The Spate of Cult attacks in the Niger Delta: a closer look at viable options for sustained peace

Not many will come out and party at night as it used to be in most parts of the Niger Delta region. Night party and wake keeping used to an avenue for all round dancing and grooving to forget the sorrows of losing a loved one and to celebrate a life well spent for the aged ones. The tradition then was to invite family and friends from far and near so that they could "jollificate" with their friends. These days not much is heard of such gatherings. Social life in most of Port Harcourt, Warri, Yenagoa up to Benin is almost none existent. The reason is not far fetched; cult related violence and criminality.

In the last few months after the re-run elections in Port Harcourt constituency III, cult gangs supported by the security agencies reigned supreme. Violence was unleashed at any perceived enemies of the political thugs masquerading as Politicians. The youths who should be more angry at those who give them pittance to wield guns rarely see beyond their noses and the tools they carry. Open display of guns has become the order of the day, no one is spared in the attacks that come without warning. The government seem helpless and complain of the lack of support from the FG who hold the aces to send security agents.

In October 2018, two women were separately gunned down in cult related violence. One was pregnant with a child and happened to fall to the bullets of the assassins aiming to kill a rival cult gang member. I almost cried when I saw the lifeless body of the woman (Mrs. Luck Ufon) because just the day before i passed by her small scale retail shop and said hello! She was not feeling too well and could only muster "good morning". Little did I realize that was the last time I would be seeing her alive. It is a pity that many innocent people have been felled by the bullets of this unconscionable assassins.

Even our primary schools have not been left out of the violence, earlier this year the Bayelsa State Police command announced that a young primary school boy was caught with a locally made pistol. This brings me to the question of how did the young man get hold of a weapon prohibited for even adults? Parents have a lot of work to do in order to forestall this ugly incidents.
The State Government should do more than shout, the laws are there to prosecute and the security agents must act to bring the culprits to book. Taking bribe monies and illegal bails will not help anyone. The security agencies must realise that their colleagues have been victims of this criminal enterprise and their children are not safe in the streets.

Our courts should do more than remand the culprits in custody. Sentences for such crimes must be implemented so as to discourage others who see this as a means of livelihood. The Police must live up to its calling by arresting and prosecuting offenders, anything outside of this is a slap on the wrist that will take us back to the days of militancy and mass violence.

Civil Society organisations must begin the process of running sensitization programmes on every available media. The government should prioritize job creation and youth empowerment so as to return the idle youths to more productive ventures. Investments in education should be encouraged, an educated mind would find it very difficult to indulge in the kind of criminality that we are experiencing.

Community elders should take it as part of their responsibility to stop shielding cult groups. if measures are not put in place to forestall the upsurge in cult activities, we will all suffer in the long run.

CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA

 

“Corruption is like a disease that eats a man. Once you are

Infected, it spreads wild like wild fire taking complete control

over your brain, senses, and entire body.”

(Sophia Okinedo- 2014)

CORRUPTION IN NIGERIA

Nigeria is a great nation, the mother of Africa as some would like to say; she is blessed with many children who have strived to be in unity for donkey years. Her house is filled with milk and honey, variety of treasures and Mother Nature has blessed her with nature’s very best.

She is the envy of every woman, with rich resources she attracts kings from all lands far and near. Every race, every colour and every religion wants to suck the sweet milk of her breast and eat from her gold plate and silver spoon. Peaceful was her home and calm  her boarders, birds in the sky sang  pleasant music, while those on trees chirped beautifully to rhythms Bach would envy. You could tell they are happy with the smiles on their faces, sweetness of their voice and glorious dance they display with the flapping of their wings. Oh! How pleased they are to have found shelter in this beautiful land. Mother Nigeria offers every of her inhabitant a welcome stay without any sense of discrimination. Her ways were pure and was the major attraction to many.

Her trade pattern is different from what was known and had all elements of sincerity. TRADE BY BATTER was what she taught her children. A unique way of trade practiced over time where a man can buy what he wants simply by moving around the street gazing at goods kept outside by people hoping to sell, and if he find what he likes he drops what he had in exchange for the other. Goods watch over themselves positive they won’t be stolen; exchange items are commensurate with no form of dishonesty, everyone goes home smiling because he is satisfied with the day’s business, people of all ages understood the principles of the trade and never dared to break it. Yes we can tell her children lived in great satisfaction before the sudden swing.

Foreign men invaded her home calling her children savage, naïve and cave men. This she took with calmness ordering her children not to fight back, with her peaceful gesture these men changed their ways and offered to teach her children the ways of the developed world. With drums of excitement, songs of praises, faces of joy, hearts of delight, old and young holding hands danced to the feast of change unknown to them, the end to Honesty and Brotherly love. She was given what seemed better than what she can offer her children, now with wild arms she gave her young men to learn the trades, art, numeric studies, culture and ways the foreigners called education; more like “mis-education” if you ask me. Her secular religious practices  metamorphosed to Christianity and Islam, her several languages  harmonized into a single English jumble was termed better.  

Gradually corruption of her culture and social strata crept in. Her sons’ return changed her land completely. New dressing seen, hair style different from what was known; neat and curly, skins glowing like the morning sun and intelligent, sharpened with new business sense indeed they looked like the foreigners in black skin. Now her trade pattern was scraped and new one emerged this gave birth to corruption in her home.  Theirs eyes were open to the waste of many years of ignorance, seeing how richly blessed their mother is, they began to extract these riches. Learning how much gold this can bring to their purse, greed and selfishness set in. Every man wanted for himself considering not his brothers.

Education was no longer a subject of travelling since it was now part of the system. The elites were highly revered and also known for fat purses with their mass number they took over governance from the foreigners. Searching with eagle’s eye they discovered the essentials of their mother’s buried tears called crude oil and the secret there of. It became the major and highest source of her riches, the envy of other black nations, many wished to be like her. Many foreigners came to her for this purpose; granted licenses to exploit the resources, they extended it to exploit both the people and the environment. Buoyed by her government and collaborators they plundered billions of Dollars-worth of the black gold and devastated thousands of kilometers of forest in the Niger Delta.

Armed with this new wealth, they created a new class of humans whose greed had no bounds. Starting from the Oloibiri oil wells to other oil wells discovered in the following years, millions of barrel of crude went to oiling the pockets of the nouveau rich. With the new wealth came the politics of resource allocation and war. The political class plundered the wealth of the nation with careless abandon and called in the military to join suit, by the turn of the century, over $200 billion had been wasted away or frittered into private coffers.

THE CONSEQUENCE

TO BE CONTINUED

Written by

Sophia Silva Okinedo