Food, after water, is the most essential basic commodity for human survival. When food becomes out of reach for ordinary people due to joblessness, crime becomes the norm.
In a society where joblessness is ubiquitous, people create illegal “jobs” for themselves because idleness is a vacuum that must be filled. Nature itself abhors idleness, as it leads to lawlessness.
The modern world is complex, and survival in it is not comparable to survival in the pre-modern world, where life was simple with minimal requirements. One could provide virtually all basic needs because the needs matched the simplicity of the society.
This is not to say modernity is undesirable. Rather, it is to emphasize that survival in it requires extra effort. People engage in multiple jobs to make ends meet. And this is not peculiar to Nigeria; it is the reality of the modern age, where life is superficially beautiful but prohibitively expensive.
The availability of jobs is the reason people survive in the modern world. While engaging in multiple jobs pays the bills, the jobs must be available to pay the bills. This is where Nigeria is unfortunately different. It has a labor force that the market does not demand. The labor force is now creating a market where it can force itself to work and earn something, regardless of the legitimacy or otherwise of the venture.
In place of moribund industries and other foreign direct investments exiting the country are “baby factories.” They are now all over the country. In these factories, pregnant women are the machinery that produces babies as finished goods to be sold on demand. These human machines are powered by irresponsible men who serve as the fuel and lubricant that ensure the smooth running of the operation. In other words, these men continue to impregnate women and underage girls with no sense of liability.
The most recent case was reported on Monday in Oyo State, where a 50-year-old woman was arrested by the Oyo State Police Command. The woman, who claimed to be jobless, resorted to child-stealing and trafficking as a means of survival. She was not selfish. She did not steal and sell other people’s children and spare her biological children. She admitted selling her newborn male twins for a paltry N300,000. She is devilishly selfless.
While joblessness may drive people to engage in all sorts of criminal and ignoble activities, how can joblessness make one so desperate as to despicably sell one’s newborn twins for such a paltry sum? There is more to it. This is a complete collapse of morality and spirituality. This is a complete absence of humanity that reduces humans far below beasts. No beast is so beastly as to put a price on its own offspring.
If beasts understood human language and conversation, they would be alarmed by the ingratitude of this woman who, by her own admission, said: “God gifted me pregnancies. If a man has sex with me two times, I won’t be able to abort it.” So she became an incubator that hatched babies for baby factories.
Can we therefore conclude that the Tinubu government has so impoverished Nigerians that baby-stealing has become a means of survival? That conclusion would be too simplistic because baby factories preceded the Tinubu administration. They may, however, have grown stronger, considering that two-thirds of Nigeria’s population currently live below the poverty line and are multidimensionally poor. Yet, this cannot justify this ugly enterprise.
Similarly, hunger in the country cannot justify the ugly practice of organ harvesting that people now resort to to make money. I am not referring to victims who were hoodwinked by predators or whose organs were harvested without their knowledge. I am referring to those who deliberately sell their organs in exchange for money. People sell their kidneys under the false notion that they can live with one kidney for the rest of their lives. Their stupidity is like that of a driver who travels every day but sells his spare tire with the false confidence that none of the four wheels will have a problem.
Just yesterday, we read a report of a young man in Kano State who cut off one of his own fingers after allegedly being offered N80 million to provide a finger from a living person — most probably for ritual purpose.
According to the police spokesperson, the young man went to a police station and lodged a complaint. He alleged that someone had offered him N80 million to provide a human finger. That is indeed tempting.
Unable to find the finger of a living person, and not wanting to lose the N80 million “contract,” he decided to cut off his own finger with a knife which he handed over to the man who awarded the contract. The contractor, now “fingerless,” complained to the police that the person had refused to pay him the promised N80 million. The police subsequently arrested the recipient of the body part and recovered the severed finger, while investigations continue.
But we need to hear the organ recipient’s own side of the story. The “millionaire” who was willing to give N80 million for a human part did not dispute the amount or the bizarre transaction. What he reportedly disputed was the part of the body he asked the contractor to provide. He did not ask for a human finger, but rather for the bone from the forearm of a living person. If the “millionaire” is right, then that is where the contractor got it wrong. He paid attention to the money, not to the details.
I don’t know why the police did not also detain the contractor with the self-amputated finger. He is also a criminal. It is a case of a criminal reporting a criminal. The Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act, 2015 has provisions for this. Section 20(2) of the Act reads: “Any person who procures, offers, assists, or is involved in the removal of human organs, or buys and sells human organs commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than 7 years and a fine of not less than N5,000,000.”
For the woman in Oyo who is “gifted” with the gift of pregnancy, the Act also applies. Section 13(2) of the Act reads: “Any person who recruits, transports, transfers, harbours or receives another person by means of (a) threat or use of force or other forms of coercion; (b) abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or position of vulnerability; or (c) giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the exploitation of that person, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment of not less than 2 years and a fine of not less than N250,000.”
But to be honest, these legal provisions may not serve as a deterrent because they are inherently defective, even if the criminals are subjected to them. Imagine someone being fined N250,000 for abducting a child that is sold for millions of naira. Do the math. They will still make a profit after paying the fine. They will even be emboldened to commit more crimes because the fine is not seen as punishment but as a settlement. The punishment ought to be stiffer to truly serve as a deterrent.
In addition, punishment alone does not stop crime when the root causes are not addressed. While some people go into crime to live ostentatiously, joblessness and underemployment remain major root causes. The government has apparently failed to provide jobs. It has also failed to provide a conducive environment for job creation by skilled and entrepreneurial individuals.
Since the Tinubu government, through the First Lady, Iya Alakara, has promised jobless Nigerians grants to start selling akara, let us seize the opportunity. No matter how much people criticize the government for such empowerment, selling akara is a legitimate job. Criminals should stop stealing babies. They should stop selling human parts. They should sell akara, not babies. They should take up legitimate work, not crime.
May we and our children not be victims.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
