Nigeria’s Election As Point And Kill!

 By Emmanuel Onwubiko

Some days before the presidential election of February 25, 2023, I was awoken by a chat informing me of the possibility that the election may not be taking place in seven Local Government areas of Imo State. The Senior Director of the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission, who brought this sad tale, also tasked me to find out why this is so. 

The Director expressed shock, consternation and disappointment that the insecurity in the South east of Nigeria has been allowed to degenerate and is now a hydra-headed monster. The person expressing this worry is not even Igbo Speaking but he is genuinely concerned about what has gone on for two years now in the Igbo heartlands.

I admit from the word go that there is no justifiable reason on why election should not take place in the 21 local government Councils of Imo State both on Saturday 25th February 2023 being the Presidential and National Assembly poll and Gubernatorial poll coming up sometimes in March, exactly on March 11th 2023.

This is so because for populations in a chunk of the entire local councils in Imo State to be denied their Constitutionally guaranteed civil and political rights to vote, it therefore means that the Country’s military and the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari have surrendered to the whims and caprices of agents of instability and destabilization. It was said before that government is the wielder of the most overwhelming force of controlled violence. But to see the unfortunate degeneration of Nigeria into a huge ungovernable spaces in which armed terrorists are permitted willfully by the Central government to operate and kill at will, represents the most significant act of treachery tolerated, incubated and waged by members of the powers that be.

The fact is that for a Nation to actually and practically beat her chest and say that it has sovereign authority over a geopolitical entity, it can do so with certainty when the armed forces under the direction of an effective political leader can guarantee territorial control.

The Armed Forces of Nigeria and President Muhammadu Buhari therefore should be made to give account should this unfortunate scenario happen and the electoral umpire actually fails to conduct election in 7 local Government Area of Imo State.

Be that as it may, it is so obvious that the military and police have actually failed to be on top of the situation of widespread insecurity and killings that have escalated in the South East of Nigeria since the last two years when President Buhari ignited this climate of unease and insurgency by picking and detaining the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

Besides, the tempo of the violent killings and attacks of government and private housing assets, keeps increasing as soon as there is a landmark negative development regarding the prolonged detention of the IPOB leader and thousands of his supporters by the military, police and the Department of State Service (DSS).

With the brazen disregard of the court of Appeal, Abuja, judgment freeing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu after all the charges of terrorism slammed on him by the Federal government led by Muhammadu Buhari, an erstwhile military despot, the rate of targeted execution of individuals in the South East by fringe groups purporting to be advocating secession from Nigeria, escalated.

So, by his actions and inactions, it is fair to state here that President Buhari, is responsible for the violence in the South East I want to say right away that there is no justification for the spate of killings. No amount of injustice by President Buhari should justify the kind of destruction and killings that some armed non State actors and even State actors have unleashed on the South East thus making politics a point and kill adventure.

Aside from the Universal fact that politics is expensive, indeed very costly, what is now very burdensome is the fact that politicians who are desperate for the spoils and privileges of office in Nigeria’s kind of parasitic politics, have now started paying killers to assassinate any strong rival they perceive as a huge threat.

Many politicians have paid the supreme price only for aspiring to be elected in the different capacities either within their states or to gain seats in the National Assembly in Abuja, which is obviously the most juicy legislature in the whole wide World. One issue that motivate the competitive type of politics is that politicians in Nigeria see their election as opportunities to Rob the Country of her resources and amass illicit wealth.

For instance, the law makers at the National Assembly of Nigeria are the highest paid anywhere in the world including even in the developed western societies like Britain and the USA. Politics in Nigeria has always been winners take all, but there is now a new dimension making it a point to kill adventure. The following killings have taken place:

The Labour Party (LP) candidate for Enugu East Senatorial district, Oyibo Chukwu, has been killed and burnt to ashes by his assailants. Oyibo, a lawyer, was said to have been attacked while returning from a campaign trip in the Agbani area.

It was gathered that he was burnt inside his vehicle, and three persons were suspected to be with him in the vehicle. However, it could not be confirmed how many of the occupants were killed. Information about the attack was made known by the Labour Party in Enugu State.

It was also gathered that the All Progressives Congress (APC), governorship candidate in the state, Uche Nnaji, was also attacked at the spot where Oyibo was killed. The Labour party’s House of Assembly candidate in Onuimo Imo State was earlier killed by assassins.

The incident happened at Mr Eleghu’s country home in the Umucheke community of Onuimo council. The assassins, set his home ablaze after killing him and also burnt down his vehicle and other valuables.

Some weeks back, an LP women leader in Kaduna Victoria Chintex was killed.

Gunmen have equally targeted offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the South-East state in the past months. The most recent one which happened a few days back claimed some lives. But INEC said critical materials were not destroyed in the incident. “This is the third attack on the Commission’s facilities in Imo State in less than two weeks following the earlier attacks on our Orlu LGA office on Thursday 1st December 2022 and Oru West LGA office on Sunday 4th December 2022.”

Not long ago, the abducted Sole Administrator of the Ideato North Local Government, Imo State, Christopher Ohizu, was beheaded, filmed and posted on social media but the Imo State police command, the Department of State Services and all the security agencies could not arrest the killers or prevent this primitive act of criminality from happening.

This is as some politicians in the area are reported to have fled to Imo State capital, Owerri for their safety following the killing. It was gathered that Ohizu’s abductors had allegedly received N6 million ransom before beheading him on Sunday.

Ohizu was abducted with bullet wounds alongside two others after his country home at Imoko community in Arondizuogu area of the state was attacked.

The gunmen also razed the LGA premises.

Following the murder of Ohizu by gunmen other council members and members of All Progressives Congress (APC) have reportedly gone underground. It was reliably gathered that politicians have fled the council for Owerri, state capital of Imo state.

From Southern Kaduna comes the story that gunmen had killed the women leader of the Labour Party (LP), Victoria Chintex in Kaura LG of Kaduna State.

Publicity Secretary of the LP in southern Kaduna senatorial zone, Edward Buju revealed this in a statement. According to Buju, she died on Monday after gunmen invaded her residence in Kaura and shot her. Her husband was also said to have sustained gunshot injuries and is currently receiving treatment at a medical facility.

The involvement of money in politics is also the main motivation for these attacks.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, had said that over N500 billion old naira notes stashed by politicians are yet to return to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Abdulrasheed Bawa stated this when he appeared on Channels TV’s Politics Today.
The EFCC chairman added that the commission had a lot of information on some of the means politicians were devising to buy votes during elections.

So politics in Nigeria is seen by politicians as money making gambit has made those seeking for political offices and those holding public offices as endangered species. It is reported that gunmen kidnapped the wife of the traditional ruler of Amuro autonomous community in the Okigwe Local Government Area of Imo State, Ugoeze Umugborogu.

Apart from kidnapping the monarch’s wife, the rampaging gunmen also burnt the country homes of the chairmen of All Progressives Congress and Labour Party in Amuro ward. The development caused panic in the community as residents fled their homes.

Okigwe LGA has in the last few months become a hotbed for criminal activities.
Some gunmen razed five houses in Amagu Ihube community in Okigwe LGA which included the houses of the state commissioner for youths and sports, Emeka Okoronkwo, a former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Imo State University, Nnamdi Obiaraeri, a retired Director of State Security Service, Nnaemeka Ngwu and two others.

Gunmen had last week razed the country homes of the Labour Party House of Assembly candidate for Okigwe LGA, Nnaemeka Obiaraeri and that of the Director General of the candidate of the Labour Party Okigwe North House of Representatives election, Okey Unam.

It is obviously late to expect that President Muhammadu Buhari will change his lackadaisical attitudes to the spate of insecurity.  The best bet is to await the result of the election to see if the will of the people won’t be subverted.

If the President elected by the majority of the voters emerge after the poll, it will be the first major assignment of the winner to do something fast about the state of insecurity as soon as he is sworn in on May 29th. It is self-evident that the ineffectiveness of President Muhammadu Buhari has turned politics into a do-or-die affair or what we can now call a point-and-kill adventure.

*Onwubiko is head of the Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria and was National Commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria.