There is a tragic déjà vu playing out in Rivers. So please, compare and contrast.
Pre-2015 general election, and the Civil Society Network Against Corruption (CSNAC), in a petition to Madam Amie Bensouda, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, put that pre-election butchery in grim perspective.
In a petition it dated February 22, and which Olanrewaju Suraju, the CSNAC chairman signed, it listed the following, among the no less than 100 killed, maimed or displaced in the build-up to the 2015 elections in Rivers, alleging high powered conspiracy from the then Presidency, high ranking members of the Police and other security agencies, including the Army and the DSS.
The alleged victims: Kingsley Emenike, Police Corporal Ifeanyi Okorie, Charles Eruku, Mebaka Opuogoliya, John Adube, Joy Adube, Lucky Adube, Ebuka Mbamalu, Ikechukwu Ogarebe, one Ezekiel, Sampson Chinnah, Kerian Wobodo and Charles Wobodo, among others.
It is not clear if Kerian and Charles Wobodo were relations; but the gory tale of the Adubes, John, Joy and Lucky, captured the insane slaughter back then: a whole family, starting with their patriarch, John, was nearly wiped out, because of their partisan affiliations.
The petition did not also state if Corporal Okorie was among those felled, when partisan thugs rained bullets at the Okrika All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign rally, killing a few, including some Police personnel; and maiming many more.
The allegations back then was that partisan opponents should not campaign in Okrika, the home town of the then First Lady, Patience Jonathan.
And now, pre-2016 National Assembly and Rivers State of Assembly legislative re-runs, the similarity, in casualty count, is simply eerie.
The election tribunals and Court of Appeal ordered the re-runs, after voiding the returns for most of the Rivers legislative seats, federal and state; before the Supreme Court, in a bizarre verdict, endorsed the governorship poll, held the same day, and under the same bloody conditions, as the state legislative elections. The re-runs are fixed for March 19.
On March 5, in a chilling replay of the Adubes’ massacre, gunmen invaded the Rutachi Street, Omoku, home of Franklin Obi, at around 9 pm, and killed Obi, his pregnant wife, Iheoma and 18-year old son, Bestman. The late Obi was Rivers APC Ward 4 chairman; and the murderers severed and took away his head. Also slain was Chukwuladi Adiela, an APC stalwart in the same Ward.
This is the reportage of that nerve-jangling murder, by the Punch of March 7, quoting Victory, Obi’s daughter, 16: “Last night, I was inside when I heard my mum crying. We heard the sound of a gunshot and hid somewhere in the room. I opened the curtain of my room and I saw the men cutting off my father’s head. They (gunmen) then came to our room,” she added, “and ordered me and my brother to come out; and as we were coming, my brother was moving slowly and they shot him. Then they left with my father’s head.”
And what was Governor Nyesom Wike’s response to that gruesome murder, involving a political opponent? The beheading was a cult affair, the perpetrators had been arrested and why was APC making so much fuss, claiming cultists as its own!
That from a supposed chief security officer, sworn by law to protect every citizen, as governor to all? But even assuming cultists were indeed victims, so cultists are not entitled to state protection, in a polity founded on the rule of law? Might Wike’s Rivers then have made its grim peace with outlawry, and the resultant anarchy?
On March 7, in Buguma, Asari-Toru Local Government of Rivers State, Ofinijite Amachree, aka Kpom Kpom, another APC chieftain, was killed and burnt, after clashes between APC and PDP supporters.
Another five, according to a report by The Nation on the Rivers pre-re-run fracas, were clubbed to death: an unnamed four in Obibi, Etche Local Government and one Gabriel Cookey, in Opobo, the headquarters of Opobo/Nkoro Local Government.
Another AP report quoted Rivers APC chieftains as alleging that 32 of their members had so far been shot, clubbed or beheaded in the run-up to the March 19 re-runs. Compare to the 100 slain before the 2005 general election, and you perhaps would appreciate the Rivers of blood flowing under Governor Wike!
It is only fair though, to enter the defence of the Rivers PDP, which claims it had no hand in the murders; but instead blames “satanic cult clashes”. But again, which lawful government sits back and lets “satanic cults” slaughter its citizens, no matter their partisan hue?
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, after the 2015 presidential election, declared no electoral crime would go unpunished. But he didn’t reckon with a judicial lobby unfazed at putting the law at the service of electoral violence, thereby reinforcing murderous electoral conduct.
Now, the Supreme Court, finding for political violence, has worsened the security situation in that troubled state. Indeed, if Wike got his governorship, splashing in a guggling pool of blood, why shouldn’t the lawmakers? Had they the luxury of pressing their cases at the apex court, perhaps they would have been certified okay to swim into power in the blood of others, just as their governor!
But that supreme folly would appear to have put the Buhari Presidency on the spot. Before the 2015 election Rivers killings had come the grand subversion of legal authority by the Jonathan Presidency.
Indeed, the Wike penchant for impunity, and trash power talking, started back then. Wike was Education minister of state, but Jonathan’s not-so-hidden viceroy in Rivers. Mbu Joseph Mbu, then Rivers commissioner of Police, was busy subverting Rotimi Amaechi’s gubernatorial authority. Of course, Dame Jonathan’s crass vituperations inspired that grand subversion.
Now, Rivers APC partisans would wish they had their own Mbu Mbu to wring Wike’s gubernatorial neck. They would wish a grand abuse of federal power, with the same Police, DSS and Army, that aided the PDP Rivers impunity back then, at their own beck and call too — and certainly, they would be thrilled to see Wike shrill and complain as Amaechi did, under the ancien regime.
That is the un-coded message in their the-Federal-Government-has-abandoned-us mass complaint.
But abusing federal might is absolutely unacceptable, not the least for a government that rode to power on the mantra of change. President Buhari should not fall into that temptation.
But the president should put everything in place to nab the Rivers killers — not only the crazed cultists, but their big political sponsors. Slaughtering fellow citizens should never be accepted as normal electoral behaviour.
It is not only vile and barbaric, it is extremely savage — and it doesn’t matter if the victims are PDP, APC or even the so-called “cultists”.
On the March 19 re-runs, the Federal Government should put in place formidable security to enforce peace and order, even if, as the mass violence is sure to scare away not a few, it may appear too late to achieve a free and fair process. Still, on the day, the free killing and ballot snatching of 2015 must never be tolerated.
As for the Supreme Court, Their Lordships should savour, in unanimous horror, the Frankenstein monster their Rivers verdict has created.
NATION
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