoughts.
Today, only a new comer to the city can afford to take that risk. Today, also the phrase 'shine your eyes' is more than a mantra for the average resident, it is also the revered code of conduct, for those who do not want to risk their material belongings, not to talk of their lives.
From the Ojota end of the Ikorodu road to their favoured Oshodi-Apapa expressway with its Airport road axis: And from the Okokomaiko end of the Badagry expressway, the tales of woe and grief recounted by victims have become like a symphony in the Lagos air, and a sad one at that too.
Aptly put, one in every 50 Lagosian has fallen victim to this unnerving experience called 'One Chance' that has become a fashion accessory for criminals who for the sheer love of the game or for their favourite excuse of unemployment lay siege to commuters at dusk posing as passengers and dispossessing them of their belongings midway into their journey.
The harrowing experience often leaves some victims speechless from shock either at having a gun pointed at your face or being hurled out of a moving vehicle.
While some have been extremely 'lucky' to merely part with just their material belongings, others have been maimed from injuries sustained on impact with the hard tarred road when unceremoniously pushed out of a vehicle moving at nearly 100 miles per hour!
Still for others, their whereabouts is still a thing of mystery fit to be resolved only by the Scotland Yard, as the Nigerian police are up to their neek deep in the riddle as to why Lagos often accounts for a huge number of missing person cases.
Through the entire duration of their operation, hardly is any gunshot fired. In fact, no single shot is fired, but the sight of a gun in the hands of people who look like they are from another planet and not the Nigerians, your compatriots, you used to know, is enough to dissuade any intended resistance.
And so the story goes that at the end, you and the other hapless victims so unfortunate as to board that commercial bus that fateful evening, will end up losing hard-earned property.
And the high number of people who daily troop to the customer care offices of the telecommunications companies seeking to recover their lines is testimony to an equally high increase in the activities of the 'One Chance stakeholders' in the country.
Their choice vehicle is the 14-seater Volkwagen Vanagon,' popularly called the 'danfo', not that other brands are forbidden. Even the cars, 'Coaster', the 'Civilian' brands of Mass transit buses are no exception as they operate with ease in any of these. Whether hijacked or owned by them is never a problem in carrying out their activities on unsuspecting commuters.
In all these, however, the Mercedes Benz 911, or 1414 brands, popularly called the 'molue' in commuter parlance seems to be the exception for the One Chance operatives, probably because of the high risk involved in hijacking and managing the crowd of nearly 100 passengers that the metal contraption conveys at any given time.
Ironically, throughout the 80's and almost the entire 90's, the phenomenon that has evolved and is nicknamed One Chance was virtually unheard of.
According to many residents, this trend is relatively new to the city. For them, when it first surfaced at the tail end of the 90's they had watched in hope that it would one day go away, but all to no avail, instead, the trend has grown in leaps and bounds, and metamorphosed in modus operandi to the extent that criminal in other state capitals have replicated one form or the other of the same One Chance menace, even though, it might not exactly be the same.
Today, in the metropolis, what used to be strictly a nocturnal operation is done right in broad day light and even in full view of passersby and the police!
Picture this Hollywood-like scenario: Have you ever boarded a commercial bus or car and someone seated beside or in front of you, pulls out a knife or gun at you and orders you to give up your possessions? And while the vehicle is still in motion, he along with his other fake passengers proceeds to bundle you out of the vehicle and onto the hard and rough tarred or 'un-tarred' (depending on the location) road?
That is the classic scenario in any 'One Chance' playout. The scenes could be modified, adapted to any particular setting, but the tale of misery is the same by all victims.
Sampling the various opinions of Lagos residents on the menace posed by the criminals whose stock in trade is 'One Chance', there are two schools of thoughts as to how this crime not only evolved but why it has also waxed strong.
For Funke Adetutu, a journalist, the matter of One Chance was a time bomb waiting to explode in the face of the city which has no discernable government-run mass transit system.
"Look, government does not anymore have buses on the road or even any other efficient mass transit system. It is individuals who put their cars or buses on the roads. As it is, what these people choose to do with their vehicles is entirely their business. It is only the masses who suffer in the end," said Adetutu.
Indeed, it appears that since the collapse of the Lateef Jakande metro-line initiative on mass transportation for Lagos residents, private individuals have run the scheme.
The deteriorating security situation in Nigeria is prompting some oil and gas companies to think twice about continuing operations in the country.
"Nigeria is just notorious for a lot of bad stuff," says William Sheridan, senior director of global human resource services for the National Foreign Trade Council in New York. "It's been going on for a period of time."
According to strategypage.com, an online military-affairs research and reporting organization, nearly 150 foreign oil workers have been kidnapped this year, as of June, yielding "at least $100,000 per captive in ransom."
The problem has become so common, according to the report, that negotiations "now usually take days instead of weeks."
The "flow of ransom money has attracted more kidnappers, and attacks on foreigners working at non-oil-company firms," according to strategypage.com
Kevin Rosser, oil and gas practice leader in the London headquarters of Control Risks Group, a security and risk consultancy, says the security issues are exacerbating the "real shortage of technical personnel" needed by oil companies in the exploration and production business as well as oil-services companies that focus on work such as drilling or construction.
"The security problems come from a number of different sources. You have militant groups. You have organized criminal groups. You have communities who have -- may have -- some involvement. Some of these overlap," he says.
The difficulty of managing sometimes disruptive labor unions adds another level of complexity, he says, as does increasing piracy affecting offshore locations, which once were "reasonably insulated" from security problems.
"Kidnapping may be a militant phenomenon insofar as it has a political language and a criminal one insofar as the people behind it are looking for a ransom," Rosser says, adding that the situation in the country has been deteriorating for the past two to three years.
The combination of criminality and political radicalization has generated "chronic insecurity verging on an unmanageable security problem," he says.
Last year, the country saw the highest number of kidnappings on record -- about 27 incidents. This year, he says, that number was passed in the first quarter. Rosser says he hasn't seen the strategypage.com report, which puts the number of kidnappings at 150.
The HR implications of such a situation, he says, are that companies need to determine "their duty of care toward staff who they want to send into high-risk environments and what that means in practice from a security-management program."
It means HR must train workers to identify risks and "come up with a program for managing them effectively," Rosser says.
Workers need to know how to conduct themselves in a hostile environment, what to do if they hear gunfire, if they are in a traffic accident, if they are kidnapped, he says.
Sheridan notes the security risks "certainly inhibit" companies in their in-country activities "and it's going to inhibit people from taking the assignment."
While the oil industry is providing a great deal of gross national revenue to the government, he says, "the money doesn't tend to get very far. It doesn't benefit the community."
Most of the security problems are in the Niger Delta, an area filled with swamps and jungle, where the oil is located and where the government, Rosser says, has never fulfilled its promises to develop the region.
He says some companies have shut production sites or "mothballed" operations. "About 20 percent of Nigeria's total productive capacity is simply unavailable because certain producing areas are off limits right now," he says.
To recruit and retain workers, some companies are offering up to 1.8 times the normal salaries, he says.
Whether families of workers remain in the country depends on the area, he says. In an area such as Port Harcourt, which is in the delta and serves as headquarters for many oil companies, companies generally prefer that families do not accompany workers. In early July, a 3-year-old British girl, who was kidnapped on her way to school, was released after being held for four days.
In Lagos, the commercial capital -- where there are security issues but not at the same level as in the delta -- it's a little different, Rosser says. "I think the preference increasingly is not to have dependents."
Other than Iraq -- which now has very few foreign oil workers as the national oil company is handling the work -- Nigeria offers the highest risk to oil and gas expats.
Other countries with security risks, but nowhere in the same league, he says, include Colombia, Algeria, Pakistan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
"The Niger delta," says Bill Daly, senior vice president and head of the New York office of Control Risks, "I would say, is one of the most risky areas to do business in these days."
But, he notes, "there's a tremendous amount of interest in the area because of the resources in the area."Gunmen seized the employee of Elf, a subsidiary of French firm Total, from outside his church on Tuesday evening in the oil city of Port Harcourt, the colleague said who requested anonymity due to company restrictions on speaking to the media.
Kidnapping rings have seized over 150 foreigners this year. Victims are not usually hurt, and released after the payment of a cash ransom.
The practice began when disaffected communities began to seize foreign oil workers to protest unemployment or pollution, but gradually more organized militant groups demanding more political rights for their impoverished region began to carry out attacks.
Police say most of the current spate of kidnappings are carried out by criminal gangs only interested in cash. Recently, they have also begun to seek rich Nigerians as targets.
The police were not immediately available for comment on the latest kidnapping.
The attacks, and a string of bombings, have cut production in Africa's largest oil producer by around a quarter.
It is not funny at all when a man tells kidnappers that they can hold on to his mother as he could not afford the ransom demanded. Yet that is precisely what the Speaker of Bayelsa State House of Assembly, Hon. Werinipre Seibarugu, has done. He simply asked the hostage-takers holding her 70-year old mother to keep her, as he has no N50 million to give them.
In a manner that proves that the descent into anarchy in the Niger Delta has assumed a bizarre proportion, the septuagenarian was kidnapped last Tuesday. This is a woman who goes by the sobriquet, "Mama Yenagoa". What point on earth would the kidnappers want to make by visiting the poor woman with so much trauma? In response to the outrage expressed by the public to this criminal act, the kidnappers have demanded a N50 million ransom from her son.
The son is certainly not alone in protesting this crime. The other members of the House of Assembly have embarked on hunger strike to demonstrate their disgust at the phenomenon of hostage taking in the troubled region. On Monday, they all wore black suits to draw national and international attention to this heinous practice. In solidarity with the embattled speaker, the House has adjourned sittings for a week. Informed sources have explained the latest act as a fall-out of local politics. However, nothing can justify this act of brigandage. It cannot be rationalised on any ground. Whatever the motivation, it is as criminal as the kidnapping of babies, toddlers, oil workers and innocent expatriates that some other gangs perpetrated. At one time the victim was a girl, whose father is British and mother, Nigerian. She was taken on her way to school. Few days later it was a son of a chief. In some instances lives were lost in the efforts to rescue hostages.
t began as kidnapping of expatriate oil-workers; now fellow citizens of Niger Delta origin are becoming victims regardless of age and circumstance. Hostage taking has become a fast-growing industry with different criminal groups competing for turf in the region. The violence and other criminal activities are taking enormous socio-economic tolls. In a region in which some reports put the unemployment rate as being above the national average, companies are either scaling down activities or closing shops. It is no only the activities of oil companies that are affected. The economy of the already impoverished region is in serious jeopardy.That is why while all decent people should join in calling for the release of Madam Hansel Seibarugu, this incident should be seen by the federal government as a chilling reminder that the Niger Delta debacle should be resolved as quickly as possible. This is more so that the federal government is reportedly attempting a fresh look at the problem.
Significantly, President Umaru Yar'Adua listed Niger Delta, as an issue of priority is his inaugural address on May 29. The problem is also an item in his seven-point agenda on which his campaign was hinged. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, who incidentally is from the area, is reportedly given the special assignment of closely engaging the forces at play in the crisis. Soon after inauguration, the federal government had scheduled a summit on the Niger Delta.
The summit had to be rescheduled for a thorough preparation. It is good enough that the summit would not be taking place in a vacuum of ideas. There are documents that could illuminate serious discussions of the problem. Some of these documents arose from sober studies of the developmental and security dimensions of the Niger Delta condition. Attention should, therefore, be continuously drawn to these reports begging for action.
First is the Master Plan "facilitated by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in partnership with state governments, Local Government Areas (LGAs), oil companies civil society and communities" in the region? The document could as well be termed the Niger Delta Manifesto of Development. The process of putting together the report has been essentially inclusive of the views of the various interests in the region. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who received the report, acknowledged that much. According to him: "What we have is not an NDDC plan, but a people's plan, one that one that all can claim ownership. The collective vision of the stakeholders captured in this Master Plan is the accelerated development of this hitherto turbulent and underdeveloped region into Africa's most peaceful, most prosperous and most pleasant region."
The summit may have to deliberate on how the implementation of the plan has not been funded to achieve optimal objectives. The Master Plan and the agency saddled with the task of its implementation cannot, of course, be immune from the dynamics of the politics of the region within context of the crisis of the Nigerian distorted federalism.
The second document that is worth referring to be the NIGER DELTA HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT prepared last year by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The report recommends a seven-point action plan, described as a "new development paradigm".
The elements of this plan are promotion of " peace as the foundation for development"; making "local governance effective and responsive to the needs of the people"; improvement and diversification of the economy; promotion of " social inclusion and improved access to social services"; promotion of environmental sustainability to preserve the means of people's sustainable livelihood"; taking "an integrated approach to HIV&AIDS"; and building "sustainable partnerships for the advancement of human development".
These recommendations arose from the question posed by the study: "The delta's human development dilemma raises the question of why abundant human and natural resources have had so little impact on poverty.
There is also the report of the committee headed by former Chief of Defence Staff, General Alex Ogomudia, on the security situation in oil -communities. This report was prepared in 2002 and submitted to the government. What was remarkable about the report is that it was signed by all the then incumbent service chiefs, heads of all security agencies, chief executives of all the companies operating in the upstream sector of the oil industry and secretaries to the governments of the oil-producing states. The committee recommended short term, medium term and long-term solutions to the problem. It is also instructive that this committee, which included Generals and security chiefs, reasoned that the there is no military solution to the problem. According to the committee, the answer to the crushing poverty of the region is development. And the method to resolve the conflict should be political. Nothing was done about that report in the lifetime of the administration that set up the committee and received the report. The report only became a subject of attention last year following the upsurge in hostage taking. Those who are preparing for the summit should study this report as a working document.
The three reports cited above are, of course, just a few among existing serious studies and suggestions on how to resolve the Niger Delta debacle. What is common to them all is the theme that what we are witnessing in the region is primarily a crisis of underdevelopment. This has been exacerbated by an irresponsible form of exploitation of a natural resource and gross inequities in the distribution of the wealth. The security and criminal issues are only derivatives of the development question
The Yar'Adua administration has to move fast to rein in the anarchy that is enveloping the region. It is good to be methodical in going about it and taking a holistic view of the issues as the administration is reportedly doing. However, this government does not have all the time to restore normalcy in the region. Before more damage is done, the government should come up with its own workable approach to check those who have turned hostage taking, oil bunkering, violent cultist activities and other crimes into a burgeoning industry in the region. The first thing to do is to isolate the criminals from the legitimate struggle of the people of the region for justice and equity. The most potent weapon the government could employ is embarking on a massive anti-poverty programme. The summit will be meaningful if it could come up with such a programme achievable within a time frame. It would be easier for government to confront the criminals if the issues of development are seen to be tackled seriously.
It is also important that those groups legitimately agitating in the region should join in the efforts to isolate the criminals who are defaming the struggle of the people of Niger Delta. For instance, it was salutary that militant groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) and the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF) have openly condemned some of the criminal activities. They even issued ultimatums to the criminals in some instances. It will also be productive if the militants could also adopt a more political approach in their struggle. The way they respond to the consultations for the summit will show how politically transformed they could possibly be in the coming years. If generals say that the government cannot solve the problems militarily, the militants too should be told that they wouldn't achieve their objectives employing violent tactics.
Death Toll Increases in Warri (Vanguard)
The death toll keeps increasing with each passing day. Although about 17 persons have been confirmed dead, the lives of many others are hanging on the cliff as a result of severe burns from kerosine explosions which rocked several parts of Warri, the oil-rich city in Delta State.
Explosions from killer kerosine have become a recurring decimal in the country and each time such incidents occur, blames are traded between the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC) on the one hand and marketers on the other hand as to the source of the adulterated product.
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This time, DPR sources explained that the killer kerosine might have been scooped from a vandalised pipeline. The source claimed that what people thought was kerosine is actually condensate, a lighter variant of crude oil but which looks very much like kerosine.
The disastrous incident which occurred in Warri is already having negative effects on kerosine dealers in Lagos. Palpable fears have gripped residents of Lagos that the killer product may find its way into the city. Some apprehensive residents of the city said they would rather queue at petrol filling stations to buy their household kerosine than buy from open tanks whose sources they cannot guaranteed.
Royal fathers visit victims
Some royal fathers in Delta State, led by the Orodje of Okpe Kingdom, Major-General Felix Mujakperuo (rtd), yesterday, visited the victims of the kerosine blasts on admission at the Central Hospital, Warri on condolence visit.
The royal fathers, including the Obi of Issele-Uku, the Ughelli monarch and an Ijaw traditional ruler donated N100,000 to the victims to augment their medical treatment.
They asked those adulterating kerosine to stop the dangerous practice and commended the state government for its intervention.
Chief Consultant-Surgeon in the hospital, Dr. Peter Oside, conducted the royal fathers round the wards to see the victims.
