Chike Orjiako
28 June 2009
opinion
Lagos — I don't know how apt the title of this piece is but something tells me it summarizes the carnage going on in the South East and what we know today as South South.
I must digress here a little. South South? What does it really mean? Even my computer is advising me to delete a repeated word; that is to delete one of the Souths. The poor computer thought it was a mistake, it was a mistake ok only that I have chosen to ignore that mistake just like Nigeria has chosen to ignore the entire South Eastern Nigeria comprising the now South East and the former southern minority tribes recently nicknamed South South; so that they don't feel left out in the zoning contraption and equally erase the minority tag.
I truly sympathize with the plight of my brothers and sisters that occupy that geographical space now called South South, just like I sympathize with my own people in Igbo land. My sympathy derives from the fact that nobody is thinking for this two geopolitical zones. In the case of South South, if they had a central strategic planning unit pursuing the cause of reversal of over fifty {50} years of neglect of their area where Nigeria derives almost all the revenue that sustains the gigantic corruption called Nigerian economy, that unit would have rejected the name South South not only because it means nothing but more importantly because it does not serve their purpose of drawing world attention to their plight.
Here, I think the late Saro Wiwa got it right because he presented Ogoni to the world as a powerless ethnic minority that the larger Nigerian state conspired to cheat out of their God's given natural resources. That singular master stroke drew world attention to Ogoni, a tiny ethnic group in the so called South South. To me, that era appears the only time a concerted effort has been made to confront a cheating Nigerian State. Late Saro Wiwa, in spite of his many faults, which includes a purported instigating the killing of his equally concerned tribes men now known as forgotten Ogoni 4 and daring a butcher like Sani Abacha with bare hands, was never lacking in strategy especially as it concerns articulating their basket list of demands and shopping list and marketing same aggressively to the larger international audience. He didn't call himself a freedom fighter or an emancipator of the Ogoni nation. He was smart enough to key into the current of this time-The Environment. He simply identified himself as an Environmentalist. While that doesn't make sense to us locals, it was a hot item at the international arena and Wiwa knew that. I hear his equally smart son, who chooses to sue Shell in American court where they know and care about the environment now have Shell in the balls, which have had to pay a paltry $15million to forestall a further exposure of their environmental non-compliance in Nigeria's oil fields. Something the west regards as another nuclear stock pile. Truth is that it is perhaps only in Nigeria that Shell extracts oil the way they do and they know it. Had this same case been instituted in Nigeria, Shell would not have bordered to even put up an appearance in court and the case would have since been struck out.
Any body who believes Shell paid that money because they conspired with Abacha to kill Saro Wiwa and his 8 other kinsmen should think again. Oyibo people are not bothered by such emotions considered internal problems of a rural Nigeria. Environmental issues are big issues around the world today especially the technologically advanced nations that do not have NEPA and Urban challenges to grapple with. If that trial had continued and the world comes to know that Shell is sacrificing environmental issues in the alter of huge profits; like still flaring Gas and spilling oil in the process of extracting crude which depletes the all mighty ozone layers said to be causing global warming, Shell would have had themselves to blame for not buying the entire Ogoni Clan at higher price to keep quiet. This clarification has become necessary because, soon criminals around this region and their South eastern counterparts will start slaughtering their parents and suing Shell for $15m in America/Australia, any where else in the west but Nigeria. No be so e be o.
It was the absence of such strategic thinking and positioning by the other elites of this region that created the Asari Dokubos, the Ateke Toms and the man of this season, who goes by the interesting name, Mr. Government alias Tompolo. Some people have suggested that these guys were all creation of selfish and conniving political elites of that region. I agree, but the question is; for what purpose? If they had thought hard enough, they would have realized that you do not create a monster that will later hunt you. All three and their many rag tag army of fellow travelers suffer from a common debilitating disease called illiteracy. These are the guys the serious business of negotiating economic space for a South South people in the larger Nigerian entity has been handed over to.
In the case of Mr. Government Tompolo, he perhaps may have been preferred to lead the 'struggle' because the South South people believed it was better for a Government to negotiate with another Government-Nigeria. How else can one explain the fact that a sitting Vice-president of the most populous black nation in the world {whatever that means} will stoop so low to go to a creek in a jungle to negotiate with a half baked illiterate who reports say, even held him in contempt while the bilateral talks lasted. If this is not incredible, I don't know what else to believe as impossible in Nigeria.
This gives credence to the fact that these rascals were armed and empowered by politicians of that region to fight their selfish war of smoking out political enemies in the creeks and else where. The fellows, having completed their task and saw no further challenges and accommodation in the new government, decided to engage in self help. They did not only take the law into their own hands, they also decorated themselves in the toga of freedom fighters and emancipator of their people. Emancipation! A word they hardly know the meaning. A popular proverb in my place says, any person armed by the Dad for armed robbery easily breaks the doors of victims with impunity. This is the genesis of kidnapping as we know it today. When these guys kidnapped their first Oyibo man for ransom and the state rallied to pay, I had predicted then that their Igbo neighbors will soon introduce turnover in the business. Today, it has not only become a self fulfilling prophecy, but a very dangerous dimension has been introduced in the process. A few examples will suffice. In the five states of South East of Nigeria, kidnapping and its methodology is as wide and diverse as the many dialects that define the Ibo language. Let's take Abia state first. The Enugu- Aba road has become a no go area for any car that still has its full light intact. The method of the kidnap merchants here is simple, identify any vehicle that appears flashy, check that the occupant{s} look well fed, stop the car and take the occupant hostage and place a ransom on the head{s} of the victim{s}. The moment they realized that people have started avoiding this road, they changed their strategy and now go with a coaster bus. As they drive along the various streets and roads, they keep capturing people that look well fed. The strategy is a simple game of numbers {turnover}. If they capture fifty, at least by the time their people drop amounts ranging from N20,000- N5,000,000, they would have gotten some where. These groups are not always lucky because a report narrated a victim's experience thus: A young girl of about 25 years on a mini skirt was captured along side others in a popular Aba street and taken to a remote village where they joined so many other victims all chained waiting to be called into a small telephone room where they were taking turns to talk to their people to co-operate with their kidnappers to avoid being killed by them for rituals.
When it got to the turn of the young lady, she declared that she was a prostitute and has nobody to talk to who will be in a position to pay ransom. They challenged her to call either her numerous boy friends or parents and she told them point blank that she has no boy friend but customers and that they were all pay -as -you-go customers and as for her parents, that she is not sure they would not have died by now since they all depend on her to feed. She then suggested that this small matter of kidnapping can be settled in kind only that they have to be careful since she just tested HIV+. They beat her mercilessly for depleting their food stock without dropping anything after which they dumped her on the road half naked. In the same Abia state, a serving Senator was said to have outsmarted the kidnappers by switching cars at intervals in the notorious Aba area which resulted in the killing of one of his police details whom they mistook for the Senator. While he was celebrating thanks giving in Abuja, he forgot to mention this monster, even as a motion in Chambers as a matter of National importance. {Some senate}
In the neighboring Imo state, the kidnappers there specialize in children and aged parents of the rich and powerful in the state. The situation is so bad that these senior citizens are now being taken to the cities of Lagos and Abuja against their wish. Some of them have since retired and gone back to the villages to live and spend their final years among their people in the serene village life before this kidnapping menace. Some of the kidnapped victims die shortly after or before their release as a result of shock and denial of their vital live sustaining drugs during the period of forced imprisonment. A case in point is that of Sir Tony Chukwu, a Port Harcourt based business man whose 85 year old retired school teacher was kidnapped in his village, as the old man stepped out from the bathroom. The huge ransom amount was paid; the man released but could not make it back to his house as he died in the hospital where he was taken for check up. In Imo, ransom is said to ranges between N2m - N50m.
Anambra kidnappers go for the broke. Their major targets are the very many big business people in the state and top politicians. They devise all kinds of strategies to catch their victims including indulging them in their preferred fancies. Enugu and Ebonyi kidnappers appear to have trained in the same kidnapping college or they are one and the same. Their methodology is a combination of the Abia, Imo and Anambra strategies. I believe Enugu kidnappers are one and the same with the Ebonyi ones because while Enugu serves as the catchment area, Ebony is the base where they hide most of their victims in the very many remote villages in that sleepy state. In Ebonyi, nobody is spared, the rich, the not too rich, the young and the old. They work with the simple strategy that every body has a price even if that price is N5000. Commercial Okada riders are hot cake here. The Okada victims do not involve long negotiation since their daily takings are enough incentives for this class of kidnappers.
While all these were going on, the Nigerian state has responded with the usual disquieting silence, perhaps, regarding the tragedy as sectarian in nature and therefore doesn't require a concerted national solution. But if you have carefully followed this piece and observed the dynamic nature of this illicit booming trade, you will realize that the 'fishes' are fast depleting in the waters and the 'fisher' men are fast devising new methods including expanding their nets to other waters. Call it opening new branches and you won't be wrong. As they grow in sophistication and get more daring, it may well mean they are saving the best for the last. Only when these predictions come true, shall we then call Nigeria by its true name "A failed State". The minimum irreducible responsibility of a true state is the protection of lives and property of its citizens and not the protection of free flow of oil.
Orjiako wrote from Lagos
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