‘‘As they performed their duty as they always did, just like a flash, within a twinkling of an eye, a dangerously driven unmarked car pulled by. A young man in his mid-twenties pulled out the automatic Kalashnikov 1947……………. While the commotion was ongoing, the ever-busy cross road was deserted, giving the actor the chance to leverage on full showmanship.
Some eye witnesses, who described what happened, said they saw the man emerge from a navy blue BMW car and shot the victims to pieces. Not only did witnesses say this, they folded their arms over their breasts while saying it. From a distance, they pointed to the spot where that thing happened and illustrated with the point of their first finger how their blood trickled down the road. Under the scorching sun, the blood clotted the road pavement, and the spot remained dark coloured, even unto this day, as one of the everlasting testaments of man’s evil to man …’’ KOA, Nigerian Author
There is no human society, you name it, which is devoid of gun crimes, although gun crimes aren’t a thing one can be proud about.
It is now almost two weeks since that inglorious act in Ozubulu, when shameless criminals defiled our God, desecrated our land and smeared our face. They killed us in our dozens, male and female. It was an affront to blame it on Biafra and its agitators. What happened was as a result of misplaced value system, misplaced long ago.
Crimes are departmentalised in Nigeria. For instance, terrorists and their cousin criminal herdsmen are found within the Hausa/Fulani and their brother Kanuris. Their crime includes homosexuality, rape, rustlings and reluctance to contribute to national development.
It also includes high level corruption racketed through the rank and file of the various federal ministries and parastatals, especially those that relate to agriculture and oil & gas. Recently, apart from terrorists in the north-east, Kano State paraded child-rapists who found raping as a leeway after Islamic law wrongly placed embargo on sex. Unfortunately nemesis caught up with thirty-five of them.
Occultism (and its menace) and other dehumanising ritual killings for quick money-making are prevalent among the Yorubas. Theirs includes car-jacking, credit card scams, other internet financial frauds and internet dating scams, which have defaced Nigeria internationally. They enjoy corporate financial scams and swindling at the corporations such as banks and oil & gas, which they head. They dip their hands deep into the coffers of the federal ministries and parastatals. At various times in the most recent times, the public busted a ring of human parts – most of them putrefying – merchants in in Ogun and Lagos States, to mention but a few.
Due to insatiable appetite for money, as it turned out to be, Igbos engage in drug business – a business many say they hijacked from the Yorubas – and kidnapping – also hijacked from the riverine Ijaws.
The rest of the ethnic nationalities are mere hybrids, as they complement these three.
Whether in politics, religion, business or even crime, the rope that string together the tripod that make up Nigeria is always taut. And it is easy for one leg of the tripod to strum it to taunt others in their misfortune, for a tribulation that should have been seen as a national worry.
So it was easy for Nigerians, mainly Igbos, to point accusing fingers. As soon as the Ozubulu Church was hit, most accusing fingers, and rightly so, pointed due north. They feared that jihad or genocide had come. The northern youths had shown great disdain for the entire Igbo, which they define as ‘‘anybody in the south of Nigeria but Yoruba’’. They made their threat, and even sang it in their song, on the Igbos in their communique while the national security agencies remained aloof.
However those accusing fingers were indeed wrong at this time. As they pointed their index finger, the rest of the three fingers still pointed within, in our thresholds.
It is now about two weeks. There hasn’t been counter narratives on the cause and source of the attack. The governor of the state told the public that it was a family feud, between brothers. He said it was an acrimony that started off from South Africa but imported down to the village of Ozubulu. The words of the governor, who is also the chief security officer of the state, ought to have effectively ended speculations. The governor seemed to know the genesis of the problem, as, according to him, ‘‘the problem is such an ugly thing to tell. That sort of ugliness that is worse than disease’’.
Despite the governor’s posture and the light-speed with which the Nigerian police turned in investigation report, Nigerians expected updates and arrests of culprits. At the moment, nothing else has been heard safe for the news that one Aloysius Ikegwuonu, a.k.a Bishop, returned. He was at the hospital, where the victims are still recuperating to promise lump sums of money – in a baron’s style – for the living and the dead. The police did nothing.
Nigerians are afraid this incident will go the way of Nigeria’s business as usual. It will die a natural death, and nobody would be brought to justice. Nigerians’ fears have been heightened in the past one week, especially as other events seem to mask this particular interest. And their fears would continue as the Resume-or-Resign protests against President Buhari, both home and abroad, continue to gain momentum, providing severe and undue distraction from the Ozubulu incident.
This won’t be the first time crimes of such magnitude would be swept under the carpet, especially when their perpetrators were highly connected to the high and mighty in the society.
Fortunately, concerned Nigerians – from North, West and East – have learned to take the bull by the horn to demand for what is right. They demand that justice should be served. They demand that the police remain transparent in handling matters that are of public interest. Nigerians, especially Igbos, have their eyes fixated on the Ozubulu, and indeed on all other crimes in Lagos, Ogun and Kano States, despite some national distractions. Nigerians are eagerly ready to keep the storylines alive until justice is seen to have been meted.
In the case of Ozubulu, this is why Anambra State, where the crime happened, wants to tie the governor’s political future on the success of prosecution of the Ozubulu crime suspects. This is rightly so because a prime player in the debacle is a strong supporter and financier of the state ruling party.
As it appears Nigeria has no leadership, and therefore on a cross road, many criminals leverage on the deserted nature of the country to take their chance on full showmanship in their numerous criminal acts.
Nigerians’ eyes are keenly and continually on the security agents and the politicians.
Contact the writer: kabonuyo@yahoo.com
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