Criminology

Apologies to anyone who’s actually proud to be Nigerian, but that country just sounds like literally the worst place on earth. The latest saga that has come to the press’ attention is the kidnapping of Everton defender Joseph Yobo’s brother, seized on Saturday from a hotel in Port Harcourt. No group has yet claimed responsibility and no ransom has been demanded; in other words, it’s just another day in the hood. This incident comes almost a year after Newcastle forward Obafemi Martins survived an assassination attempt upon returning home to the country’s capital of Lagos.

Rivers State police spokeswoman Rita Inoma-Abbey told BBC Sport that an investigation had been carried out at the hotel where Norum Yobo was seized. All we know was that it took place late at night as he returned from a night-club with friends, and that the kidnappers were packing heat. “We have not heard anything yet from Mr Norum or the kidnappers but we will make a statement available as soon as we can establish contact with them,” she continued.

It’s common knowledge that in Nigeria kidnappings are fairly frequent occurrences, although they tend to be limited to oil workers, from whose companies the local ‘entrepreneurs’ can extort the most wonga. You see, although Nigeria is the continent's top oil producer (from the Niger Delta area), the general region remains deeply impoverished, and foreigners strut around in Armani and gold chains the width of a baby’s arm. In some ways you can understand the backlash here, but trying to kill your country’s heroes, or kidnapping their brothers? It’s pretty bad. I guess though that when Pele gets his wallet and phone ‘liberated’ at gunpoint down the road from where he grew up, it’s pretty clear that nothing is sacred anymore.

Oh finally, in other related news, Wilson Palacios’ brother, kidnapped late last year in Honduras, has been returned to his family unharmed. You might remember us doing a little spiel on this at the time, but being the focused journalists that we are, we subsequently forgot completely to check out what happened in the end.