₦1 Billion Became ₦100 Million: When Did Kidnapping Become a Negotiable Business?

Same rule as before: the 20 young people are not the joke. They are somebody's children, and their families have been living on one phone call at a time. The joke, if it can be called that, is the market that has grown around them.

Let me recap. Twenty prospective corps members were abducted along the Owerri-Onitsha Road in Imo State on their way to orientation camps. Their families say the kidnappers first asked for ₦50 million per person, a total of ₦1 billion. Then, as the deadline neared, the price fell to ₦5 million each, ₦100 million in all. Relatives also allege the captives are being beaten.

Look at that arithmetic for a second. ₦1 billion to ₦100 million is a 90% discount. Even Black Friday would blush. This is a price list with a "last price" button, and the product is human beings. That's not a crime scene anymore, that's a customer-care department with a pricing strategy.

And notice who is doing the haggling. Not the government. Not the security agencies. It's the families, sitting by their phones, doing calculations nobody should ever have to do, trying to figure out how a household finds ₦5 million for a graduate who hasn't received a single allowance yet.

Meanwhile, the official side says what it always says: tactical teams deployed, efforts ongoing, no arrests so far. Ongoing is a very wide word. You can fit a whole country into it.

There's a reason these kidnappers can negotiate: they believe they have the time, the road and the leverage. A criminal who can lower his price on the way to a deadline is a criminal who is confident nobody is about to knock on his door. That confidence is the real scandal.

And it isn't the first. Another group of corps members was abducted in Kogi in August and rescued on August 31. A pattern with a calendar isn't an accident. It's an industry.

So the question isn't only "when did kidnapping become negotiable?" It's "who allowed it to become a business model?"

Bring the 20 home safe. Then, somebody should answer why this market is open.