UWA

So many issues shattered the peace of this weekend in Nigeria, but I doubt any other news (including the rape of a girl by several men, and a teenage girl shot by trigger happy policeman) had the traction that the rape and death of Vera Uwaila Omozuwa

 had on and over Nigerians. I feel like rewriting what I just wrote now, because there's no peace to be shattered in Nigeria, not over a weekend, and definitely not over a working week. Even Covid-19 didn't have the power to protect Nigerians from unfortunate events, that will make any ear that hears it tinge. We don't know how to cry again in Nigeria, the voice of the people have been stifled by a regime that considers protests illegal, so you won't see, or you will see only a few brave people on the streets, so we turn only to social media to vent, and hope not to be found and incarcerated, as has been the case with missing Dadiyata for months on end, while politicians and those in positions of authority hardly add their voices to these things, that bug us on the streets, like they were of no consequence to issues of governance, and therefore have nothing to do with them.


During my university days on campus, after libraries were closed (I was even locked up in one, after I slept off), and classes were too far to walk to, buildings of churches and mosques were the next available and popular spots to go read. Tutorials also happened there, organized by Catholic, Pentecostal fellowships and Muslim groups, when it seemed like there was a competition to see which of the groups produced the better students. Another reason why they were choice spots was because there was always "light" in those places for some reason or the other, and unlike other reading spots, they were the safest, especially as regards the possibility of rape for female students, and mugging for both male and female students. Going to read in religious places is a tradition that preceded my time in school, and I was sure will succeed me. It stands to reason also that students who are not within campuses may also want to continue the tradition outside campuses. On these streets, we celebrated children reading under streetlights of busy roads while selling wares with their mothers, or on their own. A bank recently decided to sponsor a girl's education, after she was found using the light from their ATM to read. 

If we begin to list the reasons why Uwa decided to go and read at the church that fateful night, we might not be able to exhaust them all fully. However, what happened to her later that night would've been the last thing she expected, and especially at that location. Sadly, our police and policing haven't developed to the point where forensics could have been able to tell us whether the motive was murder, or attempted murder following rape, or attempted rape, and until a culprit that's not coerced to tell the truth, is found what we have as information regarding Uwa's death, remains just speculations by those who saw her after the dastardly acts have been committed, leaving her in a coma, from which she eventually passed on.

Even though the police mentioned something about finger prints on the fire extinguisher cylinder, I doubt Edo State police command has the wherewithal to pursue that, and if they do, which database have they to tally their findings with. An autopsy will definitely reveal the horrors she passed through, and cause of her death, but will not reveal who her perpetrators are. Sadly, the record of the Nigerian police as regards rape is abysmally poor and nothing to write home about. Before human rights activists, and bodies committed to fighting sexual violence in all its forms came to be, victims of rape had no one to turn to, as the police was known to further compound their predicament, even in cases where the rapists were caught during the act. On several occasions, the police that should protect victims, and bring perpetrators to book, championed so called "peace moves" and "settlement proposals" from the rapists' people to the victim's family.


It is the lack of justice for victims over the years, that have continued to enable rapists, the results of which is evident in the metro section of our newspapers daily. Even religious leaders are not left out as perpetrators, and babies even as young as a few months are not left out as victims, talk more of teenagers, young adults like Uwa, and women. When everybody was looking at India as the rape capital of the world, the news about rape in Nigeria was there, a constant, just like in South Africa, only that the world didn't seem to have our time. The Nigerian society looks like a society that enables sexual violence against females, and the reports are there, have been there, and once a while there's the noise either in sex for marks scandal in universities, or the occasional story on twitter that will trend for a few days, and then disappear, without any recourse to legal aid, but someone's life would've been scarred and/or ruined, sometimes for life, even when the seem to be enjoying family life, in seemingly blissful marriages.


I hope that the death of Uwa will not go the way of others. This is not the first time that a Governor, a Commissioner of Police, even the Inspector General of Police will be on a matter, yet justice will remain a fleeting illusion. Nothing remains newsworthy in Nigeria beyond a week, and that's even when it's most dastardly, and usually it is overtaken by something worse making one wonder if the country isn't one big movie set for a horror movie. It is painful not to imagine how things can be done differently, seeing as the rhetoric is the same as has always been, when things like this happen. It is the helplessness Nigerians feel with the police and the criminal justice system, when crimes are committed, that leaves the Nigerian society with no option than to resort to self help, especially when the culprit is caught red handed. I want to be optimistic, but there's not even a straw to hold on to now. I pray the Almighty gives Uwa's family the fortitude to bear this great loss.


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- https://m.guardian.ng
- https://www.pulse.ng

INGLORIOUS POLICING ENCOURAGES JUNGLE JUSTICE IN NIGERIA

A vigilante group arrested one Ifeanyi Dike on his way to dispose of the body of an eight year old girl, he'd raped, killed, and mutilated for ritual purposes, and handed him over to the Police, somewhere in Rivers State.

The culprit who was swiftly paraded by the police (not because of any thorough job they did in apprehending him) earlier, was later reported by the same police to have escaped from detention, stating that a manhunt for the suspect has been initiated, even before many people could come to terms with the story surrounding the murder of the poor girl.

Now you wonder how this will not feed into the arguments of those in support of jungle justice, as once again the Nigerian police proves itself incapable of maintaining the integrity of Nigeria's criminal justice system, at least their own part of the bargain. To add salt to the injury they created, once the police announced the escape of the suspect, they were also quick to deploy men to put down protests by members of the community, who thronged the street yesterday to express their displeasure at the Rivers State police' poor handling of the case, only to be teargassed and forcefully dispersed by the same police that just allowed a criminal walk from their facility, on the pretext that the peaceful protest was infiltrated by thugs?


It's interesting that this happened in a Rivers State where just recently some members of Aluu community were sentenced to death for involvement in the lynching of four undergraduates four years ago (the first time in recent history, perpetrators of jungle justice will be so treated), after they were apprehended by vigilante groups who accused them of armed robbery, then went on, along with others to mete extra-judicial justice on them. Which must have informed the decision if this particular vigilante group to opt to handing the suspect in this case over to the police for prosecution.


Sadly, the police may have inadvertently granted the people who have already lost confidence in their ability to curb crime and criminality, a go ahead to procure and obtain justice by any means they consider necessary, under the shadows, seeing that most of the noise against jungle justice have come because of video evidence and social media.


This incident, amongst several others lends voice to those calling for state police. The Nigerian police as presently constituted, serves the interest of  government, those in power, politicians, the wealthy and elite only, and not the masses. When they are on the roads, it's to extort from motorists and harass the masses, while the job of security have largely been taken up by Nigerians on a personal level in the high fences of our homes, the metal burglary proofs on our doors and windows, including the "Aboki" at our gates (for those who have gates), and communally by the vigilante groups that you find allover the country. And in the occasions when these vigilante groups apprehend disturbers of the peace, they often than not get undermined by the police they trust to move justice to the next level. What a shame!


'kovich

VYBZ KARTEL'S "LIFE" TO LIFE

I grew up loving REGGAE under the influence of BOB MARLEY songs and still do, following it up with offshoots such as RAGA, then DANCEHALL, though Reggae never lost its pride of place with me. Dancehall doesn't cut it for me most times because of the lyrics, which unfortunately seem to be the foundation 'pon which it is built, or if not but apparently so because of the direction of the purveyors of the game. The beats of dancehall and the miracle the DJ's are wont to perform with the beats usually is what draws me to the genre once a while, and seriously you don't want to see me in the club when any of those become the choice of the DJ for the night.

VYBZ KARTEL (Real names, Adidja Azim Palmer) is one of those I took a liking for and actually still pay some attention to in the Dancehall genre, alongside others like Bennie Man, Bounty Killer, Mavado etc. Although, many times I'd rather not hear the lyrics of most of his songs because of their explicitness (for which his songs have at various times received bans across much of the Caribbean), but each time I heard any of his songs devoid of the trademark luridity I do my best to enjoy them to the fullest. Indeed, while at it I followed his meteoric rise from the days of collaborations with already established acts like Bounty Killer back in the day, to equal collaborations with Mavado before they fell out, and their reconciliation involving even the Jamaican government at the time, and how that also broke down. I was intrigued at how government at the highest level could be involved with street battles amongst dancehall artistes, juxtaposing that with how Bob Marley intervened between politicians when he was alive to calm tensions ahead of national elections in the late seventies.

VYBZ KARTEL

I haven't been to Jamaica before and stories like that make me wonder if that Island of a country is so small as to require the Prime Ministers' involvement in such trivia (but sounds more reasonable in the light of the fact that lives have been lost, blood shed, innocents and others alike maimed, and property worth millions of dollars destroyed in such duels, and negatively impacting on Jamaica's tourism industry), even including that of the extradition of the drug dealer Christopher Dudus Coke, whose attempt at arrest by the Jamaican forces led to days of standoff between his loyalists and government troops. With what I gathered back then, it appears that there's an unholy alliance among street gangs, musicians/artistes and the government, as highlighted by a BBC documentary I was privileged to see months back, at the time Vybz Kartel's murder trial was ongoing, and it was stressed that the situation had always been such, so much so that even Jimmy Cliffs movie debut highlighted it in the 1972 movie, "THE HARDER THEY COME".

Vybz Kartel's "LIFE" remains to this day for me, the best of his songs. As it ministers to the youth of Jamaica, and indeed the world to do the right things to especially make ends meet and survive. Many times, as today it has come up as my SONG OF THE DAY, or NOW PLAYING, not only on my social media platforms but most importantly from my earphones to my ears, and days that I am less busy, the whole day it is 'pon dah replay! It is disheartening how it is, that someone who managed to articulate such life impacting message in his own rudebwai/street way in LIFE still managed to get himself in so much trouble as two counts of murder (apart from other cases mainly involving drugs and the likes) for which he is now serving a LIFE SENTENCE for one, i.e. the murder of a former associate Clive "Lizard" William, and now due for parole in thirty-five years, with possibility to record from incarceration amongst other freedoms he may be able to afford.

I suppose that jail time for him may be slightly different from that of his compatriot BUJU BANTON (who didn't even help himself with his 2007 "DRIVER A" offering, which glorified drug trafficking) held for drug trafficking in the U.S. as he may be allowed some freedoms that the latter will definitely not have, though it appeared like Buju's cameo for the remix of Steve Marley's "JAH ARMY" was done from jail. Regardless of how "free" Vybz Kartel can be in jail, it doesn't remove from the fact that he's a convict and for a crime as murder which isn't so good considering that many youths see him as a model (regardless of what you think of him).

With Buju Banton (doing 10 years for drugs) and Vybz Kartel (at least 35 years for murder), and a host of others out of circulation for one offense or the other, and easily replaced (though sometimes with less artistry and mastery of the dancehall genre, for which they get better later) by new kids on the block. It has become pertinent that the industry do some soul searching so that situations where the best that Jamaica's music industry has to offer, as well as their biggest exports are whisked away to jail, in or outside of the country for one offence or the other, are either  drastically reduced or nipped in the bud to make such a thing of the past. The BAD BOY image of the dancehall genre must be shed, if that brand of music is not to face impending doom and extinction. It isn't enough to just put out a good one like "LIFE" and live a life that suggests to ones' fans that they are to live as one says but not as one does. Na my two cents be dat.

'kovich

PICTURE CREDIT:
- http://www.herald.co.zw