Minabere Ibelema mibelema@bellsouth.net
As you might recall from last Sunday’s Punchwise, I intended to devote this Sunday’s edition to suggestions for sanitising Nigeria’s elections. Well, that has had to make way for more urgent — and related — matters. That is, the need to connect the dots of lawlessness from Oraifite to Madrid and to a courtroom in Abuja.
When I first learned that two Nigerian policemen were murdered and burnt in Oraifite, Anambra State, on December 2, I shook my head in dismay. It was the typical reaction we have when tragedy strikes elsewhere. We feel revulsed and concerned, but from an emotional distance.
But it wasn’t long before I realised that this tragedy was actually close to my doorstep. When details of the incident became available, I learned that the area police commander who was killed was ASP Oliver Inoma Abbey, a prominent man in my hometown, Bonny. I don’t recall knowing him personally, but I have a family friend of the same maiden name.
So, I texted her: “I’m assuming you personally know the officer who was killed. My condolence.”
The response took a while — three days, to be precise — and it was evident why. “I didn’t just know him. He was my dearest, beloved and very gentle cousin and brother,” she texted. “We lived in the same house, ate from the same plate. I can’t seem to get over the cruel and gruesome death.”
And just like that, a tragedy that took place in a distant town I never heard about became a tragedy in my personal sphere. It brought home the extent of lawlessness in my dear native land.
According to the official account, Mr Abbey led a contingent of his men to the locale in response to complaints of “abduction, assault … and malicious damage to property…. However, as soon as police arrived (at) the house, armed men suspected to be IPOB members descended on the police, set ablaze one patrol vehicle and attacked them with rifles and machetes. Apparently, it was a trap. The attackers laid siege.
IPOB members reportedly jubilated over the gruesome deed. What they probably don’t understand is that they have set their cause ever further back. Their spokespeople have left no doubt that the Biafra they envision is not limited to Igboland. It will encompass much of the defunct Biafra and possibly more. And that includes Rivers State and Bonny, of course.
That was an improbable dream to begin with. Now it is ever more illusory. Following Mr Abbey’s murder, the Bonny Chiefs’ Council issued a strongly worded statement of condemnation. Even as the statement cautioned against reprisals, it also let IPOB know that their activities would not be tolerated on the island.
“In line with the Federal and Rivers State Government position on IPOB, we hereby advise that there should be no gatherings in the name of IPOB in the Kingdom, as a preventive measure to forestall any further provocations,” the statement added.
Now to Madrid
On Friday last week, Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi joined the growing number of Nigerian officials who were attacked in Europe. “Some minutes ago, I was attacked by a few misguided Nigerians while on national assignment at a climate change event in Madrid, Spain,” Amaechi tweeted. “They were quickly repelled by the Spanish police before they could do any harm. I am fine. I was not hurt.”
Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu was similarly attacked in Nuremberg, Germany in August by a group that identified themselves as IPOB. They warned then that all Nigerian officials visiting Europe will meet the same fate. And they’re apparently making good on that threat. A video bearing the date of November 14, 2019 shows a large crowd of Nigerians reportedly blocking the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) from entering Abuja House in London.
This all raises the question of whether Nigerians are exporting Nigeria’s lawlessness to other countries. However genuine the grievances against Nigerian officials, attacking them on foreign soils still wreaks of impunity. We are talking of immigrants seeking—in some cases violently—to determine who may be allowed to visit the countries that took them in.
One of the activists in London is heard to say: “We are not like Nigerians in Nigeria, we are not afraid to die.” Really? It is certainly much easier to be brave at Abuja House in London than to be brave in Abuja. I am more impressed with the bravery of the likes of Omoyele Sowore, the publisher of SaharaReporters, whose rearrest in an Abuja court is the third dot to connect.
Ultimate in lawlessness
In the secular realm, there is no place more sacrosanct than a court of law. So, when agents of the euphemistically named Department of State Services invaded the court of Judge Ijeoma Ojukwu last Friday to rearrest Sowore, they committed the secular equivalent of desecration.
Sowore was arrested for leading a smattering of nationwide protests audaciously named #RevolutionNow. He was just granted bail after his case was adjourned when DSS agents swooped in and dragged him out. The videos showed him clutching at people and court benches. Yet, the agents grimly pulled him with all the force they could muster.
DSS subsequently released a statement that claims that they operated within the confines of the law and to protect Nigeria.
That raises the question, What is the worst that would have happened had Sowore not been rearrested? Does he have a guerilla army ready to pounce? No. The worst that would have happened was that he slipped away. Well, there are countries, such as Cuba, whose governments gladly let their “trouble makers” go.
The DSS statement also claims that they have respect for democracy. But do they understand that the rule of law is its bedrock and that judges are the final arbiters?
The real insight into the DSS’s reasoning may have come from Femi Adesina, the president’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity. In an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Monday, he dismissed any suggestion that what happened bothered Nigerians.
“It is a country of 198 million people. When just 100,000 are making (a) noise in the social and traditional media, you would think the whole country is in an uproar,” Adesina said. “There are millions and millions of people who are not bothered.”
Well, well. If Adesina is right, it is probably because the people are preoccupied with eking out a living. And that is borne out by a survey by NOIPolls reported by the Punch on Wednesday. Most of those surveyed thought that human rights are all about the provision of good jobs, welfare programmes, basic amenities, good roads and the like. When the concept is explained to respondents, however, 83 per cent said “that human right violation is prevalent in the country.”
In any case, what should concern Adesina is that what happened in Oraifite, Madrid and Judge Ojukwu’s courtroom have one thing in common: lawlessness.
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