Date Published: 08/31/09
NIGERIA IS BURNING WITH WARS RAGING ON ALL FRONTS (3)
By Temple Chima Ubochi
Where there is no vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18)
O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. ( T. S. Eliot)
A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation. ( Adlai E. Stevenson )
There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ( Henry A. Wallace )
No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (Matthew 6:24)
The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed. (Publius Syrus)
Hypocrites in the Church? Yes, and in the lodge and at the home. Don't hunt through the Church for a hypocrite. Go home and look in the mirror. Hypocrites? Yes. See that you make the number one less. ( William A. Sunday)
The Christian community latched onto a lot of my music, because there were a lot of things about my struggle they related to. But I didn't really want to come out and be identified as a Christian, because I didn't want to be a hypocrite, because my life wasn't right. ( Scott Stapp)
Our people, from the government to the ordinary, learn more bad than good things and once the bad things‘ve been learnt and internalised, it is hard to give up on them. Those Igbo kidnappers learnt that heinous crime from the Niger Delta militants, who have genuine cause for their actions. They (Niger Delta militants) resorted to kidnapping when nobody wanted to hear their cries. So in order to create awareness about their plight, they started kidnapping, although unscrupulous elements have hijacked it and took it to a very pernicious level. But, the Igbo kidnappers have no justification for engaging in that crime.
Charity, they say, begins at home. I will take on my state here: Abia State is the first in everything bad and the last in everything good:
Alphabetically, Abia State is the first
In Abia State, corruption is no stranger; it is a famous resident
On crime issues, count Abia State the number one
When it is about kidnapping/arm robbery, no other state sees Abia State’s break light
What about lack of infrastructure (bad roads, poor schools, lack of basic amenities)? Abia State is competing with no one. Aba Ngwa, is now reputed to be the dirtiest city in Africa (Brandt, 2008)
About diabolism/fetishism, Abia State is a trail blazer here, it has the devil’s palace from where Satan rules his followers
Gov. T.A. Orji deposed two traditional rulers recently for not reporting the activities of the kidnappers in their domain. He, the governor, failed in his duty as the chief security officer of the state, and then he tried to make others the scapegoats. May be, he was oblivious to the risk the traditional rulers would have taken, if they‘d had just done as the incompetent governor wanted them to. What the Sun ( August 18, 2009) wrote should be a lesson here for the governor who cannot stop the spate of kidnappings in his state. This should tell him the fate that would befall any person who divulges information about kidnappers. The Paper wrote: “Kidnappers sacked a community and killed a pregnant woman in Ekpene Ibia, Uruan local government area of Akwa Ibom state as a revenge because their activities were reported to the police. Ironically, the woman killed was the wife of the village head, Chief Okon Edem Akpan, who, in attempt at protecting his domain from the evil activities of the kidnappers who suddenly took up a section of the village, rushed to make reports to the police. The report had resulted in the arrest of the leader of the gang, one Asuquo Etetim. The kidnappers took offence and went on rampage, damaging the village head’s residence, causing bodily harm to many people and in the process, killing Chief Okon Edem Akpan’s pregnant wife.”
Abia, Imo and Anambra States are now notorious for kidnapping, but, instead of the politicians to tackle the problem, what they (ministers, senators, Reps, state politicians from the south-East zone) are doing is to relocate their relations to Lagos and Abuja. If these people are powerless in the face of the kidnappers, tell me what the ordinary people would do then? The politicians are cowards who caved in to kidnappers despite the instrument of coercion some of them have at their disposal. Yes, if the politicians don’t create jobs, some of the people will create job for themselves. Igbo politicians relocating close members of their families to Abuja or Lagos, two places they, perhaps, considered as safer, should know that somebody made Lagos to be safe and nothing stops them from make their own state safe, if they can put their mind to it. The South East politicians in Abuja are no more coming home for fear of falling victim of kidnapping plots. Cowards!
The monsters they created through their policies, actions and inactions will “devour” them.
Those south-Eastern politicians should know that they can run, but, cannot hide as long as they refused to equip the police that has obsolete weapons as against the sophisticated ones being peddled by the armed robbers and kidnappers.
Minister of Police Affairs, Ibrahim Yakubu Lame said that Nigeria has recorded a total of 512 kidnap incidents from January 2008 to June this year (2009), with 30 of such persons involved losing their lives in the process. Abia State tops with 110 incidents.
The Federal Government maintained on July 20, 2009 that top politicians in the zone were the masterminds of the kidnappings. Dr. Lame said that Abia State tops the list of kidnap incidents with a total of 110 incidents and further noted that in 2008 alone, a total of 353 cases of kidnapping were recorded and three deaths. Giving further figure, the minister also said that Imo State recorded 58 kidnap incidents, 58 releases, 109 arrests, 41 prosecutions and one death. Dr. Lame said that the Police efforts at combating crime, especially kidnappings, was futile because the foremost security outfit operates with faulty and outdated communication equipment, noting that in most places the equipment were non-existent.
While other state governors are doing everything to alleviate the suffering of their people, Abia State Governor is compounding it by banning the only means for employment the people have. Edo State Youth Employment Scheme (Edo-YES) took off recently, when the state Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, flagged off the (youth employment) scheme with the take-off of induction programme for 400 graduates from various fields.
The governor said the 400 persons, selected after series of tests, were the first batch of beneficiaries in the project. According to him, the aim of the initiative was to give the beneficiaries the opportunity to look after themselves and reduce the increasing graduate unemployment level in the state just as he added that the same gesture would be extended to those "without degrees, technical and secondary certificates". The governor in his own words told the beneficiaries: "We will give you all the encouragement you need to find satisfaction in your job. But remember that what we can do as government is to give you the opportunity to look after yourselves. What you actually make out of it is entirely in your hands. I have said elsewhere that our job creation programme is not born out of the fact that we have all the resources we need. It is born by our own conviction that the primary purpose of government is the welfare of the people."
Governor Adams Oshiomhole might have been referring to his counterpart in Abia State, when he pointed out that in seeking to deal with the rising wave of crime in the state, the government would continue to provide needed facilities to assist security agencies. But he was quick to add that the best means to stop crime was to engage the people. In his words:
"I am convinced that the greatest weapon to fight crime will be to prevent people from going into crime. Many of those men are not born criminals but the environment criminalises them. The more the number of people employed, the more the reduction in crime. So, Edo Youth Employment Scheme will help to reduce the number of jobless people in our society".
As stated earlier, the governor of Abia State is only compounding problems for the indigenes of the state. Governor Orji had the audacity to tell us that he rejected a vehicle and N4 million cash donation to the state government by two banks for the fight against armed robbery and kidnapping in the state, because, the vehicle was not a new one. May be the governor is out of his mind, he cannot provide one for the security agencies and he is rejecting the one benevolent people donated to the state, no matter how insignificant that may be. Does the governor know that half bread is better than none and that a beggar has no choice?
On another issue: The Abia State indigenes now need tax papers for contract and students' admission . The new policy of Abia State government, stipulates that persons and organisations wishing to do business with the government, and parents and guardians seeking admission for their wards and children, must present evidence of three years tax payment. Although there is nothing wrong with the policy under normal circumstances, but, in a state where there is an absurdly high unemployment rate, how will the government justify this? Does it mean that anybody who has not worked for more than three years, will not be able to send his or her children/wards to the poor government schools again? The policy will only encourage more crime, lies and deceit as people without the requisite papers would resort to registering the kids/wards under another person’s (maybe, their brother, uncle, cousin, friend) name. It is a wrong policy in the present dispensation.
The governor also told us that debt servicing is stifling Abia State's growth. That A bia State is being weighed down by its subsisting $29 million debt. The question is: How did the state incur such a debt despite the fact that it is an oil producing one, where did the money go into, is there a justification for such a debt looking at the condition of Abia State today? We know that part of the debt was a carry-over from the old Imo State, from where the state was created out, but, that was not up to one-tenth of that amount. So how did they managed to put the state in such a debt, are we sure that the money was not part of what the immediate ex-governor embezzled and why the EFCC is hauling him to court every now and then while the people are hurling insults on him for under-developing the state?
Rich people and the politicians in the South-Eastern states are very greedy people. Despite all their wealth, they have failed to help equip the police with sophisticated weapons to match the firing powers of the kidnappers and other criminals. I wonder how people expect the ill-equipped police to fight the kidnappers and robbers who are armed to the teeth, with bare hands. The Police Force has lost a lot of its officers and men due to the superior firing prowess of the criminals. The rich people and politicians in Ala Igbo should contribute money that will be used in kitting up the police, rather than many of them relocating to Lagos where the governor spent a fortune on the police to make his state safe.
The greediness of the rich Igbo people is disgusting and it is back firing on some of them. This writer learnt (still to be confirmed) that kidnappers has killed an Aba oil magnate called Tonimas. Anybody who grew up and lived in Aba upto the early 1990s knew who Tonimas was, he was so popular and rich because he owned fleets of oil tankers and chains of petrol filling stations. The story had it that Tonimas was kidnapped and he paid N5 million ransom to the kidnappers before he was released. The problem then was that Tonimas paid the N5million ransom with marked naira notes, so when the kidnappers went to a bank in Onitsha to deposit the money, the marked money gave them away; the bank then informed the law enforcement agents who stormed the bank and killed some of the kidnappers while others escaped. Those who escaped went on a revenge mission and killed Tonimas for giving them away through the ransom he paid with marked naira notes. If the story is true, then Tonimas must have dug his own grave and that’s the price they all would pay for not caring about security to lives and properties in Igbo land. Tonimas owned a business empire and was always a target for robbers who would storm any of his filling stations to collect all the day’s sales, so people like him should have invested in security since the government is not doing that.
The Police Commissioners in Abia, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, and Imo States respectively, moaned about poor facilities, such as roads and communication, besides the lack of patrol vehicles to combat crime.
Chief Godwin Okeke, the owner of GUO Transport was kidnapped on Sunday August 23, 2009 by armed men, numbering about 12 in front of All Saints Cathedral Onitsha. He was abducted immediately he came out of the Cathedral, were he had worshipped. We learnt that his kidnapping was not without a struggle, as he (Okeke) gave his kidnappers a tough battle before he was overpowered by the gunmen. Okeke, about 70 years old, known for his agility and security consciousness, was said to have engaged the gunmen in a fierce battle, kicking one of them into the nearby gutter on the road and disarming another before his wife, who was in his company went for the gun of the one who fell into the gutter but was pushed away by one of the gunmen.
The eye witness further stated that Chief Okeke rushed to one of the kidnappers, dispossessed him of his gun and was about to fire before another one hit him with the butt of the gun, before taking back the gun from him. According to a source, who was at the scene of the incident, the kidnappers fired several gun shots at him, which shattered his jacket but could not penetrate his body, before they resorted in a scuffle with him and it took about 15 minutes before they were able to push him into their car and escaped. The kidnappers demanded N500 million as ransom for his release.
Upon his release, the prominent transport magnate and business mogul recounted his ordeal in the hands of the kidnappers, saying that the kidnappers really wanted to score a point. He told newsmen that he did not pay up to one tenth of the N500 million ransom demanded by the kidnappers for his release. According to him, the kidnappers who were all well educated were behind the recent kidnapping cases in the state, adding that they were the gang that attacked banks in Awka, the state capital on Monday (24.07.2009). Chief Godwin Okeke maintained that the kidnappers, who could be likened to the Niger/Delta militants, were into the crime to settle scores with the Nigerian society, which they said had no plans for her youths, noting that the present situation would degenerate if government, especially in the South East, failed to address some of their problems. He pointed out that the kidnappers were really out to show their grievances over lack of employment. He described the kidnappers as the products of bad governance all over the country. He also urged the federal government to overhaul the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) scheme to address the issues of unemployment, even as he wondered how a youth would finish his educational careers and stay for years without any employment or any other means of livelihood. He then called on the governments to establish vocational institutes where the youths could be retrained on entrepreneurship.
Chief Okeke said that what the boys were constantly telling him while he was with them was that they have no job, adding that those of them who were working were later sacked. And, he appealed to the five governors of the South East states to provide jobs for University graduates, as according to him, the boys who abducted him sounded so brilliant and spoke good English and have marvellous planning strategy.
I don’t know what to make of this kidnapping incident. The south-east has turned into what the Igbos call “chi bo anü ozo (every new dawn brings with it a new sad story).Although kidnapping is evil and has no justification, the worst of it all is kidnapping somebody in God’s premises. Although, I should not judge, but, I think such despicable incident is a sin. On the other hand, in this case I have no sympathy for the victim here, because, it seems that he’s serving both God and devil or Mormons at the same time. One of his feet is in the church and another is in the native doctor(s) place. One cannot serve two masters at the same time Chief Okeke was neither here nor there in terms of where he put his trust. He wanted it both ways and because of that, neither of them protected him. He claims to be a Christian, but, based on what we read, he is a hypocrite who never put his trust wholly in God and to my own thinking, God sees him as a church goer who is not trustworthy and deserves not His protection. That’s the only way God should have allowed such a crime to happen in front of His house. Had Chief Okeke put his trust only in God, maybe, they kidnappers would not have kidnapped him and may not have thought of him as a potential victim in the first place. May be, God wants to teach people like Chief Okeke, who go to church on Sundays and visit the native doctors during the week, a lesson, that He is the everlasting protector who never fails and the He sees all their hypocrisies. God is telling them that those who put their trust in lesser gods or Mormons would on the long run be disappointed. We read that the kidnappers fired several gun shots at him (Chief Okeke), which shattered his jacket but could not penetrate his body, so he had his “juju insurance” on, on that day. He might also claim that he is alive today because of it. But, was he upright in the sight of God Almighty, the kidnappers wouldn’t have thought of him that day. The kidnappers knew his stuff, that was why they had the temerity to trace him to a church.
Chief Okeke might have trusted the devil for protection more than he trusted God for same, because of his status and wealth, but, the devil failed him when he needed him most. Please nobody should get me wrong here: Chief Okeke has the prerogative to choose the god he would serve because religion is a private matter, but, what is deceitful here is that he never settled down for one. He has the right to worship the devil fully and to seek protection from him, but, what I know is that such would amount to an exercise in futility because the devil does not offer protection that last. The Chief must have had his charms and amulets or whatever even while inside the church, but, at least, he should have left them at home for the few hours he spent in the presence of God, as mark of respect to Him, unless they (charms and amulets) were implanted permanently inside his body.
This is where Chief Okeke´s Archbishop, Bishop, Parish Priest should come in and condemn his attitude despite the fat donations he gives to the church, if they are really upto their calling. Chief Okeke should have known (as the Igbos put it) “that all metals would end up in the furnace (igwe nile g’ala n´üzü)”.
I wonder who some Nigerians think God is. Why are we so deceitful in our relationship to God? The other day, P.M. News (24.07.2009) wrote about how “Governor Gbenga Daniel of Ogun State Cursed Opponents in Church”. This is part of what the Paper wrote: "... At that point, Daniel told the congregation to rise and close their eyes, as he was going to render a fresh prayer against Pastor Kuyooro's, which he condemned as being improper. The governor, a son of an Archbishop in the Aladura sect, then prayed thus: "Oh Lord! Those who are standing in the way of the progress of this state, remove them. Those who want me to share the money of Ogun State with them, father destroy them, Holy Ghost fire fall on them. Father God! Those who want to assume power by all means through the back door, let them fail woefully. Heavenly father expose and disgrace them. Let all of them, including those behind them be put to everlasting shame…."
Governor Daniel forgot that if the Holy Ghost should fire anybody, the victims would surely not be only those who want power via the back door, but all those who came to power through the back doors (rigged elections), those who embezzled the resources entrusted into their care, those who have no love for their neighbours (fellow human beings), deceivers, hypocrites and all the corrupt people, and in this case, Gbenga Daniel himself would not be spared.
In Part 1 of this article, we read about the ordeal of a missionary doctor, Dr. Robert Whittaker, a surgeon kidnapped and held hostage for two days, and was released after a ransom was paid on his head, who said that he sympathizes with his young abductors. Whittaker said that his kidnappers told him “there were no jobs, and they needed money by any means." In other words, they said that unemployment influenced their behaviour. In Part 2 of this article, we read how Pete Edochie was kidnapped and released. Edochie said that poverty drives kidnapping. He explained that his kidnappers seized him in protest at the obscene display of Nigeria's stolen wealth by politicians. Edochie said his kidnappers told him they were not happy at the situation in the country. He said they told him that they were into the criminal act because they wanted to get their own share of the wealth being displayed by politicians. Now we are reading how Chief Okeke was kidnapped and how he said his kidnappers wanted to send an unmistaken message through his kidnapping and that unemployment is the factor pushing the young people into the crime.
In the three kidnapping incidents, the message was the same: Unemployment, no doubt, is one of the major forces driving kidnapping and armed robbery. Although we strongly condemn kidnapping and armed robbery or any other crime for that matter, and we see no justification for those crimes, but, whatever we think against them (crimes) does not wish them away. It is the reality of life in Nigeria and anybody seeing it differently might have been looking at the situation of things shallowly.
To be continued
THE THANXS IS ALL YOURS!!!
Continued from Part 2
