Beasts Of The Jungle

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Last weekend, I was in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital. A very chilling story I heard during the Church service on Sunday troubled my mind so much that for the rest of the day, I almost found it impossible to think about any other thing. As I write now, dear reader, I can still recall the intermittent sighs and whimpers, especially from the ladies’ side, which constituted a sad, rhythmic punctuation to the gory details of the most horrifying tale, as all recoiled in disgust, horror and fear.

A man had come out before the Church to share the testimony of how God had saved him from the hands of Nigeria’s beasts of the night, sired by this government’s anti-people and poverty-multiplying policies, and unleashed on the highways to become our collective nightmare. Now, I know that in Nigeria, stories of this nature are fast being accepted as part of the people’s daily experience, just like NEPA’s endless blackout, or corruption in high places, matters on which those who claim to rule Nigeria have since registered their helplessness and despair. I won’t even be surprised if someone would be wondering why I should devote a whole column to such trite issues as armed robbery attacks on Nigeria’ s highways. I can only plead that, though the horrible details of this particular incident are not entirely novel, what they clearly demonstrate now is that Nigerians have at last confirmed their citizenship of a complete, prehistoric jungle, an animal kingdom where the most beastly rules with absolute, fiendish powers, at all levels.

The man was returning from Abuja to his family in Abakaliki by a night bus. Somewhere around Lokoja, they noticed something like smoke in front of their vehicle and a number of them stood up from their seats to find out if anything was amiss. It was then that a nice-looking gentleman who had all this while carried himself with appreciable dignity ordered all of them to sit down. And before they knew what was happening, several guns had appeared at strategic points in the bus, pointing at them. About sixty people were aboard the ‘luxury’ bus. It was about 2.am.

Suddenly, the driver lost his job to one of the armed men. The new driver then reversed the vehicle and began heading back to Abuja. After covering a distance of about two kilometers or so, he pulled up, and almost immediately, his colleagues descended on the passengers. An army man was one of the earliest victims. On that day, his uniform, perhaps for the first time, proved to be his worst enemy. He was decorated with several knife-stabs and dumped at a corner in a pool of his own blood. Then the search for money began. The men were so desperate, very insistent, fierce, murderous, but never in a hurry. When they got to each person, they would violently pull him or her up, search him thoroughly, and dispossess him of every money and valuables. Our friend said he lost his handset and money to them. His ID card which indicated where he worked would ha ve brought more trouble to him, but as he continued to pray, the men turned their attention elsewhere.

He has never been so scared in his life. In fact at a time, he almost gave up hope of coming out of the ordeal alive. One elderly woman, as most women do, had tied her purse to her waist. And as she delayed to bring it out, the men just tore off her wrappers, thrust their hands in the forbidden place and violently took the money.

As they searched and gathered, they beat, slapped and kicked their victims. They had so much confidence. They entertained no fears. When it appeared they had accumulated to their hearts’ content, they unfurled the next phase of their operations. All the passengers had by then been ordered to lie face-down, anywhere they could find space. Those who attempted to look up paid dearly for it. They had bruises to show for their effrontery.

There were about six young girls in the bus. The men violently pulled them out, forced them to undress and began to rape them. As they took turns on these hapless girls, and raped them with savagery and beastly relish, the girls cried in deep pain. From where he lay, the man said it was impossible to determine how many times each of them had each of the girls. And as some of the girls screamed in pain, they shut them up with murderous threats and blows. They spent longer time on this. In fact, the gang-raping continued amidst the muffled cries of pain from the girls until after five in the morning.

They now ordered everybody in the bus to undress, and showed readiness to shoot anyone that resisted. They all obeyed with great fear. The ordeal had drained all of them of their courage. Girls, boys, old men and old women, all pulled off every article of clothing on them. The raped girls were already undressed, so they just remained as they were. One the girls was still in serious pains, and continued to cry: a very bitter cry that could melt the hardest of hearts. But a fearful threat and kick made her to learn to bear her searing pain in silence.

When they were all undressed, old and young, male and female, their captors ordered all of them to disembark and march into the bush. They thought they were going to shoot them from behind. As they scampered into the bush, expecting the bullets to begin any moment to rain on them, the armed men sped off with the vehicle, taking their clothes with them!

As daylight approached, they began to come out to the road. They were all naked. Old men, old women, young men, young women, all were stark naked, as the early morning sun, showered its innocent smile on them. It is possible that some parents were there with their children. It is possible that either the fathers or mothers of those raped girls were with them in that bus. Parents and children were naked, sixty of them, in broad daylight. Welcome to the darkest jungle of the twenty-first century, where civilization had since beat a quick retreat!

Well, nobody cared any way. Nobody even tried to play Adam and Eve by getting some leaves to hide their nakedness and the vestigial remains of their honour and dignity. In that tensed atmosphere, who would, after treading through the valley of the shadow of death only awhile ago, be so depraved as to want to play the voyeur? Even if there were, who cared? Be alive first before bothering about honour and dignity. That is what Nigeria has turned to.

As they came out to the road, to seek help, passers-by, on sighting, them simply ran away. Who wouldn’t be scared by the sight of sixty naked people, men and women of diverse ages, emerging from the bush like contemporaries of the Early Man? Nobody wanted to come near until, much later, a police van passing across heeded their distress calls and stopped. They heard their story. They understood, took pity on them, and went here and there to gather pieces of clothes, wrappers and even inner wears for this hapless Nigerians to hide their humiliation and shame in their totally failed country. How they all eventually left the place, some half-clad, to trace their homes is another form of extended odyssey that we would rather not get into.

It so easy is to shout at the IG of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, from the safe confines of Aso Rock, but the question to ask is: who is creating the enabling environment for all these animalistic adventures? In the recent demolitions that took place in Kubwa, Abuja, some people lost their places of abode, places of business, and even their Church where they could go to worship and get succour. Now, many of them are hiding with all their frustrations, shame and pain, in uncompleted buildings which may even be demolished soon. There is no money to at least move their families to their villages, where they may not even have built any house. They have become refuges and destitutes in their own country. The difference is that, in their case, no one cares.

As you read this, the Nigerian government is finalizing plans to brutally sack seventy percent of its workforce as part of its strange reforms programme whose only distinguishing features are heartlessness and sadism. The unspeakable sufferings and pains that come from all these policies are hitting hard on the citizenry in the face of unimaginable affluence and profligacy obscenely flaunted by government officials. There are no jobs for our teeming number of graduates, and businessmen and women are being made to lose their sources of livelihood. Companies are folding up due to punitive policies and high cost of doing business, caused by constant power failure and other avoidable factors, thereby compounding the suf fering and frustration. But I think it is even in the interest of those in this government stop all the poverty-multiplication programmes. They should remember that they cannot hide in Aso Rock forever. They would eventually come over this side to enjoy their loot with relish. Then it would be time to shake hands with the monsters they are today gleefully creating and nurturing. They should better hear, because, I am told that robbers are now so daring that they even go for operations with generators, just in case there would be a blackout to hinder their operations. Welcome to the jungle.