Imo: Back To The Otokoto Days?

By Chinedu OPARA

On Saturday, October 8, 2011, Mrs. Chioma Ogoke, Imo State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, was kidnapped in Owerri, the state capital, as she walked out of an eatery after buying some takeaway. She was reportedly accosted by three hefty men who ordered her to enter a nearby SUV car. Sensing that she could come to harm if she resisted, she meekly surrendered and entered the car which sped away toward the Imo State University, IMSU, back gate and disappeared with its prized victim.

This almost effortless kidnap of a serving commissioner was, as it is said, an icing on the cake which residents of Owerri and its environs, and indeed, Imolites in general needed to wake up to the saddening and worrisome reality that the state has come under the jackboot of criminals again. Expectedly, apprehension, tension and anxiety became the lot of the state’s citizenry who, under the ugly circumstance, now sleep with both eyes open. There is palpable fear everywhere since nobody knows when the next attack will take place and who the next victim will likely be. The preponderant view  of peace loving citizens now is that the present state of insecurity has become highly worrisome and even bizarre in view of the resurgence of child kidnapping witnessed during the 1996 Otokoto saga, and which prompted the October 1996 uprising of the people of the state. The 1996 Owerri riots, it would be recalled, was sparked off by the ruthless and gruesome beheading of Master Ikechukwu Okonkwo who hawked groundnut on the streets of Owerri. Okonkwo was lured into the notorious Otokoto Hotel in Amakohia, near Owerri, by one Innocent Ekechukwu who beheaded him for ritual. The mass revolt then succeeded in checking child kidnapping as suspected ritualists scurried out of the state for fear of death, while the overtly enraged mob descended on all their property and set them ablaze.

Now, 14 years after that ignition of bottled anger, history is beginning to repeat itself as child kidnappers have run amok in Owerri again. Besides child kidnapping, kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery and assassinations have also assumed frightening dimensions which many fear that if not checked now could tarnish the image of Imo as a peaceful state and robe it with a negative one as the crime hub of the South-East, a title which only recently was held by Aba as a result of the dastardly and gruesome activities of Osisikankwu, the notorious kidnap kingpin.

Those nursing this fear are of course doing so based on available data and statistics of crime and criminality being churned out daily by daredevil bandits running roughshod on the state. Investigations revealed that no fewer than 10 children have been kidnapped in the state between June and October 2011. Similarly, over 5 people have been gunned down in assassination or armed robbery, while kidnapping for ransom has so skyrocketed that keeping an accurate tab on it has become a most arduous task.

The increasing crime of child kidnapping is one incidence which motive is still unclear. However, most people say that those indulging in this crime against God and humanity are ritualists who kidnap the children for ritual purposes. For this theory, there exists a corroborative incident that could make it believable to an extent. For instance, some months ago, the Imo State Police Command paraded a woman, Mrs. Rita Anujuo of Azara Obiato in Mbaitoli LGA, who the police alleged bought little Master Obinna from two brothers who were said to have tricked the little boy away from Lagos and brought him to Owerri where they sold him to Mrs. Anujuo.

But, no matter the motive behind the act, investigations show that it has visited untold emotional, psychological and physical torture on the families of these kidnapped children, their friends, associates, as well as the authorities of the institutions from where these toddlers were whisked away. An Owerri-based newspaper recently reported how emotionally beaten mothers of Masters Chimuanya Ukaegbu, Chinedu Ugochukwu, Chibueze Micah and little Miss Chidinma Anozie stormed their headquarters in tatters to beg government and security agencies as well as well-meaning people of the state to help them track the whereabouts of their children.

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Nnochiri, Assistant Parish Priest of St. Mulumba’s Catholic Parish,

Wetheral Road

, Owerri, betrayed emotion when this writer visited the church recently. According to the priest. “We lost three children and we, the Parish Priest and I, have been doing everything within our powers to search for these children and we have also assured the affected families that we will do everything and anything required of us. We have published it in our newspaper, The Leader, and reported to security agencies and other media houses in Owerri. It is very unfortunate and it saddens us all.”

The clergyman also said the parish could not fathom how the very sad incident happened, even with adequate security put in place by the parish. Against this backdrop, he enjoined all to be vigilant and alert because in his view, security is everybody’s business.

At is were, it seemed the authority and teachers of Waterside Primary School, Royce Road, Owerri, had imbibed that useful admonition even before Fr. Nnochiri uttered it. The school’s head teacher, Mrs. Rose Okorie, told this writer that it was a display of such vigilance by teachers in the school that led to the unmasking and arrest of one of the women suspected to be involved in child kidnapping in Owerri.

Narrating the sequence of events that culminated to the suspect’s arrest that fateful day, Mrs. Okorie said one of her teachers saw a woman walk into the school carrying bags containing wrappers, skirts and blouses. According to her, the suspect first walked straight to the back of one of the classroom blocks where pupils’ conveniences were located and started spreading her clothes. Mrs. Okorie said the woman wanted to present a false appearance of mental imbalance, while in fact she had other ulterior motives. “But unfortunately for the woman, the teacher in question smelt a rat and started questioning her. Eventually, her utterances gave her away as a completely sane person and what we did immediately was to alert the vigilante who rushed to the scene and picked her up,” Mrs Okorie narrated.

The woman in question, investigations revealed, is now cooling her heels in police net and at the same time helping police in its investigations aimed at unraveling the mystery behind the recent upsurge in child kidnapping in the state. Imo State Police Public Relation Officer, PPRO, ASP Linus Nwaiwu, said that the alleged child kidnapper has been highly cooperative with the police in the ongoing investigation. “As I speak to you now, we have a suspect in our custody. We are presently interrogating her to ascertain if she is involved or not and she is responding well and at the appropriate time we will tell you people (journalists) what we have got,” Nwaiwu said.

Kidnapping for ransom, like child kidnapping, is similarly on the upward swing. Apart from the high profile kidnap of Mrs. Chioma Ogoke, Okorocha’s Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, it can authoritatively be revealed that over a dozen people have fallen prey to kidnappers in Owerri and in the 27 council areas of the state in recent time. Most of these victims end up parting with huge sums of money to buy their freedom while a few have been lucky to escape from the grip of these men of the underworld without paying ransom.

The Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri alone has had about 4 staff of the institution kidnapped in the last two months. Sources told this writer that the victims coughed out between N400,000 and N2 million to return back to the comfort of their homes unharmed. On Friday, October 7, 2011, Dr. Mrs. Martina Ugorji of Umudagu, Mbieri was kidnapped close to her residence at about 7 pm. It was later learnt that the kidnappers demanded N30 million ransom before the retired medical doctor who worked with the Federal Medical Centre, FMC, Owerri could be released. Mrs Ugorji’s husband, Chief Richard Ugorji, Chief Executive Officer of Matrix (WA) Limited, was killed by hired assassins in 2009.

Opinions are still divided on the case of late Chief Chibuzor Okeke, CEO of CUO Motors, Aba. In the opinion of some, the transporter was a victim of assassination dressed as kidnap. Another school of thought thinks otherwise, insisting that Okeke may have died of health complications since it is known that he suffered some health problems. Whichever position may carry the day, the incontrovertible fact remains that he was allegedly kidnapped and his family told to pay ransom for his freedom, which sources said they did. Two weeks after, the family was shocked to see the lifeless remains of their patriarch dumped at a Catholic Church premises in Eziachi, near Orlu town.

Another killing that drew the ire of the people is the dastardly killing of two brothers, Ikenna and Ebere Ezebue, right before their father in their family compound at Akatta, Oru East L.G.A. Aged 35 and 33 respectively, the two brothers, according to their father, Mr. Lambert Ezebue Nwuke, had returned from Auchi, Edo State, where they were resident to attend the burial ceremony of his son-in-law. Unknown to both father and sons, the assassins were lurking around. Few minutes after their arrival home, the death merchants emerged from the dark and pumped hot lead into them, killing them instantly.

There is a growing concern that this latest upsurge in crime is happening in the wake of the launch of Gov. Okorocha’s Operation Rescue security outfit. The event which happened at the Dan Anyiam Stadium and attracted security bigwigs like IGP Ringim, Commander 32 Brigade, Major General Danpome, and the State Commissioner of Police had as its highlight the commissioning and distribution of 100 brand new patrol vehicles to security agencies in the state. Gov. Okorocha in his address on the occasion expressed the hope that the initiative would go a long way in restoring the image of the state as the most peaceful state in the country. He had on the occasion too extended the olive branch to criminals in the state with the expression of his administration’s readiness to dialogue with them. Okorocha promised that no criminal who answered the call would be punished since in his words, “they are our brothers and sisters”.

Although the governor’s gesture drew mixed reactions from the people of the state, with some saying it was a commendable move, while others maintained that it would not yield the desired goal, the criminals themselves, in the light of recent happenings, could be said to have snubbed the offer. As one analyst put it, they have rather opted to dare Okorocha and the security outfit. Against the backdrop of this seeming resoluteness on the part of criminals in the state, the embattled masses are beckoning on the government to redouble its effort in the area of security of lives and property.

Barr. Kissinger Ikokwu, lawyer and human rights crusader, believes that the Operation Rescue operatives should get down to serious business and stop harassing and intimidating Owerri residents with sirens. It is his considered view that security has gone beyond noisemaking as is being presently practiced by the security outfit and advised them to place more emphasis on intelligence gathering. In conclusion, Ikokwu said, “Gov. Okorocha has travelled abroad and come back with promises of foreign investors coming. But, I want to say boldly that with the present state of our security, not much would come out of that high hope. He must sit down with his security advisers and agencies to devise watertight strategies to nip this ugly resurgence of violent crimes in the state in the bud before it overwhelms everybody.”

Findings show that Ikokwu spoke the mind of many Imo citizens who are calling on the government to take practical measures in the face of the worsening security situation in the state. Everybody is agreed that the security outfit must use this occasion to show that the millions of taxpayers’ money spent in putting it in place is never a wasted expenditure.

There is equally a growing apprehension among the citizenry that the ugly security situation is being politicized by politicians in the state. Specifically, accusing fingers are being pointed in the direction of the Okorocha government which, in the wake of the kidnap of its commissioner, blamed the opposition for the rising cases of kidnap in the state. This official position made public by Chinedu Offor, Senior Special Assistant to the governor on Media, during a live radio programme in Owerri, has been described in many quarters as mere tantrums of a confused government trying desperately to shift the blame of its failures on perceived political foes. The sentiment being expressed is that government has all it takes to root out this obnoxious practice and therefore should do what it is voted to do rather than chase shadows and play politics with a serious issue like security. What is more, the people are also saying that government should use its enormous powers to investigate thoroughly and establish a strong nexus between the opposition and the crimes before opening its mouth too wide to level accusations that do not hold water.

The opposition in the state, particularly the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, quite expectedly, joined issues with the government of Gov. Okorocha over that sweeping allegation. State publicity secretary of the party, Chief Blyden Amajirionwu, lambasted Gov. Okorocha for trying to hide under the guise that the opposition are behind the criminality in the state to explain away the glaring failure of his administration. “For the first time in my whole life, Okorocha’s is the only governor I have seen that makes a statement today, tomorrow he will reverse himself. If he doesn’t reverse himself, call him to prove his allegations, he can’t prove them. Just last week, he went to Enugu for the same retreat he accused Chief Ohakim of wasting taxpayers’ money to hold in Enugu when Oguta Motel is wasting away. Personally, Okorocha is a gallery governor and I am not surprised that he is using this unfortunate situation to do what he does best. For us in PDP, we are waiting for him to prove convincingly to Imolites that the opposition is out to embarrass his government with criminality. Otherwise he should keep quite and deliver on his many campaign promises.”

But what are the security agencies saying in the midst of this confusion? Imo police spokesman, Nwaiwu, revealed that the Operation Rescue which the state command provided about 70% of its personnel is poised to take the battle to the criminals. According to him, with the launching of the Rescue community policing, government has demonstrated that it is passionate about the people’s security and assured that security agencies would not fold their arms to watch anybody instill fear and apprehension into the people of the state, especially as Christmas approaches.

Surely, it is not in doubt that politicians can play politics with virtually anything under the sun, including life and death. Yet, it is trite to say that if the government of Gov. Okorocha tarries awhile in the midst of this unnecessary altercation, it will discover, perhaps to its shock, that the people are not amused one bit by this political warfare. What they want at this perilous time is security of lives and property, no more, no less. So, with the ball squarely in Gov. Okorocha’s court, all eyes are riveted on him to see how he will play it to make or mar himself.

Roll Call Of Victims Of Kidnap, Armed Robbery And Assassinations In Imo State Between June And October, 2011

(Children)

(1)        Munachi Ikwuazu       -           6 months

(2)        Ugonma Ikwuazu                   -           2 ½ years

(3)        Uchechi Amatalam     -           2 ½ years

(4)        Chimuanya Ukaegbu  -           3 years

(5)        Chinedu Ugochukwu  -           not stated

(6)        Chidinma Anozie                    -           5 years

(7)        Chibueze Mikah                      -           3 years

           

Adults (kidnapped)

(1)        Mrs. Chioma Ogoke                -

(2)        Mrs. Martina Ugorji                -

(3)        Mrs. Florence Njoku               -

(4)        Mrs. Maritha Nwaogu             -

(5)        Mr. Tony Osuagwu                 -

(6)        Mrs. Obioha                            -

(7)        Chief Sir Paulinus Chukwu

Those Murdered

(1)        Chief Chibuzo Okeke

(2)        Ebere Ezebue

(3)        Ikenna Ezebue

(4)        Mrs. Ifeoma Angela Igwe

(5)        Mr. Sabinus Anyanwu

           

Escaped Assassination

(1)   Mr. Bonaventure Kafor