Reports of kidnapping continue to emerge in Nigeria, instilling fear in people.
It has also hindered businesses in some parts of the West African nation.
Sadly, these reports scare off many potential investors that may intend to invest in the oil0-rich nation.
Many kidnap cases have been recorded in videos with numerous witnesses recounting the deadly incident.
Also, many kidnap victims have publicly recounted their experiences in the kidnappers’ den.
In all of these, the Nigeria Police say a significant number of reported kidnapping cases in are either fabricated or staged.
Security Situation
The spokesman for the force, Muyiwa Adejobi, made this assertion on Wednesday, February 28.
Adejobi said this while presenting the gold medal to the champion of Ache and kickboxing at the 14th edition of the Biennial Police Games, known as “Oluyole 2024”.
The event took place at Ilaji Resorts Hotel in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State.
Adejobi emphasised that the security situation in Nigeria was not as dire as many citizens perceive it to be.
He highlighted that a large portion of the population tends to believe and share information from social media without verifying its accuracy.
“Most kidnapping incidents are fake or stage-managed.
Fake Kidnap
“When people shout that they are being kidnapped, it is not all these incidents that are real.
“Many people fake kidnapping to get money from their people, while some do that to collect ransom from their families.
“So, from us, the situation is not as bad as people read it on social media.
“We have the information, and we have the data.
“Though we have isolated cases, we arrest them on a regular basis, we have taken the fight to their camps, we neutralised many of them, we arrest them and charge them to court.
Old News
“Most videos and news of insecurity happening in Nigerian online are old news, hardly will any conventional media house publish or broadcast them the way they are on social media.
“If you want to analyse kidnapping, how many cases do we have in Oyo?
“How many do we have as per geo-political zone?
“So, if you want to analyse security situations, you don’t do that with mere speculations or psychological projections.
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“We collate information and data of incidents; we are the ones to tell you if the security situation is worrisome or not.
“And with what we have on the ground, the security situation in Nigeria is not worrisome.”
