Endless Politics of Bloodletting in Rivers
It may be a familiar incident to them but to the rest of the nation and indeed the world, it is strange and even bizarre that political thugs can attack the home of an opponent, kill him, his wife and son and still go ahead to severe the head of the man and go away with it. It sounds gory and shocking, but that was exactly what happened in Omoku town, the headquarters of ONELGA (Ogba/Egbema/ Ndoni Local Government Area) of Rivers State. That incident took place last Saturday.
The killing interlude experienced in the last seven months is apparently over, just because all the three senatorial districts of the state are getting ready for a re-run election to the senate next Saturday, March 19.
Ten days earlier, the frequency and number of killings in the state got to a height prompting the state governor, Mr Nyesom Wike to personally visit the area and appealed to the youths to sheathe their swords. The validity of the appeal, it appears, lasted for just about a dozen days.
It must be stated that the governor himself may have set the tone for the violence rocking his state when about a month ago, while addressing his party supporters in the wake of the Supreme court verdict that affirmed his victory, had warned those coming to conduct the re-run election to be wary. He had threatened that “anyone coming to rig election, must first write his/her will before embarking on the journey”. This is seen as approving the culture of violence and extermination which is now engulfing the state. Is any mandate worth the blood of the people?
Last Saturday, at about 9.00pm, assailants, nay, political thugs visited the home of the Ward 4 chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Omoku, Franklin Obi, and after shooting him and his wife, Iheoma, dead, they dragged out his son, Bestman, from where he was hiding with his sister and also shot him dead. They then went ahead to cut off the head of Mr Obi and left with it. Gosh, it reeks with a chilling shock!
It is not certain what Obi’s crime is, but it cannot be far from the fact that he is not only an APC chieftain, he is indeed the ward 4 chairman of the party. That is the same ward where the PDP state chairman, Chief Felix Obuah is from.
About a year ago, in the same Omoku, a former PDP chieftain who decamped from the party and joined the APC, was visited by political thugs same night and got wiped off along with his family. Nobody was arrested.
Not long ago, gunmen went on the rampage in Obrikom in the same ONELGA and killed Chief Adube, a traditional ruler and APC chieftain in the area along with his children and seven others. The hoodlums further moved to Oboh, a neighbouring community and destroyed the house of Vincent Ogbuagu, an APC House of Assembly aspirant.
It is difficult not to connect all the killings to politics seeing that all the victims are members of APC. If APC members are constantly the victims of this onslaught, are the aggressors and perpetrators of the violence not discernable even outside the clinical room of forensic enquiry?
In fact, the APC gubernatorial candidate in the state in the last election, Dr Dakuku Peterside, had lamented the killing spree when, during the week, he chronicled the litany of killings in the state
“Four APC persons were killed in Obibi, Etche LGA in the last 48 hours. Gabriel Cookey was clubbed to death in Opobo, Opobo/Nkoro LGA by suspected cultists.
“Only his morning, in Buguma , Ofinjite Amachree, an APC member was set ablaze by thugs who are members of PDP”.
“In fact, in the last two weeks, over 30 APC members have been killed in different parts of Rivers State. We are tired of this bloodbath; this is why we are calling on the federal government and Nigerians generally to come to our aid”.
On Monday this week, while Nigerians are yet trying to digest the bestiality of the Omoku killing, yet another such bizarre murder takes place in Buguma in Akoku Toru LGA, where Ofinjite Amachree was murdered .
Reports say, Ofinjite was first beaten to pulp by his attackers before he was killed and then set ablaze. Ofinijite was also a member of the APC
It was in that same Buguma that houses and properties of political opponents were burnt during the last election.
However, unlike in past murders, the police, this time, announced that they have arrested two persons, one each for the murder of Obi in Omoku and Amachree in Buguma. Good as the news is, Nigerians are waiting to see what happens hereafter.
I dare say it is because the Police and all relevant security agencies have merely stood aside and looked in Rivers while the people are being mowed down in their dozens, that the crime of human killings have become so common-placed that it does not mean much anymore.
But more worrisome is the fact that with the senatorial re-run election just a week away, more killings will take place. And this is the point some of us had made in the past when the Supreme Court ignored the avalanche of killings and electoral violence that characterized the Rivers elections and ruled in favour of the PDP which is believed to have sponsored all the political violence at the time. I had maintained in previous write-ups that the verdict of the apex court seems to encourage electoral violence in a way that goads desperate politicians to do anything they can to wrest victory and then settle down to do a judicial defence of their victory later. The Supreme Court’s verdict seems to suggest that whether you breach the procedure or not, the outcome of the election is what is core; a sort of “the endjustifies-the-means syndrome. But truth is that when the procedure is breached, the product is compromised.
How much blood more will be required to appease the vampire called Rivers politics?