EDITORIAL: Rescuing 20 NYSC Prospective Corps Members is Good News — But Nigeria Must Defeat the Kidnapping Economy

The rescue of 20 prospective National Youth Service Corps members and another hostage in Imo State by a coordinated team of security agencies is welcome news at a time when kidnapping has become one of the most disturbing manifestations of Nigeria’s wider security crisis.

The operation, reportedly involving the military, Department of State Services, police and other security formations, deserves commendation, particularly because it was intelligence-driven and resulted in the safe recovery of 21 persons. The fact that the rescued victims are receiving medical attention at a DSS facility is also reassuring. For the families who had endured the anguish and uncertainty associated with the disappearance of their loved ones, the rescue would undoubtedly have brought an enormous measure of relief.

But while Nigerians should celebrate the successful operation, the country must resist the temptation to regard it as the end of the story.

It is, in reality, only one battle in a much larger war.

The rescue of kidnapped persons is indispensable, but a national security strategy cannot be judged solely by the number of hostages recovered after they have already fallen into the hands of criminals. The more fundamental question is why kidnapping networks continue to operate with sufficient confidence to abduct people in the first place.

That is where Nigeria’s security conversation must become considerably more serious.

Kidnapping has evolved from an occasional criminal enterprise into a sophisticated economy in which human beings are treated as commodities, families are subjected to psychological torture and ransom payments provide the financial incentive for subsequent operations. Every successful kidnapping potentially becomes seed capital for another criminal operation. Every ransom payment can strengthen the capacity of criminal gangs to acquire weapons, vehicles, communication equipment and other logistical resources.

Consequently, rescuing victims without simultaneously dismantling the infrastructure that makes kidnapping profitable risks creating a perpetual cycle of abduction and rescue.

The rescue of the prospective NYSC members therefore presents the Federal Government and the security establishment with an opportunity to look beyond the immediate success and ask the harder questions.

Who planned the abduction?

How were the victims tracked?

How long had the kidnappers been operating in the area?

Were there informants assisting the criminals?

Were weapons or other criminal infrastructure recovered?

Were arrests made?

What intelligence led security agencies to the location?

And, perhaps most importantly, what measures are being taken to ensure that the same criminal network cannot regroup and strike again?

These questions matter because intelligence-led policing should not end with the rescue of victims. Intelligence must be converted into actionable information capable of identifying criminal financiers, informants, arms suppliers, transporters, communication channels and safe houses.

Nigeria has frequently demonstrated that its security agencies possess the capacity to conduct successful operations when intelligence, technology, coordination and determination converge. The challenge is to make such successes systematic rather than episodic.

The Imo operation is also a reminder of the particular vulnerability of prospective NYSC members.

Young graduates who report for national service are not security personnel. They are Nigerians undertaking a government-sponsored national assignment. They leave their homes, families and familiar environments with the expectation that the state is capable of providing a reasonable degree of protection.

That expectation cannot be dismissed as unrealistic.

The philosophy behind the NYSC scheme is national integration. Young Nigerians are deployed across the federation to live, work and interact with people from different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. It is one of the country's most enduring instruments of nation-building.

If prospective corps members begin to perceive deployment as a potential journey into danger, the very objective of the scheme is undermined.

The government must therefore treat the security of corps members as a national responsibility, rather than merely an administrative matter for the NYSC.

There should be continuous security assessments of locations to which corps members are deployed. Where credible intelligence indicates an elevated threat, deployment arrangements should be reviewed promptly. Security agencies should maintain effective communication with NYSC officials, prospective corps members and host communities.

This does not mean creating an atmosphere of fear around national service. On the contrary, it means creating the confidence necessary for young Nigerians to participate meaningfully in the programme.

There is also a broader issue that cannot be ignored: the relationship between insecurity and governance.

Kidnapping flourishes where there are difficult-to-police spaces, inadequate intelligence networks, weak community-security relationships, poor infrastructure and an insufficient likelihood of arrest and prosecution. Criminals are encouraged not necessarily because they believe themselves invincible, but because the probability of punishment may appear sufficiently remote.

This is why the battle against kidnapping cannot be won exclusively with military operations.

The military has an important role, especially in areas where heavily armed criminal groups operate. But kidnapping is fundamentally a criminal enterprise, and the police, intelligence agencies, prosecutors, courts, financial investigators and correctional institutions must all be part of the response.

The police must have the investigative capacity to build cases against suspects. Intelligence agencies must identify the networks behind the crimes. Financial authorities must trace ransom flows and illicit financial transactions where possible. Prosecutors must be adequately equipped to pursue cases. Courts must be able to dispose of serious criminal cases without interminable delays.

A criminal who is rescued from the consequences of his actions by a weak justice system can quickly return to the same enterprise.

Nigeria must therefore move from a predominantly reactive security model towards a prevention-and-disruption model.

Prevention begins with intelligence.

Communities are often the first to notice unusual movements, unfamiliar faces, suspicious camps and other signs of criminal activity. Yet community intelligence can only function effectively when citizens trust the security agencies sufficiently to provide information.

This requires protecting informants, responding promptly to credible information and avoiding indiscriminate treatment of entire communities because of the actions of a few criminal elements.

The government should also deepen the use of technology in the fight against kidnapping. Modern security operations increasingly depend on the ability to analyse communications, movement patterns, financial transactions and geographical information. Technology does not replace human intelligence, but it can significantly enhance it.

The objective should be to identify criminal networks before they abduct their next victims.

There is another dimension to the problem: the economic conditions that allow criminality to recruit and reproduce.

It would be simplistic to argue that poverty automatically produces kidnapping. It does not. Many poor Nigerians are honest, hardworking and law-abiding. But a society characterised by unemployment, weak economic opportunities, poor education and limited prospects can provide criminal organisations with a pool of vulnerable young people to recruit, manipulate or intimidate.

The long-term fight against kidnapping must therefore include economic renewal.

Young people need legitimate pathways to prosperity. Communities affected by criminality need functioning institutions, infrastructure, schools and economic opportunities. Where the state is absent for prolonged periods, criminal organisations can sometimes begin to assume informal authority.

The government must ensure that criminal groups never become more organised, more economically attractive or more influential than legitimate institutions.

The rescued NYSC members also deserve more than physical treatment.

Kidnapping can leave psychological scars long after victims have returned home. Anxiety, fear, sleep disturbances, trauma and a loss of confidence can persist even after physical safety has been restored.

The government should therefore ensure that victims of kidnapping, particularly young Nigerians abducted while preparing to undertake national service, have access to appropriate psychological and medical support.

Their recovery should not end when they leave the DSS facility.

There should also be transparency about major security operations, within the limits imposed by operational security. Nigerians deserve to know that their government is not merely conducting occasional rescue missions but systematically dismantling the criminal structures responsible for abductions.

The security agencies deserve commendation for the Imo operation. The military, DSS, police and other participating formations have demonstrated what can be achieved when agencies work together around credible intelligence and a common objective.

But commendation should come with an expectation of greater success.

The ultimate measure of success is not simply that 20 people were rescued.

It is that the people who abducted them are identified, apprehended and prosecuted; that the criminal infrastructure supporting them is dismantled; that their financiers and collaborators are exposed; that the territory from which they operated is secured; and that other prospective victims are protected from suffering the same fate.

Nigeria must also avoid allowing every successful rescue to become a momentary security celebration before attention moves elsewhere.

The country needs sustained institutional memory. Intelligence gathered from one operation should feed into the next operation. Criminal patterns identified in Imo should inform security assessments in neighbouring states. Networks should be mapped rather than merely disrupted temporarily.

The kidnapping crisis is too serious for isolated victories.

What happened in Imo should therefore be viewed as both a success and a warning.

It is a success because 21 human beings have been given back their freedom. It is a warning because the fact that prospective corps members could be abducted in the first place demonstrates that serious vulnerabilities remain within the nation's security architecture.

The appropriate response is neither pessimism nor complacency.

It is determination.

Nigeria must protect its citizens before they are kidnapped, not merely rescue them afterwards. It must make kidnapping financially unattractive, operationally difficult and legally consequential. It must improve intelligence, strengthen inter-agency cooperation, deploy technology intelligently and restore confidence between communities and security agencies.

Above all, the state must send an unequivocal message to those who have turned kidnapping into a business: Nigerians are not commodities, ransom is not a legitimate source of income, and no criminal network should be allowed to build an empire on the fear and suffering of innocent citizens.

The 20 prospective NYSC members and the additional hostage have been rescued. That is good news.

But the real victory will come when Nigeria no longer has to celebrate the rescue of citizens from kidnappers because the kidnapping networks capable of taking them have been systematically dismantled.

That must be the next objective.