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 

NGIGE, EKITI, APC & BUHARI

As if the troubles bedeviling the All Progressives Congress, APC wasn't enough, yesterday a chieftain from the party from Anambra State, where he's been roundly defeated severally by the ruling party in that state, a Dr. Chris Ngige, whose political fortunes have long since nosedived, in his speech at the grand campaign rally for the Ekiti States' APC gubernatorial candidate and former governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, mistakenly asked Ekiti residents present at the venue, as well as Nigerians watching proceedings live on TV to vote for outgoing Governor Ayodele Fayose, who he stated had been a good wife to Ekiti people, cooking good food, amongst other attributes of, and to women that feminists may find offensive. By the time he realised his mistake, the damage had been resoundingly done, and tweets by APC followers to reduce it, only further stoked and spread the fire.

If Fayose's deputy, and People's Democratic Party, PDP candidate for next Saturday's poll wins the governorship seat, it may signal the beginning (or an intensification, if things go the other way) of the grand plot and design to have President Muhammadu Buhari lose his bid for a second term. The recent formation of the Reformed-APC, a splinter group from the APC, in what is reminiscent of what happened with the PDP, when the N-PDP was formed, and eventually contributed to a large extent to the failure of the party in the presidential elections of 2015, along with it's collaboration afterwards with other parties, with the sole aim of denying President Buhari his second term ambition signals a possible tectonic shift that will appear to cast him as the tribal leader he's always been, with the ability to win elections only in his neck of the woods, and never good for the diversity that Nigeria represents, a notion he's done absolutely nothing to dispel, first from his appointment of service chiefs mainly from his region, to pursuing policies that only suit the north only, like when he encouraged the World Bank Chief to focus on the Northeast, to reenergizing efforts at crude oil discovery in the north, to attempting to strip control of water resources from states to the federal government, when much of Nigeria's water resources lies in the south, to attempts to make the federal government responsible for the creation of ranches, across Nigeria for herdsmen, which should ordinarily be a private endeavour.

Even though Nigerians looked over his tendency to and for favouritisms, not in the least including in his so called anti-corruption fight, that seem to be targeting only those opposed to his rule and policies, they couldn't get over his quiet and silence, even the deflecting of blame from Fulani herdsmen, which he continues to champion over the killings that have become commonplace especially in Nigeria's middle-belt region, and other states like Taraba and Adamawa, where herders from his Fulani tribe have been severally implicated. The closest he'd come to accepting the responsibility of the group (tagged the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world) in the carnage, coming only when he refers to the asymmetric warfare meted out on indigenes (including women and children while they slept) of the affected places, was to deem the attacks a farmers-herders clash, when evidence hardly supports such.

Unfortunately, because of his below par response, and scant if any, attempt at ensuring justice for victims and survivors by bringing perpetrators of the killings to book despite repeated assurances to do same, the recent reprisal attacks by mostly militia groups of affected tribes and peoples (of Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Adamawa in recent times), who have resorted to self help, is the offshoot. Security agents like members of the police and army, deployed most times only as a reactionary force, that may have even stood by when the initial incidence of mayhem and massacres that took place, because they hadn't received orders "from above", have led many of the indigenes, including a retired army General to allege that the military and security forces besides taking sides, have even gone ahead to collude with marauding Fulani herdsmen. When the President recently claimed that it was unfair to say he hadn't wielded the big stick against the herdsmen because he was also Fulani, he failed to mention  things he'd done that should make Nigerians observe otherwise.

Sadly, many of the states, save for Taraba, suffering from the high insecurity situation in Nigeria, are those from which President Buhari gained huge electoral figures that helped propelled him to power. That includes Zamfara, where armed men, this time not suspected to be Fulani, have so menaced the state that the governor recently conceded his largely ceremonial title of Chief Security Officer of the state he superintends over as governor, seeing as he couldn't control how troops are to be deployed, nor have the power to chastise erring officers. On more than one occasion, the President, and members of his party have done what they accused the party they replaced in coming to power of doing, which is dancing on the graves of Nigerians, by organising and holding party rallies during and after deadly attacks on Nigerians, only for the government to release much rehashed statements (the only difference been in dates and places), expressing shock and outrage at the killings, sympathising with the government and people of the affected state, and vowing to bring perpetrators to book, before the Vice President, 'Yemi Osinbajo, now sadly declared "Minister of Condolence and Tragedy" by the unimpressed mass of Nigerian Twitterati, is then sent to the State, to assess the situation.

As if things weren't bad enough, Femi Adeshina, government's spokesman (who  has taken sycophancy to new heights) went on to add salt to injury of Nigerians by insensitively stating that deaths under the immediate past government, was more than it is under the current regime, like the loss of Nigerian lives have become a competition of, and for under whom were more lives lost, as if a life should be lost at all. The irony wasn't at all lost on discerning Nigerians, when Buhari just hours ago, rejoiced with, and thanked Thai authorities for successfully rescuing some teenage footballers and their coach from a maze of caves, after they got trapped there days ago. The shouts of a few, who had aforehand read the handwriting on the wall, concerning the president's lack of capacity to steer the ship of state have now, before and after the 2015 elections, continued to be boosted by the addition of voices connected to eyes from which scales have fallen, leaving the government no choice, seemingly than to explore coercive means to turn things in its favour politically, starting with Ekiti State in but a few days time.

'kovich

A NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING FOR VICTIMS OF SOUTHERN KADUNA MASSACRE

When it came to light that the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN had declared today, a National Day of Mourning sometime last week, I was very happy. Happy, not because it will bring back the dead, or heal the injured, or restore all that the people of southern Kaduna lost, after marauding Fulani herdsmen paid them a "Christmas day visit", leaving destruction and death in their wake, but because for once a body like that, deemed it fit to dedicate a day to remember and honour the dead, even when the government at both state and federal level conveniently turned their eyes and ears away from the carnage that took the lives of more than eight hundred Nigerians away in yet another ethno-religious crisis in the north, disguised as farmer's versus herder's clashes, even when so called farmers died in their homes mostly while they slept, or very early in the mornings trying to escape the invasion unarmed, and that includes women and children as young as just a few months.


If you hadn't heard about this declaration by the CAN last week, after the gruesome murder of Christians and animist inhabitants of Southern Kaduna, you'd be shocked that the office of the vice president could release a video afterwards in which former Nigerian Christian presidents and vice presidents rendered a hymnal in English and in they're language, for those who could like there hadn't been a massacre at all, talk more, the killings of fellow Christians, and to go ahead and say a few words afterwards without mentioning the travails and persecution of Christians, non-Muslims and southerners in the north. Yes, I am not surprised about the silence of the vice president, whom when a deaconess from his church (where he incidentally is one of the pastors) was killed during "morning cry" a few kilometers from his abode in Abuja, said nothing, neither pressured the authorities using his high office, to even pretend to leave no stone unturned in bringing the killers of that woman to book, before you begin to wonder at his quiet about other killings before and after that of male and female Christians in the north following accusations of blasphemy against the Muslim God and/or his prophets. Of course when such Christian leaders keep quiet, you don't expect the sultan or emirs, whose ultimate goals may be inadvertently served in the long run by these killings to speak on behalf of Christians, or demand justice for their maltreatment, abuse or wrongful deaths at the hands of intolerant and fanatical Muslim fundamentalists.


If you were unaware of this declaration by the CAN, you'd think Nigerians and Christians are quite insensitive, especially when an aide to President Muhammadu Buhari, a Christian comes on air to say that his principal doesn't have to make a comment concerning killings of fellow Nigerians (and Christians like him), since the state governor is on top of the matter. You'd hear the Inspector General of police dispute the number of the dead like even the killing of one Nigerian would matter less, under the circumstances those that died where mercilessly massacred and butchered. He would then go on to assure southern Kaduna people of increased security by promising to locate a mobile police force unit there, as if the presence of police and/or the military in that region has ever been the case, over and above how they conveniently disappear when  marauding Fulani begin their raid. Only to return and arrest those indigenes found even with a pen knife (either for self defence or to peel orange to avert the unpleasantness of the harsh harmattan weather), for attempting to disturb the peace, while a Fulani walks by armed with his AK-47 unhindered, talk more arrested.

INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF POLICE, IBRAHIM IDRIS ADDRESSING SOME RESIDENTS OF SOUTHERN KADUNA DURING HIS VISIT TO AREAS AFFECTED BY THE "CHRISTMAS DAY" MASSACRE. 

If peradventure the day that declaration was made, you were cocooned away from the Nigerian reality by the workload on your workstation, and therefore missed it, you may not miss the secretary of the Miyeti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, justifying their ignoble act, while warning on the side that inhabitants of southern Kaduna should forget about avenging the death of their loved ones, but rather come to negotiate peace with the Fulani (without justice), so that all could get on with their live, as they are content now that a wrong done them since 2011 have been somewhat righted. Though that  statement was widely publicized, no single arrest, either of that man, nor of the perpetrators which he may know have so far been made, rather reports keep making the rounds that despite increased police and military presence, the murderous Fulani are camped well in the sight of everyone that cares to know, with the possibility of a new onslaught not ruled out, while a journalist courageous enough to publish pictures from the pit of hell that some parts of Southern Kaduna became, was promptly picked up and could've been surely whisked off to Abuja from Lagos had not the problem with Nigeria's aviation sector not reared its ugly head in the form of lack of aviation fuel, leading to delays in takeoff, and thereby having the journalist and his police captors waiting a while at the departure lounge, catching the attention of passersby via which that piece of news was leaked.

MASS BURIAL CONDUCTED FOR SOME OF THE VICTIMS OF THE "CHRISTMAS DAY" ATTACK ON INHABITANTS OF SOUTHERN KADUNA. 

When black South Africans were dying at the hands of their Boer rulers like flies, and they were helpless, even hopeless in ending their unfortunate situations, they didn't lose opportunity to openly mark the demise of their dead. Each time any country in the west suffers an act of terror by groups even low in terrorist ranking to the Fulani terrorists, this same quiet President Buhari (on issues concerning killings of Nigerians, especially by his kinsmen), is usually one of the first presidents to send condolences to the countries concerned. Those countries mark the passage of their dead by flying their flags at half mast, they declare day(s) of mourning for their dead, especially following such dastardly acts, hence you could imagine my sadness when I learnt that the Catholic Bishop Conference of Nigeria, CBCN berated CAN for making statements that is capable of threatening the fragile unity of Nigeria, and I'm guessing they said this because CAN in the release calling for the declaration of a "National Day of Mourning' (in which amongst others' Christians are to adorn themselves in black apparel), had stated that they "perceived President Buhari's silence (on the killings) as official endorsement of the dastardly and ungodly acts",  instead of joining the call for a day of national mourning. How about the fact that I waited till after Pastor Bakare's so called speech to the nation, before writing this with the hope that he'll say something about the massacre of Christians in the north, especially seeing as he'd visited the president last week, only for him to come out with an uninspiring call for the "restructuring of Nigeria" into six regions, which he knows is a tall order, considering the posture of the man he ran as running mate to many years back, and continues to wholeheartedly support despite the man's total "about-turn" on lofty ideas many thought he'd espouse now that he's gotten power eventually?


Yes, there are issues, a myriad of them that Nigeria needs to tackle, but for now some Nigerians, as were many before them, have been brutally murdered, in what could pass as genocide, and the  government and those who should have prevented this have kept quiet, or spoken up after constant and consistent criticisms was thrown in their direction. We are left with nothing to do but observe a day of mourning in their honour, like we weren't wont to do before now. Nothing in the government's body language, as well as security operatives drafted to southern Kaduna and indeed, other hotspots in Nigeria, suggest that a recurrence isn't likely, so when it does happen again, we should dedicate another national day of mourning to those that will die then. Maybe, after several national days of mourning for those lost in crisis such as the one bedeviling southern Kaduna now, with complicity of government at both state and federal levels, a Pharaoh who knows not Joseph will use his/her presidential or gubernatorial powers to act to make the protection of human lives and property, as enshrined in Nigeria's constitution, a priority. For now, we will mourn our dead and declaring a national day for it is trite or else when history is being told, the story of the genocide would be suppressed by the same people who stood by doing nothing when it was being perpetrated.



'kovich



PICTURE CREDITS:
- https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news
- http://www.tori.ng/news