Newsfront Online …Telling the Public as it is
By Joe Etokudor
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. And the Irish William Butler Yeats could have been speaking to these times in Nigeria it is almost as though we are witness to that apocalyptic moment of the Yeatsian beast waking up suddenly in the desert and slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. Each step is an augury. Borne in its fierce eyes is the fusillade of unanswerable questions. What is the future? Who is masterminding and arches threaten the killings in Nigeria. Who has turned murder to both a political vocation and a lucrative trade?
It will certainly take till dooms day to convince me that some mortally vicious elements in the polity have not had a nocturnal meeting to horrendously butcher all the bright stars in our firmament.
Every index in the country now truly manifests. Thomas Horbes state of nature, where life is short, nasty and brutish. The protection afforded the society to its members for the preservation of their personal right and properties has in recent times, steadily peeled away nationwide in cress ant killings. The uniqueness of the killings is of two major dimensions.
Apart from the apprehended high frequency of butcheries, the dare-devil impunity and total brutality exhibited by the killers are unparallel. Again, although their weapons have not changed , the killers targets have switched , largely to noble politicians, academics and luxury bus commuter and even worshippers so the nature of their target merits the categorization of the killing into political assassinations and armed robbery, it has not substantially reduced Nigeria’s feeling of high-level insecurity , and anxiety. True in the past , few years or so, there has been no hiding place for murders and armed robbers, who have infested all nooks and crannies of the country, to kill and maim people , and rob or destroy their property. With their acquisition of sophisticated weapons, the violent criminals have long given new mobility and lethality. Everywhere, they operated, they held as if the police and other law enforcement agencies did not exist in this country.
Anyone who is conversant with the archeology of social trends will immediately we cognize that we are in the first stage of the “Columbian situation” total breakdown of legitimacy and authority , one in which well armed private armies assassinations squads funded by welts tacked powerful blocs and economic interest begin to divvy up the state and take over functions of the state, the democratization of terror however, will soon take place , since it takes only ten minutes to teach anyone how to pull trigger effectively.
The governance of Nigeria would become a matter of who runs the largest goon squads, my army is bigger than yours. No wonder injustice stalks the land like a bubonic plague, with killers on the prowl maiming and killing un molested. no one is safe anymore. The spate of high profile political killings bodes too much ill. Remember Bola Ige who was killed with a lone shot to the heart in his own bedroom. The government has not only wholly sailed in rather suspicious ways on the unique death of the chief law officer in the government of the federation, but also deliberately put a stone wall on the question emerging from Bola Ige’s murder. Then remember how Dele Giwa was brazenly dispatched, how Jerry Agbeyegbe was momentously shot down , how Aminasorai Dikibo was brutally cut off, Chimere Skoku, Victor Nwankwo, Harry Marchel, Ogbonnaya Uche, among others. On July, 2006, engineer Anthony Olufunso Williams a Frontline Lagos Gubernatorial Aspirant on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was gruesomely knifed in his abode. Lately, a fifty – two – year old Dr. Ayodeji Daramola, Ekiti State Governorship Aspirant was unlashed across the throat. This is too despicable, wickedness at its zenith.
The existence of criminals in the police cautions that future recruits in the NPF should be properly screen and tested to ascertain their family background and mental balance , so that in the end, professional assassins and career robbers are not recruited as security men. Additionally, a thorough screening of the police officers already in service should be essential part of the total overhaul of the NPF, to flush out bad eggs. Beyond this point, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) should establish machinery for monitoring the activities / life styles of his personnel. There is the urgency to ascertain why certain prominent politicians are increasingly being plucked out during electioneering campaigns and Party Primaries , especially now that the 2019 General Elections is at hand. Please, politicians, let the kite and eagle perch.
