In this report, KUNLE FALAYI writes on the trajectory of crimes in the past 12 months and what experts believe could be done to change Nigeria’s increasingly challenging crimes
To say 2016 has been an eventful year, is to put mildly the different occurrences that Nigerians contended with in the year that ends at midnight today.
But for some families, both prominent and otherwise, the shocking criminal activities of the past 12 months were more personal.
As security continues to be a major concern for the Federal Government and governors of each of the states in Nigeria expend huge sums of money on anti-crime initiatives, Nigerians continue to face the rampage of men of the underworld who rob, kill and maim and in many instances, kidnap.
Terror finds seat in Obas’ palaces
In the last 12 months, many palaces have been desecrated as traditional rulers were either kidnapped for ransom or killed.
As the nation settled into the New Year, coming out lethargically from the festive season, the royal family of late ruler of Ubulu-Uku Kingdom in Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State, Obi Akaeze Ofulue III, was jolted by an attack on him by kidnappers on January 5, 2016 along the Obior/Igbodo Road in the state.
The 52-year-old monarch would never be found alive.
Sixteen days later, on January 21, his remains were recovered in a forest in Ekpon, in Edo State. He was said to have been murdered by his abductors despite the ransom paid by his family.
That incident would herald more of such attacks on traditional rulers across the country by kidnappers in 2016.
On July 4, 2016, the palace of a monarch in Ondo State, the Laragunsin of Iyasan, Oba Abiodun Oyewunmi, was besieged by 10 gunmen around 10pm.
For six days before his rescue by the police, the traditional ruler’s home was a dark room in the den of the kidnappers as his abductors demanded N40,000 recharge cards and N40m ransom.
Few months after, kidnappers set their sights on the palace of the Oniba of Iba, Oba Goriola Oseni, in Iba Local Council Development Area of Lagos State.
In August, the Lagos monarch was abducted in his palace by some gunmen who held him for ransom for three weeks.
He was released only after his family paid N15.1m as ransom.
Not done, just eight days to the end of the year, kidnappers abducted the traditional ruler of Agbarha kingdom of Delta State, Orhifi Enemor II, on his way to Asaba for the monthly meeting of traditional rulers.
Kidnapped on December 21 along the Ossisa Bridge in Ndokwa-East Local Government Area of the state, the monarch was rescued the following day, even though his abductors demanded a N50m ramsom.
Aside the kidnap of these traditional rulers, many less known Nigerians fell victim of what has become one of Nigeria’s common security challenges.
In fact, security experts say kidnapping is increasingly becoming an easy way for criminals to get money.
According to the US Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, kidnapping has become a “lucrative industry” in Nigeria.
“Kidnapping incidents in the north are more typically ideologically-motivated. Kidnapping incidents are under-reported, and the rate of unconfirmed kidnappings continues to grow.
“Targeting of average Nigerians for smaller monetary gains has increased in recent years. Criminals know that police are rarely contacted during a kidnap incidents and that families are quick to pay ransoms for the release of relatives.”
But kidnapping was not the only form of attacks that traditional rulers were subjected to in the year.
In fact, some traditional rulers lost their lives in attacks whose motives have yet to be unravelled by the police.
For instance, in July, suspected herdsmen killed a first class traditional ruler in Plateau State, the Saf Ron Kulere, and Chairman of Bokkos Traditional Rulers’ Council, Sir Lazarus Agai.
Agai was killed alongside his driver and security guard after they were ambushed by their assailants on their way from the monarch’s farm.
Two months after, another monarch was gunned down in his palace in Benue State.
In September, the traditional ruler of Vingir, a town in Kastina-Ala Local Government Area of the state, Chief Awuhe Alev, was shot dead by hoodlums who invaded his palace.
The motive of the killing has not been determined.
Kidnappers go to school
Nothing is scarier for parents than to realise that their children may never be safe within the walls of schools where they have gone to study. Yet, year 2016 brought this fear close home.
Lagos residents woke up to the news on February 29 that kidnappers had gained entry into the premises of the Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary School, Ikorodu, and kidnapped three female students.
Reminiscent of the April 2014 kidnap of schoolgirls at Chibok, Borno State, in Nigeria’s northeast, the incident, which sent panic across the state, forced many schools to tighten up security.
The girls were released five days later after the ransom of N5.6m was paid, a piece of information that emerged only after the suspects involved in the abduction were arrested.
If residents of Lagos were assured that such abduction would not take place in the state again, they were shocked on October 6, when kidnappers struck at the Lagos Junior Model College, Igbonla, Epe, as the pupils were rounding off their assembly in the morning.
The school’s Vice-Principal, English Language/Civil Education teacher and four Junior Secondary School 1 pupils were abducted in the attack.
They were released five days later but not before the parents of one of the boys, who fell ill in captivity paid N1m for his release ahead of others.
‘Necklacing’ and blood-curdling lynchings
Mob justice is not alien to Nigeria, in a country where people are suspicious about the willingness of the police to see the prosecution of a suspect through.
But the last 12 months brought a fresh focus to an illegal justice system, which social activists describe as Nigeria’s dark open-secret.
Security consultant, Mr. Richard Amuwa, explained that the lynchings, which social media has helped expose over the last 12 months are a symptom of the negative relationship between Nigerians and the police.
He said lack of adequate training on the part of the police, little education on security matters keep police-public relationship frosty, forcing Nigerians to sometimes take laws into their own hands.
Nothing illustrates this point more than the mob justice through “necklacing,” (a practice popularised in South Africa, which involves burning a person alive with a tyre around the neck) which was rampant in 2016.
Just one month ago, controversy arose over the lynching of a young man at Alafia Bus Stop in Orile area of Lagos, who had been accused of trying to steal someone’s wallet.
The question of whether the victim was a boy or a man dampened the fact that there had been so many such lynching incidents in other parts of the country in the past month.
Videos which circulated online showed the young man being brutally beaten before being set alight with a tyre around his neck.
The same “necklacing” method was used by a baying mob who apprehended two men accused of trying to kidnap a businessman around Bristow Roundabout in Gboko area of Benue State in July.
When the mob was tired of beating the two men, who allegedly belonged to a three-man robbery gang, they burnt them to death.
Earlier in April, two armed robbery suspects met the same fate in the hands of a mob in Warri, Delta State.
Their killers accused them of being members of a gang, which embarked on a house-to-house robbery spree along the Okumagba Avenue of the city.
The suspects-turned-victims had allegedly tried to escape in a tricycle but two of them were nabbed when they got stuck in traffic and promptly dealt the jungle justice.
In another case of lynching in 2016 in Delta State, another suspected armed robber was burnt alive in Emede community, Isoko South Council Area of the state in July.
The victim, a young man in his 20s, was a bus conductor, who allegedly moonlighted as a member of a five-man robbery gang, which terrorised the community.
He was beaten to unconsciousness and then given the tyre treatment before the police could intervene.
In another incident in the same state, a man suspected of being a serial rapist was brutalised and burnt alive in June in Ekuigbo community of Ughelli-North Local Government Area.
Reports suggested that the suspect and other members of his gang allegedly attacked a 22-year-old fish vendor and gang-raped her till she fell into a coma on Monday, June 27, 2016.
However, it seems some victims of mob justice were given the raw deal for offences that had nothing to do with either robbery or kidnapping.
For instance, two young women were caught in Makurdi, the Benue State capital in October.
They were caught while allegedly engaging in sexual activities which suggested they might be lesbians.
They were promptly dealt the harsh hand of jungle justice.
The incident which took place at Makurdi Owner’s Occupier area attracted shock over the social media as pictures of their charred remains circulated.
Like most mob justice cases in Nigeria, no suspect was ever arrested.
Unfortunately, the case of the two young women was not the first in the year.
In February, one Akinnifesi Olubunmi, was attacked by a mob in Ondo West Local Government Area of Ondo State for being a homosexual.
He was rushed to the hospital on February 17 but died the following day due to the extensive injuries he sustained on his head during the attack.
Mob justice continues despite warnings
Extra-judicial killing in Nigeria – by the police and by the public – has always been a source of concern.
When a case of mob justice comes to the fore, the police issue warnings and threaten to prosecute violators.
But this does nothing to reduce such actions.
According to the Nigerian Constitution and criminal laws, mob justice is a serious crime in Nigeria.
Section 36(1) of the constitution guarantees the right to fair hearing in all instances while Section 33(1) assures every citizen of the “right to life” except in the execution of a court sentence. The criminal code laws of the federation (Sections 252 and 253) also prohibits any form of assault.
Yet, mob justice is carried out freely in many parts of the country. In fact, in many cases, the police stand around as such actions are carried out.
The Executive Secretary, Network on Police Reforms in Nigeria, Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma, said the situation in which suspects are subjected to mob justice would not stop anytime soon as long as people’s confidence in the police remains poor.
According to him, the police lack both intelligence and investigative capabilities and also the motivation to serve the public, which is why reported cases are rarely diligently prosecuted.
He said, “There is no morale in the police as a result of poor condition of service. The police believe that the public does not have any confidence in them and the public does not trust the police.
“The police always complain about poor funding as a reason for their lack of capacity. But the little they get, how do they use it? We hear of police authorities stealing money, while funds do not trickle down to the lower levels of the force. This is why police officers send their subordinates to the streets to raise money for their operations.
“The police even lack equipment for basic trainings. This is why the only means of investigation that the police have is crime. They don’t have any other means of investigating crime. This is also why it is difficult to find and arrest those who carry out mob justice.”
Murders, attacks that shook a nation
When on June 2, 2016, a trader living in Kano, Bridget Agbahime, was slaughtered in front of her shop at the Kofar Wambai, by youths who accused her of blasphemy against Islam, anger flared across the country and sentiments swelled.
That case would mark the volatility of a nation where many continued to be murdered in the name of religion, especially in the northern part of the country.
Shocking as it may seem, that would not be the only major murder inspired by religious sentiment in the country in 2016.
About a month after, an itinerant evangelist of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Mrs. Eunice Elisha, was slaughtered, stabbed in the stomach and left for dead on the street while she was on a daily preaching round early in the morning of July 9, 2016.
In both cases, arrests were made and suspects were later released. In fact, in the case of the late Agbahime, cases against the suspects who were charged to court, were withdrawn by the state government which stated that they had “no case to answer as the suspects are all innocent.”
But these are not the only individual murder cases that generated angst among the public in the last 12 months.
A prominent human rights lawyer, Mr. Ken Atswete, was attacked in his home in Port Harcourt Rivers State, in August and assassinated at dawn.
In a kidnap-turned-murder in June, a priest, Rev. Fr. John Adeyi, the Vicar-General of the Catholic Diocese of Otukpo, Benue State, became part of Nigeria’s murder statistics for the year, when his remains were found two months after he was abducted in the state.
Another murder that elicited shock was that of the Managing Director of the Lekki Free Trade Zone, Tajudeen Disu, on October, 12 during a clash between mobile police officers and youths of Okunraiye community, Lagos.
The community were protesting the “forceful acquisition” of their land by the Lagos State Government.
While many cases of murder were reported in the south-south in the course of the year, the most shocking was the recent beheading of a policeman, Alkali Mohammed, alongside his police aide, during the December 10 rerun in Rivers State.
At about the same period, the body of a human resources manager with the Dangote Industries Limited, Mr. Istifanus Gurama, was found dumped in a gutter, three weeks after he was kidnapped.
However, apart from these individual attacks, the Agatu massacre in Benue State, which claimed numerous lives and rendered many homeless, is one of the low points of the year. Another attack by herdsmen in a community in Enugu State also threatened to shatter the unity of the nation.
Crimes Vs Nigeria’s huge security spending
By not compiling comprehensive data on crimes across the country, experts say the country’s security agencies make it difficult to assess whether crimes are on the increase or not.
But the huge amount of money spent on the Nigeria Police alone calls to question the lack of capacity that bedevils the force.
Over the last three years, the Nigeria Police has been allocated the sum of N932bn – N307.9bn in 2014, N321.3bn in 2015 and N309bn in 2016.
No matter how much is allocated to the Nigeria Police, Amuwa explained that the public’s lack of proper education on security would keep crimes up.
He said, “Let’s take Lagos for instance, the state government spent about N4.7bn of its security fund on security equipment when Governor Akinwunmi Ambode took over.
“All over the world, equipment do not solve crimes. Government is not spending money to educate its people on insecurity. There is need for people to know what to do in any emergency. We have about 370,000 policemen to 180m people, meaning that Lagos with about 20m people has less than 30,000 policemen.
“There is need for the government to carry people along. 2017 might witness the same kind of crimes because apart from recession, there is unemployment all over the place.
“The training and retraining of policemen, especially the rank-and-file on the streets, is necessary because they are the problem of the force. Unfortunately, the Nigeria Police is a reflection of the people; we have the police we deserve.”
Mob justice’ll be checked – Force PRO
The spokesperson for the Nigeria Police, DCP Don Awunah, told our correspondent over the phone that the spate of mob justice in the country had been a source of worry to the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris.
He explained that such activities would receive a more serious focus in the coming year.
He said, “The IGP is very concerned that in modern day Nigeria, where we are progressing in IT, international relations, and different things, some people in the society still go back to the old days of mob action.
“We need to do a lot of community engagement and advocacy so that it can be stopped. People should know there are laws. It is not enough to accuse someone and resort to mob justice. Recently, we arrested some people who were invovled in such activities through the videos posted on the internet.”
On the training and retraining of policemen to relate better with members of the public, Awunah explained that the rank and file, who are the strength of the police, have to be treated by the public as members of their own communities.
“The public needs to cooperate with them. If there is an indiscretion on the part of the men, it is personal and not a policy of the force,” he said.
On kidnappings in the country, he cautioned Nigerians against the payment of ransom, saying that it is what encourages kidnappers.
According to him, in most abductions, the motive is to get money and not to murder the victim.
He also advocates community intelligence gathering.
“We are all vulnerable. There should be conscious efforts on the part of the communities to search out criminal elements. Uncompleted buildings used as hideout by criminals belong to people and the communities know such people,” he said.
source: http://punchng.com/kidnap-palace-terror-church-nigerias-12-months-bloodshed/
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