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Sullivan Chime and the Massacre of Kogi Varsity Students By Atâyi Babs Opaluwah
The details are bloodcurdling and utterly devastating! The university town of Anyigba in Kogi State was enmeshed in an unearned and fatal pandemonium last week when students of the State University were protesting the death of one of their students who was killed by a hit-and-run driver of a southeast based bus. The protest which was akin to the usual aluta efforts of students with the complimentary sticks and stones to go with attained a lethal crescendo when security men attached to an approaching Gov Sullivan Chime’s convoy immediately opened fire on the defenceless students, killing two students instantly! Sources said the security aide who accompanied the governor to Abuja enroute Anyigba-Enugu Expressway thought the students were armed robbers (when did armed robbers start operating in front of university gates using sticks and stones?). At the end of the day, three ambitious students, namely Ademola Samuel, Ore Isiaka and Mohammed Maiyanga, a 300 level student of the department of History and International Relations laid lifeless in the pool of their own fresh blood. In the ensuing melee, traders were forced to close down their shops to prevent looting by the angry mob.
This is just one senseless killing too many. The other time it was Rochas Okorocha and his rudderless campaign train killing five Igala secondary school students returning from school on a pedestrian path along Ochadamu road (a state government owned road, not a federal express way). Another time it was PEACE MASS TRANSIT Bus owned by debonair Igbo businessman conveying passengers from Enugu to Abuja through Alloma and speeding recklessly thereby killing three igalas, an adult and two children! The previous one before this Sullivan Chime-ordained 'pogrom', was effected by a nameless, faceless and bloodthirsty driver of one the suddenly ubiquitous CROSS COUNTRY Buses, owned by another southeast businessman with an unflattering name. The so-called driver who by all sane standards should be subsisting in a reclusive lunatic asylum happily ran over four young boys, killing them in the process and escaping mob justice at the same time deserting his hapless passengers to an insalubrious fate.
Why such invidious individuals should find their way to steering wheels of any mechanical contrivance is a matter for another day but I was once reminded that the higher the amount of blood spilled by vehicles belonging to these regional road transport czars, the more the business booms and more buses are imported into the country by them. Also, politicians and holders of dubious mandates I am told, lubricate and validate their political invincibility and orgies with every blood spilled by them or their cronies.
But should innocent and already pauperised citizens be made the sacrificial lambs on the altar of greedy and demonic business/political expediencies? Should Nigerians of Igala extraction that forms the major ethnic cluster around the confluence belt of Nigeria be made to painfully rue the dynamics of national unity and development that necessitated the construction of these roads which link East to the North? How long shall Igala parents continue to bury their own very future as a result of their peace-loving and hospitable nature or is it part of a seemingly endless sacrifice to nation building as exemplified by the massacre of many of their soldiers and market women during the Nigerian civil war?
Can these happy-go-lucky trigger-happy and steering-happy exterminators of their Igala neighbours try their murderous stunts in nearby Okene and not incur a wrath that would alarm the entire nation? Does Okene, that serves a similar purpose of linking the West to the North, experience such carnage on weekly basis? Is the possession of monopoly of violence now a sure guarantee of peace and security of lives in our beleaguered nation? How a Sullivan of a Governor whose questionable mandate is still being contested on all fronts with weighty evidences and is yet to clear the 26 month-salary arrears of Enugu "civil slaves" which his vain publicity-possessed predecessor (Ebeano) left behind, can muster enough courage to superintend the killing of a generation of Nigerians that will ultimately eradicate the devious electoral heists and illegitimate gymnastics being enjoyed by Mr. Chime and his ilk, beats me hollow.
It is even on record that the last killing is the second in the series of Sullivan Chime’s bloodthirsty convoy along that same route since his inauguration in May 2007. And as usual, his response to pieces of human flesh dented, carcass clutching and blood stained front view of the vehicles in his arrival is always a studied silence and a Mephistophelean grin of accomplishment playing around his lips. In these two instances, which have led to the unwarranted termination of young lives by the Enugu number 1 citizen, this acclaimed low profile Barrister at law turned public office holder did not in any way feel constrained to offer apologies to families of his victims needless to mention a compensation. According to his virulent Media Assistant, any act of compensation would be tantamount to denigrating the highly exalted office of the Enugu State Governor which the 1999 constitution immunes from prosecution as well as apologising for killing societal misfits, maintaining that all those killed by the Governor’s convoy were robbers. Perhaps Gov. Chime may be introducing a novel form of anti-robbery operations, which dwells largely on the usage of convoys to trample ‘robbers’ at neck-breaking speed in a cacophony of sporadic and aimless shelling of bullets! This may be of interest to the battle-weary Nigerian Police, who knows?
Beneath all these lies a crying need for an urgent action on not only bringing the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against humanity to book but also a swift implementation of measures such as massive compensation of the families of victims, erection of service-oriented monuments in honour of the slain heroes, and the construction of ultra-modern pedestrian bridges in Anyigba and other accident-prone areas in the state. This action must go beyond more than just the usual Governors' chit-chat which usually ends with a pat on the back and silent prosecution of the killer cop (just to assuage feelings) in order to put a stop to intermittent killings on Alloma, Ochadamu and Anyigba roads by cross border merchants of deaths masquerading as drivers and security attaches. Governments at all levels should wake up and put in place traffic measures that will go a long way in ensuring total safety of the people who did no wrong in allowing good roads (which are very rare to come by in certain parts of the county) to snake through their villages! We pay taxes for our lives and property to be protected and not to be put in perpetual peril. Atâyi Babs OPALUWAH Broadcasting House, Ikoyi – Lagos |