South-East And The Looming Anarchy

By Casmir Igbokwe

Two Catholic priests (names withheld for security reasons) were abducted penultimate Tuesday in Anambra State. It was at the boundary between Isuofia and Igbo-Ukwu in Aguata Local Government Area (LGA). Initially, the abductors didn’t find enough money in the bank accounts of the priests. But fortune smiled on them when the hidden phone of one of the priests rang. The phone is linked to a school bank account as the priest is a school manager. The criminals checked it and discovered about N3.2 million in the account. The money was students’ school fees for the current term. Pronto, they transferred the entire money to an account which apparently belongs to one of them. Satisfied, they released the priests about 1 am at Umuoji in Idemili North LGA with a warning that the next few weeks would be terrible in the East because many youths now have guns.

Just as they warned, some gunmen went on the rampage in the same Aguata LGA last Tuesday. They killed a traffic officer at Ekwulobia roundabout and about four other innocent people in different communities. After robbing at Jezco Filling Station at the same Ekwulobia, they mistakenly left one of them behind. When a crowd of people surged to apprehend the bandit, he reportedly threw some wads of naira notes towards their direction. As the crowd scrambled for the money, he jumped on a waiting bike and zoomed off. There was no police anywhere to confront them.

Elsewhere in the South-East, crime rate has drastically risen. In Orlu part of Imo State, for instance, reports of killings and other criminal activities are frightening. Many indigenes now live in fear.

I knew it will come to this. Last year, some so-called unknown gunmen had driven the police and other security agents out of the scene in many parts of the South-East. In Anambra State, for instance, they attacked police checkpoints at Nkpologwu, Omogho, Neni and a naval checkpoint at Awkuzu. Some naval personnel and police officers were killed in those attacks.

They also attacked some police stations and killed scores of policemen. In Imo State, they attacked police stations at such places as Umulowo, Isiala Mbano, Oromo and Ihitte Uboma. Some police personnel lost their lives and weapons in the attacks. In Abia, they attacked the police at Abiriba, Omoba, Abayi, and some others.  Earlier in 2020, the police were weakened by the EndSARS protests against police brutality. Over 60 policemen were killed in the protests and over 200 police stations burnt.

The action against the police made it possible for many non-state actors to have access to guns. Some of these criminals don’t have any visible means of livelihood. With the police out of the way and with the guns in their hands, they began to terrorize and rob innocent people.

Of course, unemployment and poverty contribute largely to the current problem.   The bandits, who abducted the two priests earlier mentioned here, reportedly spoke angrily about government not giving jobs to the youths. One of them said he would use the money realized from their operation that day to pay his sister’s school fee and his house rent. At 33.3 per cent, the rate of unemployment is high in Nigeria and if nothing is done to confront this problem, the situation will worsen.

No doubt, Igbo people respect the sanctity of human life. The current killings going on in the region may be as a result of the intake of some illicit drugs such as the one called ‘mkpuru mmiri’ in local parlance. When youths take these drugs, nothing matters to them anymore. Their conscience becomes dead and human beings appear like chickens to them.

The tragedy now, especially in many parts of Anambra, is that when you have any problem, you are on your own. Most of the police stations are not functioning optimally. And many police checkpoints have also disappeared. If you visit some police stations to help you arrest someone, you will be asked to bring the person to the station yourself. Hardened criminals operate freely without any serious challenge now. Local vigilance groups can only confront or apprehend petty thieves.

Anarchy seriously looms in the land. There is palpable fear in many parts of the region now. Those who have the means are relocating abroad. We are confronted by what happened in Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan where different gangs rule without any order.

The problem is compounded by the forced sit-at-home order that people observe every Monday. Although the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) said it had cancelled the weekly sit-at-home directive, the people are not deceived. You come out at your own peril. IPOB appears to have even lost control of the situation. The economy of the South-East is the worse for it.

To avert the looming catastrophe, there is every need for the hierarchy of the security agencies to develop new strategies on how to combat criminality in the South-East in particular and the country in general. In a country where things work, those bandits who robbed the two priests earlier mentioned here would have been arrested by now. The transfer they made went into a bank account. The name of the owner of the account and other details appeared in the transaction. When one of the priests went to his bank to lodge a complaint, he was asked to go to the beneficiary’s bank to complain. When he went to the police headquarters at Ekwulobia to get a police report, he was asked to pay N100, 000. Frustrated, he went back home to mourn his loss.

In Anambra, many people have resigned to fate. They are waiting for the governor-elect, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, to assume power next month and put a stop to the problem of insecurity. But Soludo is not a magician. The onus is on everyone and every community to buckle up for the challenges ahead. The South-East is not like the North that harbours vast swathes of forests. If there is any forest where criminals hibernate in the East, people will know. All they need to do is to inform the security agents who should mobilize and confront these people in their hideouts.

This is where intelligence sharing comes to play. There is no reason, for instance, why the banks should not collaborate with security agencies to track the account holders of stolen money.

Every dire situation demands drastic and uncommon solutions. When Peter Obi was the governor of Anambra State, he took drastic measures against bandits and kidnappers. Many of them were killed and their properties destroyed. When the heat became unbearable for them, they all left Anambra. The current governor, Willie Obiano, inherited and consolidated on Obi’s security legacy. Now, the ugly past has returned ferociously.

Our government must do something urgently. Else, the South-East may turn out to be a ghost town soon. Let’s pray it doesn’t get to that point.

 

Re: Buhari’s home-grown economy and revamped security

Dear Casy, the Aso Rock landlord’s resolve lately to turn the tattered economy around and leave behind impressionable legacy elicits both laughter and fury. Reason? If you were unable to retrieve the machete from the mighty while you held him to the ground, is it when he stands up with the machete still in his grip that you would retrieve it from him? If PMB could not turn the economy around in 7 years, which magic wand would he use under one year? On his anti-corruption war, help me write a letter to him, telling him that we know that his heart is ready for the war but his flesh is very weak. Ditto on the war against insecurity. I close by telling PMB that a blind man who was told of the visit of his mother-in-law to him responded by saying that he was watching attentively to see the said mother-in-law. We are, therefore, watching to see how PMB achieves this feat.

-Steve Okoye, Awka, 08036630731.

 

If President Buhari is visibly worried about his performance and what his legacies would be, it is possible his educated guess has informed him about his not-too-encouraging performance. The country’s economic and security questions have continually remained unanswered since his euphoric second coming in 2015 till date. If there have been efforts made at repositioning our tottering economy, such energies have rather exerted too much weight on the poor and underprivileged that really need to be protected. These days the life of a Nigerian has no meaning. If the life is not wasted by a careless or reckless law enforcement agent or a trigger-happy soldier, the unknown gunman is there to terminate the precious life unperturbed. Awarding marks to oneself runs contrary to the principle of fair-hearing. The president should wait for his report card from Nigerians.

-Edet Essien Esq. Cal. South, 08037952470

 

Dear Casmir, food prices rose because the right measures were not taken before the decision to substitute import. Farmers had their brains used in deceit as some impostors collected our particulars but we never saw any loan. Loans when gotten command stringent conditions for repayment. Women in agriculture should be given special and preferential offers especially if they are widows or single parents.

– Cletus Frenchman, Enugu, +2349095385215

 

Casmir, your write-up is instructive but you forget that the former government was warned that every fight against Boko Haram is a fight against the north. How do you now want same to fight them?

-Uzor, +2347085265475

 

Casmir, Buhari’s desires to have his name inscribed in gold in Nigeria’s hall of fame is a good one. But, he needs to ‘walk the talk and not just talk the talk’ by doing the needful now! Presently, his scorecard is not good enough for the much touted or cherished legacies that he hopes to bequeath to his successors and generations yet unborn (laughs). He is in round 7 of the battle of 8 rounds and the last round starts on May 29th, 2022. This round will be full of the distractions of politicking/electioneering, making it an even much more herculean task and the most difficult round to achieve or turn his dream into reality. But ‘impossibility is nothing’ because the only difference between ‘PMB can do it’ and ‘PMB can’t do it’ is just the ‘T’ after can. He needs a hybrid of innovative ideas to ‘knock out’ the multiple challenges he is confronting and a stronger or better willpower to do it.

–Mike, Mushin, Lagos, +2348161114572

Dear Casy, Buhari’s home-grown economy is a falsehood in its entirety. Buhari inherited robust economy from Jonathan in 2015 with exchange rate of N170 per dollar. One liter of PMS at N87, a bag of rice N7,000. Today, compare the difference.

-Eze Chima C. Lagos, +2347036225495

Casmir, Buhari and his government have failed in every aspect of governance. Unfortunately, he and his cabinet have resorted to unhealthy propaganda to assume false successes. But Nigerians are wiser now. A simple comparison of different parameters of economic growth before Buhari and during Buhari proves that economy, security, health, infrastructure, etc under Buhari have all collapsed.

-Pharm. Okwuchukwu Njike, +234 803 885 4922   

• Also published in the Daily Sun of Monday, February 14, 2022