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Anambra massacre: Families of victims frustrating us – police *Vow to hunt down culprits
Despite the crying out that families of the victims of Sunday’s massacre in Anambra State are not cooperating with them, the Anambra State Command, on Monday vowed to hunt down the gunmen who carried out the attack in which no fewer than 12 people were slaughtered, while many others were left with different degrees of injuries.
Nnaghe Obono Itam, Anambra State Police Commissioner, practically accused some indigenes of Nibo community in Awka South Local Government area of not helping matters, stating that they were suppressing information that would assist the police carry out investigation and get the culprits speedily.
The police boss, spoke as witnesses and survivors recount their experience during the incident, which occurred during the celebration of Ọnwa Asaa celebration, a yearly local festival of the community, recounting how the hoodlums, who came in two cars opened fire at the unsuspecting victims at a local joint in the vicinity.
On a visit to the community on Monday for an on- the -spot assessment of the situation, the police boss cited a situation where the relatives of the deceased persons quickly picked up the bodies of the victims and buried them, thereby disrupting what would have provided a lead to cracking the identity of those behind the dastardly act.
Tochukwu Ikenga, a Superintendent of Police (SP) and spokesman of the command, who however conveyed the determination of the command to unravel the identity of those behind the act by doubling its efforts, said: “Anambra State Police command remains committed to the ongoing investigation and to arrest the perpetrators of the cult-related killings in Nibo yesterday.
“The command also frowns at the act of some deceased’s relatives to bury evidence, suppress information and disrupt the ongoing investigation. The Commissioner led Police operatives to the scene, during which he stated that the command had redoubled its efforts to leave no stone unturned in hunting down the assailants.”
The Security Director and Commander of the community’s vigilante group, who identified himself as Wadada, while expressing sorrow over the tragic turn of the annual festival, a beloved tradition for Nibo natives, said: “The attackers entered Nibo through Amawbia during our Ọnwa Asaa festival, marking our new yam celebration. They arrived in two vehicles, a Lexus Jeep and a Sienna, both without license plates. Passing through police checkpoints and the Governor’s Lodge, they opened fire on a group of people in a shop. One of my vigilante men, Uchenna Obiekwe, an only son who was unmarried, was killed.”
He also revealed how many others were injured, including the shop owner and his six-year-old daughter, who suffered bullet wounds to their legs, stating that nobody knew whether the gunmen were cultists, unknown gunmen, or armed robbers, adding: “It was by God’s grace I left the scene before they arrived.”
Another survivor, Ichie Oku, a staff member of the Anambra State Ministry of Information, shared his close brush with death. “You should thank God for sparing my life. I was at a joint on Sunday when they arrived. One of them pointed a gun at me, but another gang member told him I wasn’t their target. Despite this, he still pulled the trigger, but his colleague pushed him at that moment, causing the bullets to hit the wall behind me.”
Oku painfully recounted how three people beside him were killed instantly. The attackers returned moments later, shooting five more people before moving on to Eke Nibo, where they killed four others, bringing the death toll to 12. “It all happened in less than five minutes. If not for God, I would have been the 13th victim,” he said, mourning the loss of two family members, whom he planned to bury the following day.
Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of Anambra State, on a visit, during which he inspected the Eke Nibo Market as part of his routine monitoring of state activities, also consoled the grieving families and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice, while reaffirming his commitment to eradicating cultism in the state.
For not only pardoning Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others on Thursday, but decorating them with national honours, Suage Bade, son of Albert Bade, one of the four prominent Ogoni leaders killed by a mob in 1994 has a word for President Bola Tinubu – you have killed my father a second time.
“Since yesterday (Thursday) night, I started mourning my father again,” the scion of Bade, a retired permanent secretary in Rivers State Government, who later took on the role of a traditional ruler in his native Ogoni community, said on Friday.
A guest on Prime Time, a public affairs programme on ARISE NEWS, television network, Bade saw the move as propelled by the quest for money, accusing Tinubu of being too eager to see to the commencement of resumption of oil drilling in Ogoni land that he did not care about the consequences of his action.
The pushback came just a day after Tinubu, at the celebration of the 32nd anniversary of June 12, 1993 presidential election, now being marked as Nigeria’s Democracy Day, pardoned the Ogoni-9, led by Saro-Wiwa, leader of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), the family of the slain leaders also known as the Ogoni-4, hold culpable for the murder of their parents.
Though the President, who made the declaration in a speech he delivered at the joint-sitting of the National Assembly, did not absolve them of guilt in the crime, which led to their arrest, trial and eventual hanging by the military government of Sani Abacha, after their conviction by a military tribunal, he went ahead to confer on them national honours.
Palpably anguished by the gesture, Bade told his host on Friday: “It is a complete disregard for the memory of our fathers, who actually served this country diligently without blemish over the years and were killed, murdered in cold-blood in broad daylight by the same men that are being honoured today – yesterday – and they made no mention of the four. It’s a very sad development.”
Acknowledging that Saro-Wiwa and the rest might not have participated in physically killing the Ogoni-4, he said they remained blameworthy by vicarious responsibility, because they were the ones who instigated the mob as leaders of MOSOP, the group agitating over the activities of oil companies in the community.
He added: “It is actually a vicarious responsibility on the part of those who were at the leadership of MOSOP at that time. So, if they were leading MOSOP and people were defamed and at the end of the day, they conspired, hacked them down, butchered them and today we have not seen their bodies, how else do you – you know that if somebody assigns somebody to go and kill and you’re not there, you have also killed that person.
“So, he was the mastermind of the killing. I’ve said that before, he was the mastermind for the murder of the four. However, for me, I don’t have anything with the pardon, what I feel that is wrong, which is an aberration is how do you honour a murderer that you have just pardoned. Then you said nothing about the four, our fathers that were butchered to death. They didn’t disappear.
“Pardon is okay, as I said. It’s the President’s prerogative to grant pardon. But to now honour murderers, I think we are now introducing a new low in our Nigerian society, because a lot of Ogonis who escaped and went under the cover of United Nations Refugee Programme, are you telling me if they return, you’re also going to accord them an OON (Officer of the Order of the Niger)?
“We have a lot of respectable Nigerians like Wole Soyinka and other people who deserve such honour. But I can now see why Chinua Achebe turned down such an offe,r because it looks like values are not being considered anymore. You can now be a career murderer and be given an honour in Nigeria. That’s what it means. That’s the new low.
“So, I’m not happy about this because my father was a man who was straightforward. He served and at the end of the day, contributed in development, not only in the sphere of his service, but in Ogoni. But all he got from the people he served, through Saro-Wiwa’s evil rhetoric was for people to hack him down, cut him into pieces and take his body away and till today, there’s no remorse.
“Well, we can’t cry on for more than 30 years. If certain people in Ogoni don’t want to be remorseful for what they did and they want to stand by all the lies, and continue to promote themselves, because they want to enrich themselves – because they have protruding stomachs that cannot be filled and continue an activism that is not real to the people – I want to say for the Bade family and for others, we have reached a point, we hand it over to God.
“I think all of these is all about how to come to Ogoni and get oil and they are in a hurry about it. I’m not in a hurry to betray my father for any form of compensation. In fact, honouring him and putting him side by side with murderers, I don’t think I will accept that. I don’t need compensation.”
Regarding to many who are calling for the total exculpation of the Ogoni-9 of blame over the incident, Bade, attributed it to disinformation, which he said usually led to misinformation adding that a lot of people, particularly the younger generation who did not know the true story, saying if they truly knew the correct story, the situation would be different.
“Just imagine that a man left his house and then he was hacked down. I was there. I saw blood splatter all around the wall in the palace. Today, they refer to that place in Gokana as “slaughter.” People leave their homes and say they’re going to “slaughter.” Then people like Ledum Mitie, Professor Ben Nanem and all those who are agitators for MOSOP, who have the responsibility to turn around for good, they have created a transgenerational catastrophe in Ogoni land.
“This is going to pass through generations and Ogoni is remain divided. I’m so sad. What the President did is wrong. I used to see him as one who listens to both sides and does the right thing. But unfortunately, I think he is misguided and I don’t know why he fell to that.”
A woman who was scheduled to board the Air India flight that tragically crashed in Ahmedabad has spoken about her narrow escape, saying she missed the doomed plane by just 10 minutes, The PUNCH is reporting.
Quoting Mail Online news, the report said Bhoomi Chauhan was en route to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Gujarat to catch flight AI-171 to London when heavy traffic caused a critical delay, preventing her from boarding, and eventually spared her from a devastating crash that claimed 241 lives, leaving only one survivor.
Chauhan, a resident of Ahmedabad, who due to being stuck in heavy traffic, reached the airport 10 minutes later and ultimately ended up missing her flight, told local media that upon receiving information of the devastating crash just moments after she was turned away from the boarding gates, she shivered badly and her legs started shaking.
The Gatwick-bound plane carrying 242 passengers, including 53 British nationals, crashed just moments after take-off.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner careened back down to earth in the densely populated Meghani area of the city just minutes after leaving the runway around 1.40pm local time (8.10am BST).
Terrifying CCTV footage shows the plane appear to lose control before it starts rapidly descending with a high nose angle and landing gear deployed.
Chauhan said her ‘mind went numb’ after she learned of the incident before she returned home. She had been visiting India for a holiday while her husband remained home in London.
Akpabio: Diary of a legislative czar in the Red Chamber
Pardon of Ogoni nine: Tinubu has murdered my father a second time – Bade
How traffic jam saved me from ill-fated Indian plane – woman narrates
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