KIDNAPPERS have begun accepting mobile phone charge cards as ransom for people they abduct in a development that has got the security forces scratching their heads about how to address the menace.

Over recent years, kidnapping has become a national menace across Nigeria as people considered affluent are abducted and their families made to part with cash before they are released. Of late, however, the practise has become so widespread that even members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) are being abducted for token sums.

According to the Nigerian Army the high rate of kidnappings in Rivers State, especially of NYSC members has become particularly worrying. Many of them are released for little sums by their abductors, which in many cases is paid in kind in the form of mobile phone charge cards.

Brigadier Stephenson Olasanji, the commander of the Second Brigade of the Nigerian Army in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, said: "The issue of kidnapping is one of the biggest challenges we have in Port Harcourt and Rivers State in general. We found out that most of the kidnap cases we have here are carried out by members of cult groups and the kidnappers collect as low as N10,000 (£33) and recharge cards as ransom.

“Most victims of the kidnappers in the state now, especially in the riverine communities, are members of the NYSC serving in this state. There is no day that passes without me getting letters from the NYSC coordinator in the state about kidnap of members in the riverine communities and if they don’t take time, the NYSC may stop posting corpers to Rivers State.”

He stated that more worrisome is the fact that kidnappers now coerce their victims, threatening to return if they reveal details about their abductors. Brigadier Olasanji, said this meant that kidnapped corpers are not giving information on how to arrest the kidnappers once they are set free.