This article intends to highlight the genesis of the failing system of protecting lives and property which has brought the eastern part of Nigeria to its knees and making it lose in a tearful proportion the most essential thing the zone is known to hold dear to its existence: buying and selling. The insecurity ravaging the zone is in phases: the late nineties and the post – nineties regimes of insecurity, but this article shall dwell more on the insecurity of the current dispensation which seems to be worse than the one of the distant past. Today, southeast has become a shadow of its old self, casting doubts about the possibility of the zone standing on its socioeconomic feet in the nearest future.
Now, let’s begin by outlining the issues that ushered in a regime of dreary mayhem in the zone. One is unemployment. Southeast is the only geopolitical zone in Nigeria where citizens don’t depend on government either at the local, state or federal to survive. Everyone down here survives through personal effort. This nonchalant attention on the southeast ushered insecurity in a grand style as the strive to put food on the table became a do or die endeavour. Graduates and non-graduates alike all moved into the streets to hustle for survival without capitals. Everything became means of survival. It first started with touting, then moved into pickpocketing which later snowballed into armed robbery, and then to fraud. When the public economic health deteriorated completely, some of these crude hustlers advanced in their survival techniques by graduating into kidnapping, paid assassinations, and of late decapitation of the human body to harvest sensitive organs for money rituals. The survival space became a hive of bees with everyone stinging one another mindlessly. The crime economy became lucrative and conducive. Some criminally-minded young people cashed in on this to turn the zone upside down, transmorgrifying Onitsha and Aba which are the economic nerve centres of the southeast zone into a state of anomy. From there it degenerated to other towns such as Nnewi, Orlu, Abakaliki, Enugu, Umuahia, Okigwe, Owerri, Awka, Umunze, Onueke, Nsukka, Ihiala, Ekwulobia, etc.
The second cause of today’s insecurity in the southeast is the agitation for a sovereign nation from the existing Nigerian state. This age-old struggle has created unforgettable legacies of bloodbath, destruction of property, environmental degradation, sicknesses, malnutrition, starvation, economic sabotage, organ harvest, kidnapping, armed robbery, killings for leisure, stealing, rape, banditry, feud, vandalism, lawlessness and others. Why it’s so was that the criminals that were earlier conquered and ostracized from the southeast cashed in on the struggle for a sovereign nation from Nigeria and be committing crimes of enormous degrees. Controlling the system and separating gravels from the real grains became an uphill battle, almost impossible to do. This phase of insecurity brought a seemingly institutionalized criminal enterprise codenamed “unknown gunmen”. This degeneration was however heightened by the incidence of ” EndSARS” around 2021 which was aimed at rebranding the police force directly by the office of the suffering citizens of Nigeria whom the SARS humiliated in different forms and in some cases snuffed life out of. This exercise took a strong toll on the southeast and Lagos. The struggle for self-determination in the southeast predates today. It began in the year 1967, a movement that was spearheaded by Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu of the blessed memory as a way of redeeming this part of the Nigerian state from the untold marginalization the rest of the zones unleashed against the Igbo race. The war lasted for three years, but was lost by the Biafran party to Nigeria, thereby returning the people of the zone to the very plain they unanimously rejected to ply. Ever since the 1970 that the war came to a halt, the memories of it have continued to ache the people of the tribe and arousing more the urge to secure an independent state by the young people of the zone. While some of the superintendents of the struggle were altruistic about their strive to achieve the dream state for the Biafran territory that captures not only the Igbos, but the Ijaws, Ibibios and the rest of the axes, others were using it to make wealth and expose their loyalists to the smothering wrath of the Nigerian security forces. This haphazard state of things skyrocketed insecurity and created a deeper stuttering security ecosystem that has since grown into somewhat an unofficial war regime. The #EndSARS protests weakened the police and this demoralization helped in creating loopholes through which non-state actors infiltrated the eastern environment and began to wreak havoc on the zone. This went further to heighten the mess that were cases of cultism, kidnapping for ransom, armed banditry, organ harvest, fetishism, threat to life, murder, hostage taking, robbery, felony, destruction of property, killing of security agents and making the zone ungovernable for a number of years now. The arrest of the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu from Kenya exacerbated the insecurity holding the eastern society by the jugular. Crime became a broad institution in the zone as different criminal syndicates came into full force all masquerading as freedom fighters and activists. The continued detention of Kanu even till today imposed a regime of forced sit-at-home order on Mondays in the zone which has been in motion for three years and counting. Many lives and property have been lost in a bid to enforce this. Both civilians and security forces have been direct victims of the sit-at-home menace in the southeast. While Kanu has remained in detention, the resurgence of Simon Ekpa in the business of freedom fighting so to speak catapulted the whole trouble to the next level of killings and superimposition of artificial hardship on the Ndigbo of the eastern flank. Ekpa’s emergence was seen as a hydraheaded menace because his leadership of one of the extemporaneously woven freedom fighting groups, Biafra Autopilot Movement created more lethal signature on the core of the southeast. The Monday sit-at-home was used as an avenue by some groups to advance criminality as the criminal groups all mixed up to claim they’re enforcing the Monday sit-at-home in respect of the detained Nnamdi Kanu whom many saw as the expected and awaited messiah of great repute. His kidnap and repatriation to Nigeria have remained the greatest cause of the unbridled insecurity network in the southeast geopolitical district of Nigeria.
The third cause of the security threat on the southeast is the inordinate ambition of some young people of the zone to make wealth without engaging in known business ventures. This audacious but malignant determination contributed to turning the zone into a hive of outlaws engaging in kidnapping, armed robbery, ritual killings, internet fraud, stealing, swindling, pickpocketing, vandalism, rape, looting of public infrastructure and amenities, organ harvest and child trafficking. This new wave of desperation to become millionaires and billionaires overnight was heightened by the activities of juju priests who urge on these youngsters into crime, telling them to bring money in exchange for wealth charms which in return expose them to risk and danger. It’s under this that harvest of sensitive organs of human beings became a trend for internet romance fraudsters otherwise known as Yahoo Boys. The activities of socialites of the eastern origin who flaunt material wealth on the pages of social media also contributed. These teens upon viewing this resolve to pursue money with the last drop of their blood, taking to heinous criminal endeavours. Their singular dream is to buy GLK Mercedes Benz vehicles and juncate hotels with different girls whom they end up using as sacrificial lambs so as to garner more wealth that doesn’t come in the end. The ostentatious praise singing of the rich by high life music artistes in the southeast is another cause of the insecurity. These children having listened to the personality praise lyrics desire to be praised and mentioned in music tracks, and for this to happen, one needs to make money and give to the musicians well enough to capture them in their music tracks. The mindless monetization of relationships by girls of nowadays which is an offshoot of the moral decadence among the children of today. All these combined to get southeast in this detestable lane.
The final cause of the insecurity in the southeast is the penchant of the people to hide and give cover to emerging and grown criminals in their communities. The people know who’s who in their respective habitats, but their inability to report such to relevant security agencies provides a strong cover to the criminals who have all graduated into being terrorist figures and a bundle of reproach upon the land and its people. Crime they say is local. What this implies is that no criminal arises and blossoms without the knowledge and condonation of them by members of the neighborhoods. On the other hand, the fear of unprofessional handling of intelligence and crime reporting by the police contributes to why crime reporting is an uphill task to undertake. Rather than attempting such risk, the people decide to stay with the emerging criminals and see what they’ll grow to become. Today, in the southeast, every nook and cranny smells blood and danger. Some specific cities in the zone have become no-go areas like Awka, Orba, Nnewi, Ihiala, Umunze, Onitsha, Nibo and the Awkuzu axis of Anambra State. Orlu, Okigwe, Arondizuogu, Mbaise, Owerri, Aba, Umuahia, Isu, Nsukka, Ivo, Awgu, Udi, Arochukwu at one point or another have become war zones with recurrent incidents of bloodbath and destruction of property. People no longer move freely at daytime moreover in Anambra State. And consequent upon these, Asaba has become a resort for the rich Anambra men who can’t access their communities anymore due to the prevailing cases of kidnapping and killings. For instance the entirety of Ihiala LGA of Anambra State has become a danger zone as the town union leaders, political & cultural stakeholders as well as traditional rulers have all migrated from the communities to somewhere else to save themselves from imminent harm. Advancement of development in the southeast has been hampered by this ugly turn of events in the once most peaceful zone in Nigeria. More worrisome is the fact that the state governments seem to have been overwhelmed by the criminal adventures of citizens hustling to belong to the bourgeoisie class without any known business engagement.
Let me quickly suggest a few ways forward to recovering the southeast from the grip of the criminals spread across nooks and cranny of the different southeastern states. It’s quite possible that all these can be routed out soon if the needful is done by government. Things the government needs doing are to create employment opportunities, conducive business atmosphere, investment in security, empowerment of the unengaged young people, investment in the education sector, sensitization of the populace, stoppage on the arming of thugs during elections, altruistic fight against cultism, activities of land sellers and herders. There should be a deliberate effort towards the industrialization of the zone to help keep our
young people busy as it’s said that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop!
° Sir Chika Nwoba, KSC, a public affairs analyst wrote in from Amangwuru Ikwo, Ebonyi State.
