Corruption is Dangerous To Fight

It was December 9, 2012, a Sunday, between 3 and 4 in the afternoon. I was standing in my bedroom in Nigcria's capital, Abuja, reflecting on how tired I was after working through the night on Ministry of Finance issues and missing church in the morning-a bit of a cardinal
sin in ultra-church-going Nigeria. Then my cell phone rang. It was my brother Onyema with some terrifying words-words that made no sense to me at the time. "Mummy has been kidnapped," he said. "What did you say?" I asked him, stunned. And he repeated, "Mummy has been kidnapped." My response was sharp. "Kidnapped?" I said. "What do you mean? Where and by whom?" My brother said he had just received a call from one of my father's assistants saying that at around 12 noon that day, a car had driven into my parents' compound where my mother, just returned from church, was standing near the gatehouse talking to workers. A man had jumped out of the car, asked if she was the minister's mother, and on receiving the answer yes, hit my mother in the face, pushed her into he back of the car, and zoomed off. This all happened so fast that none of the workers near the gatehouse had time to react.

I asked where my father was and if he also had been kidnapped. My brother said that my father was away in Nassarawa state for a meeting. It was not clear whether anyone had yet called and told him. My brother and I quickly traded calls with a couple of my other siblings and decided Onyema should go to Ogwashi-Ukwu to my parents home to see firsthand what was going on and be available in case the kidnappers tried to establish contact. I would join him as soon as I had established contact with my father and reported the case to the authorities in Abuja to see how they could assist. For the first few minutes after my brother hung up, I was paralyzed. I tried to imagine my eighty-three-year-old mother in the hands of kidnappers, and a wave of panic started deep inside me. The kidnappers had asked if she was the minister's mother before pushing her in the car, so this clearly had something to do with me in my position as Finance Minister. The country was going through a wave of kidnappings, but I had always feared that any kidnap attempts might be of me, my siblings, or even the two of my four children who had chosento move back from America to live and work in Nigeria. We had spoken about this extensively, including the need to be careful and take precautions. But I had never thought my parents could be kidnapped, perhaps
because of their age but also because my father was the traditional ruler (Obi) of the Ogwashi-Ukwu kingdom and I felt that the respect this inspired should keep my parents relatively safe.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala