 Welcome back to The Breakfast, I'm PlansTV Africa. In the National Assembly, a senator representing Emo East is in what France has of course put forward the bill, you know, asking for a 15-year jail term for people who pay ransom to kidnappers, terrorists and abductors. And of course that's going to be our next major conversation this morning. We have of course said a little bit about it right from off the press with and trying to decide if this was a it's a good decision and if maybe this is the right way to go. We're speaking this morning with a former director at the DSS, Dennis Amakri. Good morning, thanks for joining us sir. Good morning. Good morning, good morning, how are you? Fantastic. A lot of people, you know, are angry at the whole idea really of jail term for paying ransom to kidnappers. Do you think that the federal government or the senator may have suggested this in good faith? I think they never thought through. Whoever is trying to present that bill never thought about it and just put it there because how can you ask, you know, put up a bill that is going to penalize people who are paying ransom. I am totally against ransom, you know that. And I believe that you pay more ransom and then the people go and buy more arms to attack you. But to bring out a bill now that those who pay ransom are going to go for 15 years, I think it's just seriously misplaced. So what do you think really should the bill have been about? Penalizing kidnapping itself and kidnappers? Yes, in the bill, such a bill at this time should have, you know, go ahead and penalize kidnappers. You know, some states have already gone ahead to say that if you kidnap and they catch you, you face the death sentence, you know. And some have said a very long jail term and stuff like that. If the National Assembly wants to put it in the Constitution, that is fine with me. But to say that those who pay ransom should be penalized, I think it's out of place. There are people who have argued that, you know, Nigeria as it stands needs to take some very tough decisions. And if we need to, you know, maybe go in this type of direction, you know, have some collateral damage if possible, you know, just because we need to take those tough decisions for a more secure and a safer country. Do you agree with that perspective? Do you think that maybe it is time that we put away sentiments and, you know, accept collateral damage here and there and take these tough decisions? No, I disagree that collateral damage, yes, let's go for zero tolerance, zero tolerance for ransom payment. But collateral damage in the sense of punishing some people who pay ransom, I think is wrong. You see, it is the responsibility of government to protect life and properties. If you are putting out a law like that, it means that you also have the measures in place to make sure that if anybody is kidnapped, you can get the person out. But you don't have any measure like that in place. And then you allow putting out a law that if you pay ransom, so what happens? Parents whose children have been taken should sit back and be watching while their children would be killed. That does not make any sense. So the best thing to do is yes, zero tolerance, I agree. But put in place measures, technology, tactics that will bring out anybody who is kidnapped at any time. Okay, so I want us to really highlight some of these tactics and measures you're talking about because this particular Imo Senator, Senator Isengwar Francis Onyo Uchi mentioned the United Kingdom Terrorism Act of 2000. And the United States, no concession policy for paying ransom to terrorists. But it seems that they have systems in place to ensure that people are rescued once they're kidnapped in the first place. So where do you think we're lacking? Where are we missing it here in Nigeria? That would not allow this law be really sit well with Nigerians. Even the United States that you just mentioned don't do things like that. In fact, I give you an example. Just yesterday, there is hackers, you know, hackers that hacked into colonial pipeline, which is the, which is a major pipeline supplying fuel to the east coast of the United States. And they are asking for five million before they can allow to encrypt that pipeline and so that people can get a fuel, because people have fuel, serious fuel scarcity in the United States last week. And the company went ahead and paid five million dollars. That five million dollars allow them now to encrypt so that people can start to have their basic that you know, in other words, it was a kidnapped situation. But this was happening in the cyber, cyber space. And then, of course, they asked the president of the United States, what do you have to say about it? He went ahead and said he's not saying anything about it, but he has put out an executive order for the FBI to strengthen their, to strengthen their anti cyber attacks. And the FBI themselves said that, yes, they are going to put things in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. The people who paid the ransom are private citizens, private companies, but working for the United States government. So if we juxtapose that one into Nigeria, you'll find out that is the same thing. The government has to go ahead and make sure that they are ready to deal with it, not to punish people. They didn't, they didn't give out their children or themselves to be kidnapped. So why are you punishing them? It's misplaced. I think they should cancel that or review that, review that bill to say that all kidnappers will be punished or all kidnappers will be dealt with, not the people that are giving ransom. I think our criminal justice, you know, system already says enough about kidnapping and punishment for it. But I want to ask for those who say, because we spoke this morning with Mr. Ezekiel Nyayatok and he had his own thoughts concerning this. And he believes that in the failure of the Nigerian government to protect lives and property, it might also work if we ban or criminalize payment of ransom. That might make the kidnappers realize that, well, no money is coming. And so it will reduce the eagerness to get into the crime of kidnapping. Do you think that makes some sense? No. Well, I don't think I agree with the criminalizing of ransom payment. I don't like ransom payment. I repeat myself. I don't like it. Don't do it. Zero tolerance. But put in place what should stop the kidnappers from asking for ransom. Don't go and start punishing people because their relatives or children were kidnapped. Government should wake up, wake up to it. Make sure that those who commit that crime are fully punished, but not the people giving ransom. If you don't want people, it's just like telling me that I should not get hungry. If I get hungry and I eat, I will be punished. All right? You don't do that. Because this is a natural thing. I'm here and they have not committed any problem. I've not committed any crime. I am just driving on the road. All my children went to school and they were kidnapped. And then you yourself, the government have not done anything to stop that kidnapping. And you're telling me that I should not do any means of retrieving my children from the kidnappers. So I think it is very clear. Stop, put measures to stop kidnapping and people will not be put in ransom. Your former director at DSS, can you paint a picture for us on these measures that you're speaking about? Now that will reduce kidnapping or will help security agencies in Nigeria to be able to investigate kidnapping properly and rescue more Nigerian citizens from captivity. The government has tried the NIN route. And I'm not sure if that is working well enough to reduce crime. So from a security perspective, paint a picture for us on what must be done, where we must invest in, in what directions we must walk in order to make it more difficult for kidnappers to thrive in Nigeria. Number one, where people are kidnapped? The kidnappers will call them and tell them, this is what we want. We have your man with us. They might even give you proof of life that the person is actually with them. Then they will tell you we want 100 million. Don't tell the police. If you tell the police, we'll kill your person. That's the first conversation. If really you get off that phone as a citizen, report the thing to the police, report the situation to the police, report it even to the DSS, because these two agencies have a kidnapping group that they will use in either tracking that telephone or tracking where the location of where those two people are. When they do track them down, they will go out and try to rescue them. Or they will go ahead and get involved in the negotiation until they find it very, very possible to go and get them. Now, kidnapping is a low intensive, very, very crime that you can commit without much arms. The risk is not much. Then, of course, the money that they get from kidnapping is a lot. Low risk, high yield. So what do you do? You either try to increase the risk and then lower the reward that they will get. And then, of course, that will either affect the kidnapping situation. So what do we do? You make sure that they don't enjoy that money, because I know when I was in service, if they call, they might not even be comfortable where they are, because they will be tracked down immediately. That's why they keep on moving from one place to the other. And as they move from one place to the other, you follow them. Number two, if you cannot find them and they want to collect the money, because that is the hardest part of the whole kidnapped process, collecting the money. They have involvement situations where to collect simple money, they will go take you around Lagos or take you around Port Harcourt to ensure that nobody is following you before they also drop it here and they will collect the money. We know that. So why don't you make it so so difficult? You can use marked notes. The police have been doing that. I don't know why they stopped doing it. You can use marked notes and then wait for those notes to appear in any bank, because when you collect 10 million or 20 or 5 million, some of them will go out into the bucket, some of them will go back into the bank or whatever. We track them. All the banks will be looking out for those kind of monies that will come out and when you arrest one of them, it will lead you to the rest of them. You can use marked notes. You can also use notes that can explode. They can explode and pour paint into the face or hands of the person. Very distinct color. So the security people will be watching out for those people in the society where they are. These are all things that are available that can be used, but now they don't. People are not, people are eager to just go and paint the ransom and then they think the money will go away and then life continues. And this is the direction I'm asking is really, you know, with the security agencies that we have, not the citizens now. In which directions do you think our investment should be? In what direction do you think the training should be for security agencies in Nigeria? What more do we need to invest in? Do we need to have better CCTV cameras across Nigeria? Do we need to have better tracking of phone devices? What exactly do you think that the Nigerian government needs to start to invest in with regard to security that makes it more difficult for kidnappers to thrive? One simple technology that we can use is what is called the eye in the sky. The eye in the sky. There's a movie by that name. But if you watch it, you'll find out that it is just that kind of technology that we use. Many countries are using it. If you remember the Boston Marathon, when they went to bomb the people that were jogging or, you know, the marathon. Within 24 hours those people were arrested. How did they do it? It's not magic. This blink, it is not CCTV because we've discovered that CCTVs that are in the cities, they are useful. They are useful and you can use them in doing some other kinds of investigation. But the eye in the sky is right up there just below where planes are flying. And it looks over in a city like Lagos, it will look over Lagos. And if anything happens anywhere, they will zero down into that area because as it is looking it is also recording what is happening. So what do you do? When an incident happens, they just rewind it. They rewind it until they see before the incident. And then they will even see those people that came, which kind of clothes they are wearing. How do they get in there after the incident? How do they run away? Where are they now? And that's how they get them. It is not magic. It is not anything. But it's simple technology that could be used. And that technology is in the market. And Nigeria can buy it. So why are we not using it? So let's look at all those kind of things. You want to have drones? Yes. But don't buy the toy drones. Buy the military grade drones that can be in the air for three months before they come down. Okay. So that's how to go about it. And we cannot keep on talking about it and talking about it without using these things. All right, Mr. Makri, we know that many groups have been very vocal regarding kidnapping and security in Nigeria. One of them is the Christian Association of Nigeria. They immediately responded to this Senate bill talking about penalizing people who pay ransom to terrorists and giving them a 15-year sentence. So they're basically saying the federal government is chasing shadows. And that instead, there should be a bill that stipulates that for any state, any city, any government in whose territory kidnappings occur for at least three times a month, that person, that local government chairman, that governor, that president should be forced to resign. I don't know what your comments are regarding this suggestion by the Christian Association of Nigeria. I don't think it's a very good suggestion. It is not a security advice. It's maybe religious and inclined advice. But thank you for bringing up that story about the 15 years for people who pay ransom. I think that's also misplaced, totally misplaced. Because how can you, your fundamental job is to protect lives and property as a government? And many times they keep on forgetting that government is not just the executive. It also includes the legislators, those same legislators that are talking this, or the judiciary too. So if you are not able to protect lives and property and people are being kidnapped, they want their kidnapped. What do you do? You as a parent, your children are being kidnapped. They're building the bush somewhere with unknown people. And then what do you do? Sleep and wait for a government that has not put in place some measures to bring them back? You know, so before you put a law like that, in fact, the law that you put number one, zero tolerance to, you know, ransom, we are not going to pay anybody ransom. Yes, fine. Then number two, strengthen the security agencies whereby they have the wherewithal. It will not take them 24 to 48 hours to retrieve people that are kidnapped. It is very, very possible with new technology that is in place, they can do that. Then you tell your, your audience to encourage people not to pay the ransom. Even in the United States, you remember what happened last week? There was a full scarcity in the United States. And that's what caused it. It was a cyber attack on the colonial pipeline that runs from the north to south, eastern part of the, of the United States. There was a cyber attack and the people who attacked it are asking for five million dollars. You know what happened? They paid yesterday. They went and paid the money. Now, when the president was asked, what does it take? He said, well, his only is to ask the FBI, the security agency, to strengthen their system so that cyber attack will not happen to infrastructures that are very important to the United States. So like just like our D.S.S. here now, who say make sure that you don't allow anybody to be kidnapped and if they are kidnapped, get them out immediately. Not to punish the company that paid the money or the individuals that are going to pay the ransom. That is misplaced. You don't do that because those are private people. They can spend their money the way they like. If we want to come about, you know, human rights and the use of money or I can spend the money, I can buy it or throw it away. It is important. Mr. Mac, would you say that we have a, or we're dealing with scarcity of funds towards our security agencies or just, you know, poor spending and not being able to utilize the funds that are budgeted for security every year in the right direction? It's both. Both of them, you know, that's positive of funds. We don't have, we don't have unlimited amount of money, but the security agencies, including the military, are not well funded. They are not well funded because if you look at the budgetary expenses that, you know, that is allocated to the security agencies in Nigeria with our budget and our population of 200 or more than 200 million and look at smaller countries like Egypt, South Africa, even Angola, Angola, Angola spends more money on defense than Nigeria. A small country like Angola. So tell me, you know, the security agencies are not getting enough money and we should reorder our priorities because when it comes to payment of ransom, the money comes out one way or the other. So why don't we reorder our priorities and then of course fund the security agencies very properly and then they will be on top of their game and stop this menace to society where some, you know, lackadaisical guys will come around and, you know, go ahead and kidnap people and be asking for money that they never worked for, for the whole of their lives. All right. Okay. Lastly from me, Ms. Samakri, obviously this decision eventually, you know, stops at the table of the president. So would you say you'd be advising him to decline assent to this bill? That bill should not even get out of the National Assembly because it's, you know, it's not the right thing. I don't think they thought it through. They have to think very well before they start bringing, you know, we keep on bringing out bills that or maybe somebody's just trying to impress people that, oh, I also submitted it. I also submitted a bill, you know, it went to second reading and stuff like that. You know, otherwise I think that bill should be trashed. All right. Dennis Samakri. Go ahead. Oh, well, we just wanted to say thank you. I've enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for joining us this morning and always interesting speaking with you. Thank you for having me. Bye-bye. All right. And it's time to say goodbye on a Thursday morning, pretty early in the day. It's been a very interesting conversation this morning. Thank you very much for joining us and to our guests, Ibrahim Oshinowo and Dennis Samakri. Thanks for your time. We wish you a very interesting Thursday ahead. If you missed out on any of these conversations, remember where to find us at PLOS TV Africa on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and same with our YouTube channel. I am Osao Ghee, Ogboa. And I am Annette Felix. Bye-bye.