Last Sunday’s attack on the convoy of Senator Ifeanyi Ubah signals the sad but enduring import of the 9-11 attacks. America was hard hit on September 11, 2001, by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group Alqaeda. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in various places in the United States. It is instructive that the violent attack took place on September 11, the same day Ubah’s convoy was hit. The world has not escaped the activities of gunmen. They have once again stirred the dust in Anambra State.
Governor Chukwuma Soludo hardly had a smooth start in his ascendancy as helmsman of Anambra State. He came with great zeal and rolled up he sleaves. He had applied for the job on more than one occasion such that when the people hired him, as he puts it, he was ready to hit the ground running. He came across as one who knew the direction he was headed. He went to work the same day he was sworn into office. One of his first ports of call was Okpoko, the ghetto in the commercial city of Onitsha, and he deployed Caterpillars to clean the gutters as the first step of a move aimed at pulling the place out of the comity of slums. He visited the correctional centres, an innovation, I often wonder how he averted his mind to it, gave inmates food and cash gifts, and promised those whose stay in the gulag was undue that he would get them out of the place.
His zeal was matched with appropriate action before gunmen turned the coming joy into ashes in the mouth. The governor became heavily distracted by the activities of gunmen who turned the state into a killing field. Soludo did not rest in his oars. He went after the gunmen, given that security of life and property remains the bedrock of whatever goodies he has for the state. For the avoidance of doubt, Anambra was not the sole victim of the operations of gunmen in the South East but it would seem that the state was a notch higher than others: 95 people were killed in the state as at May 2022 in violent attacks by gunmen. The data was obtained at the Council on Foreign Relations Nigeria Tracker, a website that tracks violent incidents related to political, economic and economic grievances. From the data Anambra had the highest number of fatalities with a total of 95 within the period under examination (about one year). This certainly pales into insignificance juxtaposed with figures from states in the northern parts. Coming from a known peaceful state, such figures are worrisome. In a single incident on February 26, 2022, 20 people were said to have been killed at a burial ceremony in Ebenebe, Awka North Local Government Area. In another incident, six people died during a clash between gunmen and security agents in Ewkulobia area of Aguata Logal Government Area on February 13. In May, Okechukwu Okoye, a lawmaker in the Anambra State House of Assembly, and his aide went missing but his headless body was later found somewhere along Nnobi Road in Nnewi South Local Government Area. Governor Soludo Promised a N10 million reward for whoever would give information leading to the apprehension of the killers. The lawmaker was from the governor’s constituency. Barely one month after, a former lawmaker, Nelson Emeka Achukwu, was killed and beheaded by unidentified gunmen. It was sad because his family said it had paid N15 million to his abductors. They still beheaded him. They said he had been their captive in the past for allegedly giving damaging information to security agents. In his own testimony, they released him when the information was found to be false. They killed him on the last count.
Now they came for Senator Ubah. No one seems to have put a finger on the mission of these blood-thirsty gunmen. They have made the state a killing field. Ubah’s media assistant, Kameh Ogbonna, said the senator would have fallen to the bullets of assassins but for the bulletproof car he travelled in. People with the means may go for bulletproof cars. Given its efficacy in the matter under examination, the demand may be on the rise. Only a handful can afford such cars in spite of the preponderance of multi-millionaires in the state.
The buck returns to the table of the governor, and the security agents. Governor Soludo has given a tough fight to gunmen in the state, and results had begun to show, until this attack on a sitting senator took the wind out of his sails. States in the South East have done well in fighting this menace but, as the proverb says, addition of salt as ingredient in making soup can only be effective when the taste is obvious, given that anything else is a waste. The governor must lead the security agents to apprehend the perpetrators of this heinous act for which the blood of no fewer than eight people was shed. This is one too many. Political killings are strange to Anambra State, which is why investigators may fix their gaze on gunmen, although the Ubah attack has the trappings of an assassination attempt. Governor Soludo had gone a step higher when he met with Nnamdi Kanu who told members of IPOB not to unleash violence on those for whom they want to lead to political freedom. It can only be people who have found cover in IPOB to perpetrate evil. The group has consistently noted that the gunmen are not its members. The gunmen must be made to face the full wrath of the law.