By Ozumi Abdul
The prayers and pride of all parents in most African societies, my beloved Ebiraland inclusive are always to have them buried by their children.
In fact, it is considered an abominable disaster when parents shed tears over the deaths of their children, or bury them with their own hands while they are still alive.
They would go out of their ways to do everything within their power to avert such fate from befalling them because it’s ill-luck and ill-fate on their part.
However, this age-long potent belief since the coming on board of this outgoing administration of Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello close to eight years now has been consistently reduced to mere fictious and mythical one, as old parents, especially mothers, now cry over the deaths of their sons.
In some cases though, these old parents still die before their children, but it’s usually abrupt deaths because of the psychological inability to cope with the depression of having their children who mostly fend for them in incarceration without traces. Some even lose their sigts after years of umpteenth and consistent sobs.
My intents for writing this piece are not to indict Governor Yahaya Bello, and his administration that have been able to fight and suppress the issues of insecurities to a standstill in the state, rather to subtly call his attention to how some people who are allegedly close to him and his government are hellbent on tarnishing his award-winning record of the best governor in terms of security.
I sincerely want the governor to swing into action within these few weeks he has left in office, and quickly prevail on his subjects to have people who they allegedly condemned to Illegal incarcerations released, or account for them in case they are no more.
These alleged individuals are proverbial bats who are neither birds nor rats, they are without identities, they neither have the love of Ebiraland at heart, nor that of the governor, who on the lips service they profess to pay loyalty and allegiance to.
What they are mostly concerned about are their political and personal interest, they don’t mind whose horses are gored, they can sacrifice anything and anybody who are threats to their status quo.
Amid all wrongs, they would never tell truth to power they are very close to, because they don’t mind if the governor fails or not, in as much as their interests are protected.
They would equally do everything humanly possible to shield and frustrate whoever that has the ingenuity to tell the governor the realities of the state from assessing him, because they thrive in falsehood, lies, distortion, deception and fabrication.
These individuals would take people who dare to voice out publicly their displeasures towards some of the government’s anti people policies to the cleaner. They do this by hiding under the veiled guise of the governor’s directives, because they consider such constructive criticisms as threats to their avaricious self-aggrandizements if they get to the governor. Go and consult Mr Garido in Okengwe, who happened to be the only survivors of their nefarious onslaughts to tell you the tale.
They have been simply giving the governor bad names all along, they not honourable, but horrible.
I watched in pains, with broken and shattered heart an emotionally-disturbing viral video last week, wherein an old woman, who should probably be an octogenarian (in her late 80s most likely) was crying out her heart and almost had her voice hoaxed.
She cried and her eyes became swollen and misty, while also intermittently muttering words of pleas to Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello to come to her aid.
It wasn’t as if the grey-haired old, poor, wrecked, hapless and helpless woman from Ihima, in Okehi Local Government Area of the state was actually sick, and thus seeking the governor’s assistance to foot her medical bill. A big NO! It’s far off it.
Her pleads to the governor was simply for him to prevail on his appointees to release her only child who was reportedly whisked away in the sedate of a nightfall to an unknown location for alleged political reason.
Her ‘politically’ motivated kidnapped son, Kashim, she said was the sole sustainer of the entire family; a father of five, and husband.The old woman narrated how life has been hellish and nightmarish for the entire family Kashim left behind over eight months ago that he has been in incarceration of the alleged ‘unknown government men’.
As we speak, whether Kashim is still alive, or exterminated while in immurement remains unknown to virtually all of us, but clearly known to those who have their hands all soiled in his heinous ‘political’ kidnapping and durance.
Another sad, notable and attrocious political kidnapping similar to that of Kashim, that was reported via viral WhatsApp voice note barely a month ago was that of one Dahiru, also known as Decorous.
I also listened with heavy heart, as his aged mother narrated her sad ordeals.
The old woman had already lost her sights as a result of umpteenth sobs, because Decorous is her only surviving son that fends for her.
He fathers children numbering up to minimum of seven from two wives, and he is the sole fender for his immediate family and old mother.
According to the accounts of his two wives in the viral WhatsApp voice note, three months before Decorous unlawful “arrest”, arguments were said to ensued via phone call conversations between him and his old childhood friend, who is now a “powerful” member of the Governor Yahaya Bello’s cabinet.
Amidst the conversation via phone call, threats of him going to prison was said to be made by the said supposed childhood turned ‘powerful’ appointee friend, then Decorous retorted, challenging him to go ahead to execute his threat of him going to prison, else he is a bastard. Then three months after, masked men on military uniform were said to stormed Decorous’ yougourt factory and forcibly whisked him away with three of his workers who protested against their boss’ unlawful “arrest”.
I’m not alleging anybody as the orchestrator of his abduction here, but pardon me for using a Yoruba adage as a logical analogy thus: “Aje ke lale ana, omo kuloni, ta ni o pa omo? Meaning, a witch blubbed yesterday night, then suddenly a child died this morning, who then killed the child?
Again, a proverb in our native Ebira dialect would ask that, when a limping man enters a house, and moments later, a limping masquerade exited that same house, then who is in the masquerade?
Thus, threat of imprisonment was made during phone call conversations, then months later, Decorous a devout Muslim, who had no issues with anyone before then was allegedly kidnapped, and till date nothing has been heard of him, who then was behind his kidnapping?
If he (Decorous) and Kashim that was equally ‘kidnapped’ eight months ago in Ihima District were in any way found wanting to have broken the law, why were they not arrested in accordance to the dictates that are within the ambit of law, and get prosecuted in the the courts of competent jurisdictions?
Why were they ‘kidnapped’, leaving their families and loved ones in the dark over their whereabouts?
Now, after years and months respectively that these Ebira sons were ‘politically’ abducted, whether they are still alive today or extra-judicially killed, is a question no one can boldly answer including their family members.
No one can rightly attest to any of these two fates that must have befell Decorous and Kashim now, no one knows their whereabouts, and the kinds of treatments they are subjected to, but only their political abductors and orchestrators.
Sadly enough, there are tens or twenties of Kashims and Decorouses across Ebiraland whose fates have been decided in these similar heartless, monstrous and inhuman manners that are unheard of.
Their family members would only mourn in what German Noelle Neumann described as spiral of silence, accept their fates, move on, while the tales of their kidnapped brethren are interred eternally into the abyss of history.
They are gone forever and never to return again, their family members would hardly see them again. Their children especially those who are very young during the abductions of their fathers would hardly know the facial identities of their fathers again.
Who then takes up the responsibilities of these emergency-orphaned children, as they journey down the routes of futures laden with uncertainties? What are their fates of not becoming liabilities to themselves, their families and societies in future?
What about their emergency-widowed wives, what are their fates?
As I drop my pen here, I ask again, at whose behest are all the heinous political kidnappings and killings in Ebiraland? Who are the orchestrators?
In as much as answers can’t be readily be provided to these questions for now, one thing the culprits of these crimes to humanity should discern is that Anebiras don’t forget, they hardly forgive people who had committed attrocities against them.
Stale pounded yam can still be freshly hot even after hundred years. These individuals should better know this now that posterity shall take its due course
