Wadume’s recapture: What do you mean?

Hamisu Bala, until now, was an unknown Ibi-based fishmonger turned billionaire. He goes by the moniker Wadume. Wadume is a mimesis or onomatopoeia for “what do you mean?” Wadume became an instant billionaire not from fish-mongering but through human-mongering, so to speak. He was trading in humans for cash not through human trafficking but through kidnapping.

On August 6, this year, Nigerians were jolted by the news of the bloody shootout between security men at a checkpoint in Taraba state and policemen ferrying away a notorious kidnap kingpin. The initial account was that the policemen refused to stop at a checkpoint manned by soldiers, after beating two previous ones on the route. It was also believed that for failing to stop at the first two checkpoints, the third point was alerted about the oncoming bus occupied by recalcitrant travellers suspected to be criminals. So, the security men, drawn from the 93 Battalion in Takum opened fire on the vehicle. And the occupants responded with fire.

At the end of the shootout, three policemen lost their lives. Also killed was a whistle-blower named Olajide Owolabi. Other occupants sustained injuries. It turned out that the policemen in the bus had Wadume in their captivity, captured during a special operation carried out by the Police Intelligence Response Team despatched from the office of the Inspector-General of Police. The crack team was conveying him to the Taraba state Police Command in Jalingo for onward transmission to the Force Headquarters, Abuja.

It was said that after Wadume’s capture, he popped out his head from the bus window and raised an alarm that he had been kidnapped! The sympathisers, who were his beneficiaries, panicked and spread the SMS or Save My Soul. Wadume is said to be generous with his booties. He had bought motorbikes and cars for many people, sponsored scores to the Holy Land and empowered many others. He is believed to own more than 12 choice cars and built 20 houses from his criminal trade.

After the checkpoint shootout believed to have been ordered by an army captain, who ostensibly was on Wadume’s protection payroll, he was taken away to the 93 Battalion where a welder was contracted to unchain him and also had the handcuffs severed. Wadume then vamoosed into thin air.

While Wadume was on the lam, the police and the army authorities traded words. The two sides stuck to their guns as the blame game played out for over two weeks. However, the accusations and counter-accusations came to a denouement a couple of days ago following Wadume’s re-arrest in faraway Kano where he was hibernating with his uncle.

No one expected Wadume’s recapture so soon given his smartness in escaping justice. His recapture was as sudden as his arrest. High-profile criminals are usually very slippery when trailed by the arm of the law. They are believed to cultivate a network of goodwill. The goodwill paid off when some of his beneficiaries raised an alarm following the SMS he let out from the bus. Wadume was also believed to have the divisional crime officer in charge at the Ibi Divisional Police Station along with some senior police officers on his payroll. Most divisional crime officers across the country sit on goldmines!

Wadume’s saga reminds me of the exploits of Lawrence Nomanyagbon Anini, the notorious criminal of the 90s. Anini was a bandit that terrorised the Benin axis for a very long time. Though he was notorious to the government, he was a self-styled modern-day Robin Hood to the impoverished masses in his territory. Anini specialised in bank robbery, occasionally veering into car hijacking, and shared the loots to the poor.

On several occasions, he was seen raining down naira notes from moving vehicles along the major streets in Benin and adjoining towns. Wadume must be a student of Anini. At a point when Anini became so elusive, former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, teased his Inspector-General of Police, Etim Inyang, asking him, “My friend, where is Anini?”

Until the elusive Anini was eventually captured, it was thought that he possessed charms that enabled him vanish when cornered by his pursuers. It turned out that his charms were the moles in the police. Like the army captain said to be offering cover for Wadume, Anini and his gangsters had a Deputy Superintendent of Police named Iyamu. Iyamu was the arrowhead among those funnelling vital information to the bandits, enabling them to be a step or more ahead of the police.  

 Anini was eventually captured in the company of his girlfriend, given speedy trial and was executed on March 29, 1987. He died at 26 as a one-legged man following the severe injuries he sustained in a gun battle with his arrestors. He was said to have sent a total of 11 policemen and nine civilians to their early graves during his misguided escapades that lasted for just four months! His gang also raped and kidnapped.

Anini’s reign of terror made the nightmare visited on the South-west axis by the dreaded Yoruba armed bandit named Ishola Oyenusi in the 70s patter into insignificance.

Before the emergence and capture of the northern version of billionaire Wadume, we had the eastern edition named Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike nicknamed Evans. Evans, who has been facing trial since his arrest about two years ago, is believed to be the richest among the felons in the trade of abduction with ransom running into millions in hard currencies. The trial of some of his gang members has since been concluded and they are grinding their noses on the iron bars.

Wadume’s recapture and the revelations he is spewing are a healthy development in our efforts to tackle the menace of kidnapping. From what we have seen of the experiences of Anini and Wadume, no big time kidnappers would be in business without the connivance of some errant security operatives. In times past, robbers bought off a section of the highway. In other words, while they were operating on the road, security agents were not supposed to respond to any SOS or Save Our Souls. Until now that AK 47 riffles have become readily available like sachet water, the weapons were hired out from police armoury for criminal operations and returned immediately after.

The crime has become a big business and the easiest route to becoming a millionaire overnight. So lucrative is the pastime that people are even faking their own capture and demanding ransom. In June, this year, a Kabba-based housewife organised her own kidnap and slammed a N5m tag on herself. Also within the same month, an Ado Ekiti-based man of God of Methodist denomination counterfeited his own kidnap and expected his employers to raise cash for his release. He was searched out while negotiating the N3m ransom for his self-imposed captivity. Only recently, a 15-year-old boy stage-managed his own abduction and asked his friends to negotiate not less than N.5m for his freedom.

The pastime was taken to a ridiculous extent when a woman captured a little girl in Kuje town in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and asked for N1,500 worth of Etisalat recharge card. Another woman once demanded N15,000 as ransom for the kidnap of her victim. It happened about the same time that John Obi Mikel’s old man was kidnapped in Jos and ferried to Kano in August, 2011.

Wadume is facing interrogation and singing like a canary. His interrogators should ensure his safety so that he could render his startling, nay, interesting songs to the very end. Criminals are known to suddenly stop waxing their songs and the listening public would be told that they committed self-murder midway. All the characters implicated in Wadume’s song should be thoroughly investigated and brought to justice, including his uncle that harboured him in Kano and the welder that unchained him.

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