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Memories of 2021
By Job Osazuwa
The year 2021 that elapsed last night was a year of tears, sorrow and deaths unleashed on Nigerians by criminal elements. It was a year of banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, rampaging herdsmen and bank robberies. Together, they turned many parts of Nigeria into a mini-hell.
A staccato of gunfire and boom of bomb-blasts rent the air from time to time, especially in the North, and caused many innocent Nigerians to take refuge in the bush for days, weeks, and months. Many of them, at home and abroad, dreaded travelling from one part of the country to another on land. Major routes and highways became dens of armed robbers and other criminal elements. Many were waylaid, maimed and others sent to their early graves. Hapless women were, at different times, raped at gunpoint. Houses, farmlands, and settlements were torched. The destruction and losses were simply unquantifiable. Many of the victims sought solace in, and succour, from the authorities. But lifelines became a scarce commodity in the worst of their trying moments.
Security agents, at different points, fought hard to keep the country safe for everyone. But some of our gallant officers paid the supreme price in the course of doing that. But there are some pundits who believe that security agents could have done better if our intelligence-gathering was good enough to nip most of the crimes in the bud.
Bank robberies
While many people were preparing for the Christmas celebration, heavily armed robbers, on December 14, 2021, at about 3:30 pm, attacked three commercial banks in Yagba West Local Government Area (LGA) of Kogi State. Besides carting away undisclosed amounts of money, they wasted several lives while many sustained various degrees of gunshot injuries. This came months after the sleepy town of Isanlu in the same Yagba East Local Council Area, on June 4, 2020, witnessed a massive attack. The rampaging armed robbers invaded a bank in the community and killed many people, including eight police officers.
The state governor, Yahaya Bello, condemned the killings and described the incident as “unacceptable, dastardly and cowardly.” Disturbed by the development, the House of Representatives ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali-Baba to deploy all necessary means at his disposal to apprehend the perpetrators. Leke Abejide, a member representing Yagba Federal Constituency of Kogi State in the House, lamented the predictable pattern of bank robberies in the area.
Following a similar pattern, three persons were in July 2021, killed, and many wounded in a bank robbery that took place in Ilara-Mokin, Ifedore LGA of Ondo State. One of the victims was Olubunmi Afuye, a popular Ondo-based journalist and spokesperson for Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin. The robbers also killed a policeman and a motorcyclist. Eyewitnesses said the robbers used dynamite to blow open the bank’s entrance before carting away unspecified amounts of money.
In another attack, armed robbers, on March 30, 2021, robbed two banks (a commercial and microfinance bank), a petrol station, and an eatery, in Issele-Uku headquarters of Aniocha North LGA, Delta State, killing four persons and carting away millions of naira. As gathered, the robbers stationed themselves at strategic points in the town, while other members of the gang busied themselves with robbing the banks, eatery, and petrol station, unchallenged. They unleashed terror on the town for almost one hour, starting from about 4 pm. An eyewitness said that customers were held hostage inside the bank for almost an hour, while other gang members outside continued to rain bullets everywhere at random.
Bandits, Boko Haram insurgents on a killing spree
The country, in 2021, recorded the second-highest number of casualties from terrorist attacks worldwide, after Afghanistan. Between December 18 and 19, no fewer than 58 persons were killed by insurgents and bandits in Kaduna and Borno States. While 38 were killed in several villages in Kaduna State, 20 were killed by Boko Haram in a village in Askira Uba LGA of Borno State. Houses, trucks, and cars were destroyed in the Kaduna attack, while several persons sustained gunshot injuries in the Boko Haram attack. Agricultural produce were burnt on various farms. The insurgents also razed the residence of the District Head of the village, in the afternoon attack. Apart from Kaduna and Borno, insurgents and bandits spread untold agony across the north and other regions of the country. A data collection medium, Statista.com, revealed that no fewer than 220 civilians were killed in the Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria between January and November 2021.
Herdsmen attacks
2021 was a year that marauding herdsmen unleashed havoc on the country. Many were uncomfortable with the manner and impunity with which they moved their cattle from one town to another in the name of open grazing. It raised huge outcries and led to clashes between host communities and the herdsmen. For instance, in Benue State, many farmers were sacked from their homes and farms. Between January and June, statistics indicate that over 107,130 children were displayed in Benue communities by armed herders.
According to official records obtained from the State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, in Makurdi, in May 2021, no fewer than 17 persons, including women and children, were reportedly killed by armed herdsmen in the home town of the wife of the Benue State Governor, Mrs. Eunice Ortom, in separate attacks on two communities in Gwer West LGA of the state. The attackers who reportedly burnt down and sacked the inhabitants of the community, also left scores injured and many fleeing to the nearby Aondoana community. In a similar development, on June 6, 2021, six days after the Chairman of Amotekun Corps in Oyo State, General Ajibola Togun (retd) raised the alarm over some foreign herders’ plan to unleash terror on the six states in the South West, scores of gunmen attacked Igangan in Ibarapa North Local Government Area of the state killing about 20 people.
The gunmen, confirmed to be herdsmen by Mr. Taiwo Adeagbo, spokesperson of Igangan community, set ablaze the palace of the monarch. The South East and South-South regions were not spared in the herdsmen onslaught in 2021.
Unknown gunmen in South East
South East region of Nigeria experienced high rate of insecurity in 2021. In fact, the killings and other social maladies gravely affected the growth and development of the region. For instance, gunmen on October 19, 2021, killed three traditional rulers in Imo State. The traditional rulers were reportedly having a stakeholders’ meeting at the Njaba Local Council headquarters at Nnenasa when the hoodlums struck and killed them.
Dr. Chike Akunyili, the husband of the late Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, Prof. Dora Akunyili, and eight others were killed, again by some gunmen, in September in Anambra State. On September 19, 2021, gunmen went on the rampage in the South-East, killing three policemen, torching INEC office, and dispersing a political meeting. In all, 26 security officials and 11 others were killed by non-state actors in two weeks. Courts were shut down in Imo as lawyers protested the gruesome killing of their spokesman.
In Anambra, unidentified gunmen shot and killed three policemen at a checkpoint in Onitsha. According to a source, the incident happened around 10:00 am. In the course of the attack stray bullets killed a commercial tricycle operator and a young man close to the crime scene. The operational vehicle of the cops was also set ablaze. The incident forced many residents of the area to run for cover while others went indoors. It was so worrisome that in June 2021, the Brigade Commander of 34 Artillery Brigade, Obinze, Imo State, Raymond Utsaha, lamented the constant killing of soldiers by gunmen, adding that over 38 soldiers and 78 policemen had been killed in the prevailing insecurity situation across the South-East.
Kidnapping everywhere
In 2021, there was hardly any part of Nigeria that was safe from the activities of kidnappers. In October, the United Nations Children and Education Fund (UNICEF) revealed that 1,436 schoolchildren and 17 teachers were abducted between December 2020 and October 2021. It also disclosed that about 16 schoolchildren lost their lives in the process of their abduction within the period.
UNICEF representative in Nigeria, Mr. Peter Hawkins, who disclosed these facts during the 27th meeting of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), held in Abuja, noted that the situation remained volatile and uncertain in the North-East, North-West, North-Central and other parts of the country. He added that more than 1000 schoolchildren were abducted by armed bandits in northern Nigeria, in 2021 as schools in the north became prime targets. Incessant attacks have turned much of northern Nigeria into a haven for kidnap gangs and hell for thousands of families. The crisis has threatened to derail school attendance in a region where child illiteracy rates and child marriage are quite high.
In May, 128 students preparing for exams were abducted. at the Bethel Baptist School in Kaduna. On September 4, 2021, Olajide, a final student of Pharmacy at Igbinedion University, Okada, and younger brother of the publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, was killed. Sowore claimed that he was killed by suspected herdsmen operating as kidnappers. In April, Mr. Ben Ukpekpi, the leader of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in Cross River State, was kidnapped for the second time in 16 months. He later told journalists that the kidnappers occasionally allowed his family to speak with him to show he was not dead.
A month earlier, Ayodeji Odetunde, a final-year student of the University of Ibadan, was kidnapped at his father’s poultry farm by a gang which originally demanded N100 million. He was released three days later after his father paid a ransom of N12 million.
Indeed, 2021 would be remembered as one year that crime of all shades took centre stage across Nigeria.
