The year 2020, ended in turbulence for the Nigerian political leaders, security operatives and of course, the citizens. It was a year riddled with lots of uneasiness, pains and sorrow. The Nigerian youths in their numbers, wanted to create a niche for themselves whose news would have reverberated across the entirety of Africa and by extension, the global community. But the Nigerian political class, in their hurried desperation and untamed mindlessness, hijacked the once peaceful and well coordinated Nigerian youths protests aimed at registering and redefining their future in the country. The politicians caricatured the very essence of the entire process, thereby throwing another vista of horror and uncertainty. More imbecilic are even the compromised youths themselves who allowed the politicians to infilfrate their ranks with pollutants against the very well intended crusade that was supposed to have corrected the inherent imbalance and disgusting anomalies of a country that proclaims democracy. Because of the attendant failure of that national protest against police brutality amongst others, the anomalies have today become monstrous to the growth level of over one hundred percent (100%).
It is unfortunate to note that since after that failed #ENDSARS protest, security developments in Rivers State particularly, have continued to be on Newspaper Headlines. The very ugly stories that have been attracting attention, revolve around Obigbo, a boundary town and Local Government Headquarters, bordering Rivers and Abia States. Obigbo, a thriving commercial town, has so suddenly been reduced to an enclave of discomforting insecurity, with deaths and other related security concerns, been steadily floated. Citizens residing or doing businesses in this part of Biafraland, do so with their hearts in their hands, not knowing what next that will befall them. So many of the innocent have been forcefully abducted, manhandled and airlifted to different army detention cells (barracks), in Northern Nigeria, at the instance of the State Government. Most of the victims that eventually regained their freedom, have painstakingly narrated their ordeals while in military custody. Some of the female detainees were reportedly raped to death while others were terribly infected with diverse sexually transmitted diseases. Some male detainees could not make it back home as they died in custody due to varying degrees of inflicted injuries by the Nigerian soldiers.
In the recent past, there were accounts of how four Biafran young boys and a female nurse were gruesomely killed by the Nigerian security operatives. To worsen the situation further, the four boys were said to have been receiving treatment in a hospital before they were murdered alongside the nurse for an allegation of constituting insecurity. It was also reported about how an entire family was completely wiped out in the same Obigbo. Why then all these heinous crimes perpetrated in one town? Is Rivers State the only State in Nigeria where #ENDSARS protests were staged? Why is it that about six months after the ENDSARS protest, Obigbo is still bleeding? It should however be recalled that the State Governor, Barrister Nyesom Wike, had earlier vowed that there would be serious combing of Obigbo town and environs to ensure that no IPOB member fingered to be behind the spate of insecurity in that part of the state, was left unarrested and dealt with according to the law.
It is high time that this dangerous situation in Obigbo be critically looked into. Igbo leaders should proactively constitute a panel of inquiry to really unearth what the remote and immediate problems that Governor Nyesom Wike has with Obigbo residents, are. Now is the right time to act before it snowballs into an unprecedented catastrophe.
Written by Obulose Chidiebere
Edited by Peter Oshagwu
For Family Writers Press International
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