ow we hear the kidnapped journalists have been rescued. We thank God and the combined efforts of the police nationally and internationally for saving us from that shame. The damage that incident from the moment of kidnapping to the relocation of the Inspector General of Police to Abia State personally in order to effect their release on the orders of the President has done to the country is irreparable. A lot has been written on it too therefore, there is no need repeating the obvious.

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But there are some issues the incident threw up in our polity that demands attention. It is my intention to point to some of these issues before we forget them as we often have the tendency to forget and not delve into the remote causes of events perhaps for fear of the demands solving them might make on our selfish interests. The most obvious immediate problem is the lack of tracking devices for the police. One would have expected that with the rate of armed robbery, kidnapping and other forms of violent crimes in the country that such devices would long have been procured. Without tracking devices, how on earth were the police hoping to solve the riddles of criminal gangs kidnapping innocent citizens for ransom?

When kidnapping involves public figures, it makes public news. When innocent citizens are kidnapped nobody knows about them and their families are left to their fate. Absence of such devices and the invitation of Interpol or other foreign experts to help rescue the kidnapped journalists means the special units of the police and, I guess the military, do not have experts trained in their use. Will the kidnapping of the journalists be the happy fall that will bring about a new beginning in arming and disciplining of the police force to take seriously their duties of protecting the life of Nigerians and of others living in the country? I hope when this issue dies down we do not forget and play politics or lay accusing fingers on one another and do nothing.

Second, the kidnapping of the journalists raises the issue of the remote causes of such violent crime. Why were youths involved in this? Why kidnap for ransom, why kidnap at all? Various government officials reacted when the high rate of unemployment was fingered as the major cause of such crimes. Some asked whether lack of employment is enough reason for one to engage in kidnapping. Some pat themselves on the back and alleged that government is not expected to provide employment for all its citizens. There is overall allegation that most of the kidnappers within and outside the country are perpetuated by people of the South east. Yes, we all agree that unemployment is a major factor in this and other crimes in the country. But what are we doing about it? Other countries see it as their responsibility to create jobs. In the last great recession 2008, governments all over the world rolled out money to save their companies, in order to save jobs, to keep people employed, to enable them live lives worthy of them as human beings.

The connection between employment and the reduction of crimes is well noted in other countries. During campaigns politicians know it is their duty to create jobs and they promise to create jobs if elected. Are we creating jobs while in our watch employers of labour, various industries are relocating to other countries because of our inability to generate enough electricity and other infrastructures like good roads and transport facilities to keep them in our country in order to continue to offer employment to our citizens? Various universities in the country churn out graduates each day who some government officials say are unemployable. Nobody wants to take the responsibility of the poor quality of education. No, the politicians want an increase in their salaries, their upkeep for them and their families and friends. We often tend to forget the interconnectedness of our life. Frustration can lead one to unleash violence on the society.

A person who has nothing to loose because all his/her efforts has come to nothing will have no qualms taking up violent crimes. Nobody is asking what the youths were busy doing in those periods of strike running into several months. In a country of the survival of the fittest where you are left on your own, without social safety nets and welfare schemes to cushion the effects of unemployment and cash trapped situations, we push people to the wall and advertently or inadvertently allow them to be preyed upon by hoodlums who turn them into what ordinarily they would not want themselves to be. So may the kidnap of the journalists make us do all we can to create employment opportunities. Yes government cannot employ all its citizens, but it can create conditions that will make employment possible. This surely will reduce kidnapping and other survivalistic crimes.

The kidnapping of the journalists heated up the polity and it should be a clarion call on each of us to be involved in our own affairs. In a democracy, if we care less about politics, hoodlums will hijack governance and make laws that would benefit them and care less about us the citizens. For far too long, Nigerians have been sidelined in their governance. Politicians have little or no recourse to their various constituencies because electioneering fraud put them as representatives against the will of their constituencies. Ordinary citizens of the country are left fighting ethnic and religious divisions thrown up by politicians to distract us from uniting to seek for good governance and truly representative democracy. The struggle now is not voting for a good man or woman but whether a particular position should go to a Southerner or to a Northerner. Therefore, it is not the nation's interest that is foremost but the ethnic, tribal and religious interest.

At the end of the day, who suffers but the common man and woman who get discriminated against in their own country? Will the kidnapping of the journalists change the rhetoric from zoning to united fight to move the country forward through a united search for a visionary leader who will promise and keep his words, who will love the country and work to achieve our much vaunted Vision 2020? Should our concern not be creating a better well-being for Nigerians; improvement of infrastructures, better health-care; improved means of transportation; careful use of our resources to bring about economic growth; solving the problems of ethnicity and religious differences; maintenance of rule of law, making Nigeria habitable and lovable for her citizens instead of us seeking refugee status overseas where life ends up being generally lonesome?

Fellow Nigerians, let us therefore learn and not forget that our destiny lies in our hands. Celebrating 50 years of independence is living above the peak of progress, yet we have not even started. Now is the time, a stitch in time saves nine they say.

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