ANAMBRA'S SECURITY WOES

At no point in recent times has the prospect of travelling to the southeast of Nigeria in December been more fraught with danger as that of 2024. The level of insecurity had hit a more worrisome level, especially in Anambra State, unlike in the past when it was just limited to spillovers from Imo state to border areas like Ihiala, and the simmering embers in Anambra South. As the yuletide drew near, a member of the Anambra State House Of Assembly was kidnapped. Priests, reverend sisters, and many others also found themselves hostages in the camps of these men of the underworld. To this day, nothing has been heard from some of the them, a few found killed like the banker that was kidnapped in Onitsha, even after ransom was paid, while those like the reverend sisters managed to regain their freedom.

It is difficult to understand why the level of insecurity in Anambra State recorded a significant spike in relation to its neighbouring southeast States, moreso as most Anambrarians were gearing to go home for the yuletide. The abduction of clergy became norm so much so, that it necessitated fiery outbursts from a popular southeastern Catholic priest, popularly called 'Ebube Muonso", that was not taken lightly by the media aides of Governor Chukwuma Soludo, who felt he could've exhausted the private channels to the governor, rather than going public. Even if the priest's approach was considered an impropriety, it nonetheless couldn't be said to be an exercise in futility, as within days of it, the governor outlined plans to address the rising level of insecurity in the state.

It is only left to conjecture if the plan was already in the works, or it was ignited or given impetus by the reverend father's utterances. The time in between when the governor outlined his plan, to the implementation date however left people wondering whether it meant kidnapping activities could continue till the deadline. Meanwhile, social media continued to be awash with videos and audios of matters of insecurity, especially voice notes and videos of and from survivors. It soon started to become clear, even to those who felt that the insecurity in the southeast was perpetrated by external forces, that it was actually by actors closer to home, and that the criminals could just be one of their own. Indeed, in some of the whatsapp voice notes, except for those abducted in Enugu by suspected fulani herdsmen, the cases in Anambra is alleged to be masterminded by Igbo people. Indeed, a few of the survivors were let go after being dispossessed of their personal effects, because some of the abductors could not fathom shedding the blood of a kinsman.

The experiences of the survivors suggests that kidnapping isn't only for ransom, but also for organ harvesting, especially for those who couldn't meet up with the ransom demanded. Indeed, one of the survivors revealed that some of the youngsters thought to be engaged in cybercrime and internet fraud, have ditched that to serve as agents for these kidnap syndicate, either by providing information, or engaging in kidnapping themselves, in exchange for helfty financial rewards immediately, or after their victim's ransom had been paid. If this be so, then the current proliferation of most villages in Anambra State of Internet fraudsters known as "yahoo boys", foretell danger in the sense that the status quo will not only persist, but will escalate exponentially.

Sadly this is happening in the same period Lagos clubs and fun spots recorded a staggering revenue from "I Just Got Back", IJGB Nigerian funseekers from the diaspora, and the reason for that isn't far fetched. "Detty December", happened in Lagos because it is devoid of the kind of insecurity that's plaguing the rest of Nigeria. Wealthy Igbo people in Lagos who marked the season with the latest in advanced auto technology dared not take same to the east, except with extra private and state security apparatus, for which they required convoys of stern looking, gun totting men, some of whom have also come under fire when daredevil men of the underworld deemed their principal a person of interest. Some Igbo elite desirous of seeing the homeland, simply ditched their luxury brand for simple, sometimes beat-up cars that's trusted to move from point A to B, in tandem with their intention to keep a low profile, and ward off prying eyes. In the end, Lagos gained where the rest of Nigeria lost.

To be fair, the southeast did not just lie down to allow itself be raped by the monster of insecurity. Most villages and towns raised security committees, with their subsequent vigilante groups, to complement the efforts of state government vigilante groups, and other security apparati like Ebubeagu in Imo state and Agunaechemba recently launched in Anambra State amongst others. 

Sadly, these groups are handicapped by the lack of adequate weaponry to match what these non state armed actors bring to the table, therefore just like the state police, they are usually on the defensive. Their efforts have been limited largely to dismantling drug dens, and arresting petty thieves, that they post on social media in what many are beginning to see as content creation on the parts of either the head of the vigilante groups, or in collaboration with members of the groups. And this, while the main protagonists of insecurity remain without any sign of a decline in their activities, including the rising cases of cult related killings like the recent one in the Nibo area of Awka, as well as those by groups seeking a secession of the Southeast from Nigeria, who imposed and enforce a sit-at-home order every Monday, and any other day of their chosen in the southeast, with Igbo blood shed routinely to make examples of those who are considered to have disobeyed their orders.

These days there's hardly any difference between a wrong place or right place, as well as wrong time or right time, as one can only pray and hope that one be not on the roads on the day it is famished. Even if you travel by air, you still have to commute from the airport to your home, and the home is even where many victims have had to be unfortunately abducted, including the wife of a former commissioner of police, who was abducted right in front of her house in Ogun State. The police may have considered the act a slap on their face, that they deployed technology and manpower to rescue her within days of her kidnap, while dispatching two of her abductors to their graves. Two others were captured later with some of the ransom money recovered. A success story in the southwest, that one wished will be replicated in the southeast and other parts of Nigeria.

If information from the security agencies are anything to go by, the efforts by the military are beginning to pay off in the Northeast and Northwest, though the same cannot be said about Benue State in the North-Central, where fulani herdsmen continue to ravage communities at will, with their activities affecting the neighbouring state of Enugu in the Southeast. Governor Peter Mbah is known to be a man of few words but with visible efforts in the aspect of security, electing to fight the scourge using technology. I could see it in the serene atmosphere of Enugu 

compared to the tension you'd find across the border in Awka, Anambra State when I visited last December. Hopefully, all that's been put in place to ensure better security in Anambra will yield fruit, especially as the state's guber and assembly elections draw near, with its potential to escalate security situations, for political reasons.

'kovich 

IKORODU: LAND OF HORRORS

In recent times Ikorodu has been appearing on the timelines of my head more often than before. There was a time I didn't even know it was a part of Lagos, okay yea I had a girlfriend who I never visited because she lived there back then in secondary school. But that was just it, the other times it was because I'd use Ikorodu Road to several other destinations besides the place it actually led to, and then again that was it. It wasn't until a colleague at work some years back regaled us with tales of how she would wake up as early as three in the morning, and be on the road by four just to be at work on the island before seven that my consciousness was raised a notch concerning the place. Of course, we also witnessed the many times she was robbed, phones and bags collected severally, besides the physical and psychological trauma she was subjected to by (armed) robbers and hoodlums, as she made her way to work, and the many times she'd had to leave work before closing hours for home, because the people of Ikorodu had one (Orò) festival or the other, bordering on the fetish and diabolical to perform, for which women, sometimes men are required to stay indoors sometimes for days on end. You could tell how evidently she changed once she moved out of Ikorodu, where she didn't have to pay rent because it was her parent's house, to the island where she paid massively, but had rest of mind.


With these at the back of my mind, when I forayed into a bit of real estate, I wasn't keen on Ikorodu, even though it seemed like it was the only place we could afford to buy land in Lagos at the time, before we decided to move outside of Lagos, although it was the issue of land speculators and/or grabbers that topped the list of our disenchantment with that part of Lagos at the time, over and above my personal issues with the place. It also meant that when accommodation became an issue for me sometime last year, Ikorodu wasn't even up for consideration, despite the fact that many of the new apartments on display, mostly online had the kind of space as well as other facilities, for less competitive pricing that you'd find nowhere else on the mainland or on the island, without boring a huge hole in your pocket.


Now, recently a man was caught (while his accomplices managed to escape) in the Majidun area of Ikorodu, said to be planning to blow up the third mainland bridge in Lagos. He was said to be part of the oil bunkering militants, whose stock in trade was to burst oil pipelines in the Arepo and Ikorodu areas of Ogun and Lagos States respectively, fill barges with twenty-five litre kegs containing fuel, and even bigger containers for onward sales to customers in the black market. He and his cohorts, according to the police decided to blow up the bridge because of recent Nigerian army and airforce raids that bombed them out of their hideouts and out of business (at least for now). As usual, and as is commonplace with the Nigerian security services, they overplayed and over-sensationalized that event in the press, ignoring the wider, even more deadlier scenario, that this was just one man (which I doubt would've been able to go through with his plans, with the few dynamites and other explosive paraphernalia on him) out of the horde that have now gotten their hands to other mischief to make "ends" meet, ends that have widened exponentially, based on the amount of money that was formerly available to them in their oil bunkering days. That simply added to my dread of Ikorodu, and I simply noted the event.

ABIODUN AMOS AKA "SENTI" AND HIS GANG, ACCORDING TO THE POLICE, WERE PLANNING TO BLOW UP THE THIRD MAINLAND BRIDGE. 

So, weeks ago, just before Christmas, on the stretch of Ikorodu road of which Majidun (again) is part of, a robbery incident was recorded in which Aisha Alli- Balogun, a TV presenter was shot dead while in traffic and her daughter, a kid was kidnapped (later released to her family, with no news as to whether a ransom was paid or not) during the attack that involved several commuters in traffic on the said night. It was while I was scanning through twitter that it came to light that this wasn't the first time this would be happening there, especially on that part of Ikorodu road, as I began to read of experiences of even passengers in public buses who have lost valuables while they were caught up in traffic, and robbers took advantage of their helpless situation to strike.

THE LATE AISHA ALLI-BALOGUN, GUNNED DOWN IN TRAFFIC ON IKORODU ROAD BY SUSPECTED ARMED ROBBERS. 

In that period, I also noticed that another staff at work who lives close to Ikorodu was now coming later than usual, and I asked her about the situation, only for her to attribute her lateness to her now having to leave home later than usual, till such a time as she could see the light of day because of the nefarious activities of "former oil bunkerers" who have taken to armed robbery and kidnapping, since their oil bunkering activity was halted by the Nigerian military. She stated that on one particular occasion the armed robbers blocked both sides of the traffic at about seven o'clock in the evening around the Ogijo part of the Ikorodu road, and  perpetrated their crime, robbing from vehicle to vehicle for more than an hour without police showing up anywhere to rescue the situation, while it lasted, till the thieves got tired of hauling loot and left. What broke the camel's back for her however, was the recent abduction last week of passengers in a bus still on the Majidun axis of Ikorodu road, who were hailed down by armed men very early in the morning, and transferred from their bus to that of the kidnappers, and driven to an unknown location from where families of those abducted were called to pay varying amounts as ransom to facilitate the release of their wards and family members, then in the care of kidnappers. Since then, this staff, has defied the fear of a query for late coming because of that incident, saying she'd be devastated if something like that happened to her, while still nursing and breastfeeding a baby. Unfortunately, moving to other parts of Lagos is presently out of the question for her seeing as her husband prefers Ikorodu, due to the proximity to his business to their house, and also not wanting his wife to be closer to her people in mainland Lagos, which a move away from Ikorodu, outskirt of Lagos might enable.

KETU ASPECT OF THE IKORODU ROAD DURING RUSH-HOUR TRAFFIC. 

How could I have gotten this far without mentioning the cult problem in Ikorodu. When in discussions last week over the issue with a friend, he attributed the situation to the presence of the Lagos State Polytechnic students there who are members of one cult or the other, but I was quick to inform him that the cultism in that institution, and indeed of tertiary institutions in Nigeria is child's play compared to the horror that cultists, who aren't mainly students, in Ikorodu get up to, as well as visit on the people of Ikorodu, sometimes with active connivance of the police and other security agencies, as well as politicians and the well entrenched traditional society in that part of town. Many times, when the people resort to jungle justice and lynching of a criminal, they say that at other times they resorted to following the law such criminals were released from police custody under controversial circumstances, sometimes by influential chieftaincy title holders and powerful politicians, whom they might have done some favour for, many times the gory ones that the people of Ikorodu wake to see some mornings as headless corpses, with other parts of the body missing, and these include of males and females. Even with rape cases, Ikorodu stands out, with victims at certain times including either the very young, or the very old, then bizarre in that some of the perpetrators then go on to wipe the vaginas of their victims with a white handkerchief, in what many suggest will be used for ritual purposes.

SERIAL RAPIST AND CULTIST, POPULARLY KNOWN AS "BADDO" LYNCHED AFTER HE WAS CAUGHT A SECOND TIME. THE FIRST TIME HE WAS CAUGHT HE WAS HANDED OVER TO THE BAÁLÈ (COMMUNITY CHIEF), WHO HANDED HIM OVER TO THE POLICE, ONLY TO BE RELEASED WITHOUT PROSECUTION. 

It isn't unusual that Ikorodu is getting all these bad vibes now. It's where the middle class have elected in recent times, to build their homes on cheaper to acquire land, though that comes with its own challenges, including as mentioned before, land speculators/grabbers who could make a landowner pay several times for the same land, depending on the number of times different aboriginal families win cases in court to upturn a former so called "original" aboriginal landowner (omo onílè). Ikorodu is like sugar surrounded by a horde of ants. Even an arm of Nigeria's entertainment industry, the Yoruba-speaking film industry, known as the National Association of Nigerian Theater Arts Practitioners, NANTAP, have lots of their members who have homes, businesses like hotels and sundry in Ikorodu, as against their English-speaking Nollywood counterparts who have made Lekki axis on the island their base, as with the very wealthy of Lagos. When the criminals abduct (even primary and secondary school students, some of them while on the assembly ground in the morning), rob or perpetrate crime in Ikorodu, they do these aware that some of their victims are wealthy, or are related to those who are and own houses in Ikorodu, and can afford to pay ransom to secure the release of their wards in their captivity.


What Ikorodu needs is more opening. The expansion and reconstruction of Ikorodu road is a step in the right direction, but that long stretch needs now to be policed, not just by the armored personnel carrier with a few policemen at strategic points on that stretch of road but far more than that, to include frequent patrols. If the fourth mainland bridge, which will link Ikorodu with Lekki, is finally built that will further

PROPOSED FOURTH MAINLAND BRIDGE TO LINK IKORODU WITH LEKKI ON THE ISLAND IN LAGOS, IS EXPECTED TO BE A PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP PROJECT, PPP ON A BUILD, OPERATE AND TRANSFER BASIS. 

open up Ikorodu and naturally that sort of openness will bring that part of town under further scrutiny especially of the security agencies, as well as government attention, which because there'll be facilities to protect on that axis, with new markets and economic opportunities, the land will be forced to modernize and hopefully crime will be effectively fought just because of exposure to the outside world, without forgetting the old ways that Ikorodu must shed to move forward, with or without the opening up of the area. It is heartwarming to learn that the Lagos state House of Assembly has passed into law, the anti-kidnapping bill into law, which prescribes life imprisonment for kidnappers, and a death sentence for them, if their captive dies in their custody, as well as forfeiture of the property in which the abducted was held incommunicado, though I don't know how the complicity of the owner of a property can be proven in such a situation, but notwithstanding it is a step in the right direction, if the laws can be implemented. Hopefully, the tales from Ikorodu will turnaround for good, for now it remains a no-go area for me.


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- http://punchng.com
- http://www.stargist.com
- http://www.naijanewsrave.com
- http://scannewsnigeria.com
- http://www.nleworks.com