Memo to Armed Robbers By
Yushau
A. Shuaib ABUJA With
trepidation and anxiety, I write you this memo. Even though you may be
located in major highways at odd hours of the night, and in remote areas
of the country in the daylight, the fear that you may summarily
exterminate my life like Sallah ram and tear into shred this memo,
prompted me to use this medium. I strongly believe you read newspapers
and magazines regularly to monitor the successes or otherwise of
your operations. Since you are now like some rising and reigning
superstars whose names and activities feature daily in our livelihood,
it is compelling to acknowledge your daring courage in doing the
impossible and unimaginable acts that are beyond human reasoning. I am
bewildered by your incomprehensible acts of defiance and boldness when
the rich, the powerful, the foreigners and indeed poor masses, where you
always claim to belong to, are the victims of your audacity. Not so long
ago, you attacked the offspring of our national leader, inspite of her
bodyguards; you harassed a state governor and even killed his heroic
security guard; you disallow legislators from visiting their
constituencies as you lay ambush, probably to get your share of the
monetisation policy; you arrest bullion vans including the police
escorts and cart away millions of Naira in the process; you saunter into
banks in the day light as if they are your offices; and without any
emotions you walk into hospitals to terrorize the patients and medical
personnel, only to take away lifesaving drugs. To an
ordinary poor citizen, you intimidate him to the extent of asking his
family to provide you food and to play music for your amusement.
Notwithstanding the desire of your victims to cooperate, you
occasionally send breadwinners to the world beyond; rape newly wedded
brides, smash the skull of innocent children, naked academicians, invade
the houses of God and by extension you humiliate clergymen. The lists of
your monstrosities are endless. Since you
have remained the daily issue of discussion by your network of
escapades, I wonder if you are not part of the sponsors of the Bill for
the Abolition of Death Penalty in our Penal Code. When all the motions
passed by the legislators to curtail your cruelty failed, the passage of
the proposed bill on the abolition of the death sentence, may give you
the open ticket to advance your criminality. Your victims may therefore
be ruthlessly annihilated to minimize the rate of witnesses against your
arrest and subsequent prosecution. After all whether you are merciful or
merciless to ones life, you not only have assurance, but the
guarantee by law to spare you from the gallows. Sometimes I
wonder how you remain an enigma in our national life. It beats my
imagination that with the recruitment of more policemen and provision of
more vehicles in addition to communication gadgets and bulletproof vests
to the security personnel, you are not deterred, it only increases the
tempo of your fiendishness. In other African countries including
developed worlds, houses are built without fences, but because with your
brutal incursions, houses in major cities and even villages in Nigeria,
are well fenced with fortifications reaching high heavens and defensive
arrow-like decoration on top. We have
listened to some of your grievances that prompted you into your reckless
war against the society, even though they do not constitute any
justification for banditry. One is mindful of the pain some of you
undergone before embarking on robbery. To a degree, one may agree about
your inability to secure good jobs, even when overgraduated and
overqualified Nigerians, who are unemployed, roam the streets searching
for jobs. We are aware that student-members of your group were
disenchanted over the frustrative and intermittent closure of higher
institutions, which resulted to their idleness and had to take
consolation in your devilish workshop. It is also unfortunate that some
custodians of our noble culture and religious leaders promote
accumulation of wealth from whatever means. While some of your parents
refused to give you a proper upbringing by neglecting your childhood, it
is public knowledge that some of your guardians too, force you to fend
for your self through street begging, touting, area-boying after
dropping out from school, if you even started and subsequently
graduating to robbery. It is painful too that even though it is the
responsibility of the government to provide education and welfare to its
citizens, the rich amongst us prefer only to take care of
themselves to the detriment of the larger society. I must admit
that none of your parents, and I doubt if you too, would pray to have
children to grow into armed robbery. But in the mosques, churches,
public and private circles, you are daily cursed and denounced. I wonder
if other citizens ever sat down to study and understand the rising crime
rate in the society. We have seen emergence of your group cutting across
all strata of social class. From rich homes, political class, royal
courts, religious families, womens folk not to talk of drivers and
okada riders engaging in this nefarious activities. We learnt about the
arrest and police parade of preachers, businessmen and sometimes members
of security agencies who participated directly or indirectly in armed
robbery. In fact the
rest of us may be guilty of other kind of robberies, which go on
unnoticed and unchecked. What can we say about pen robbery, where public
officers are alleged to have doctored documents to enrich themselves in
service without being reprimanded; armed extortion by which some
security personnel robbed their victims through coercion; intelligence
robbery, where smart guys cleverly defraud foreigners and Nigerians
alike, erotic robbery undertaken by beautiful ladies to seduce and
corner juicy contracts without owning an office; spiritual robbery,
employed by fake preachers to extort their followers; Oil robbery, in
which bunkerers and connected barons illegally siphon our natural
resources for export to their foreign accomplices; political
robbery, in which the politicians hoodwink the electorates only to fail
to deliver and instead undertake fictitious projects to embezzle the
public funds. In fact there is even GSM robbery by which some operators
charge subscribers on failed connection and extremely poor services.
From the aforementioned robberies, an individual may make a profit that
is higher than what the entire armed robbers generate. While the
society keep condemning your behaviours, it would be fair if we all rise
to the occasion and cooperate with you in taming the menace of this ill
in the society. Though no sane person could pray to have an armed robber
within the family, no one knows what a child may become in future. It is
therefore the responsibility of all of us to work assiduously at
checking the threat of this ill. The
governments at all level must address the need for welfare for its
teaming youths, by engaging them in activities that would improve their
morale and encourage them to work towards self-reliance and the
development of the economy. Back to farm policy and self-help projects
are veritable-tools applicable at the moment. Since must of the arrested
suspects always confessed of taking hard drugs to enable them commit
their nefarious acts, the relevant agencies should arrest the situation
by blocking the promoters of those illicit drugs and confiscate their
properties to serve as deterrent. Programmes of activities such as
sports, farming, small scale industries etc. need to be formulated that
would keep the teeming youth busy at all time. Occasional camping in
decent environments with recreational facilities could be provided for
social interactions. Religious leaders and respectable elders in the
society can be invited for interaction and healthy dialogues in those
centres. Considering
the fact that governments actions so far, in conjunction with
National Assembly passed resolutions to stop your further exploit but to
no avail, the individuals in the community have a stake to ensure that
the crisis is reduced to a barest minimum. Every member of the society
is a potential victim whether one is surrounded with all the advanced
security networks or traditional charms. Therefore, each household
should bear the number of children they could sustain economically and
provide them with sound education. They should also strictly monitor
their behaviour and that of their peer groups who have greater influence
in molding their character and characteristic as they grow up. The
parents should also disabuse the mind of their wards on the craze for
wealth considered as the source of all-evil by admonishing them on the
virtue of self-contentment with the little their right-hand purchases.
They should guide them against some foreign and local movies that
promote ostentatious life and violent crimes. In fact, a lot must be
done by the government, the society, individuals and spiritual
institutions in stopping this atrocious rampage. |