29 Nov 2007 |
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By Chukwudi Ede No, I am not writing, or talking about petty thieves, pocket pickers, yams or cassava thieves. I mean thieves armed with machine guns, semi-automatic weapons, bazookas, and rifles. They are well organized, operate with military precisions, strike as lighting, and as deadly and destructive as volcanoes. These are the men and women of underworld. I pray and hope that none of my loved ones, friends, acquaintances, or even my enemies, ever fails a victim to the men of underworld. These armed robbers are brutal, heartless, vicious, and are scumbags of the worst order. An encounter with any of them, if you are lucky to survive the ordeal, you will remain a dead man walking. It is because of the activities of the Nigerian armed robbers that many Nigerians living abroad, are scared to death to come to visit, or come back to live in Nigeria. Some have even made unannounced visits, so as not to alert potential armed robbers. When they finally arrive in their own country, and homes, they are afraid to walk the streets, sleep in their homes, drive their cars, and visit their parents in the villages because they become unnecessary targets to the men of the underworld. I know, for sure, many who have encountered these armed robbers have horror stories to tell. A family friend from America visited his hometown, in Anambra State, with his wife and their three children, on December of 2003, to celebrate the Christmas. These armed bandits visited them in their home. Fortunately, my friend, out of fear for the lives and security of his family, solicited for police protection for the duration of his stay in his hometown. When the armed robbers struck about 7.00 pm at the bedtime on the D-day, they were surprised that there were some police men, well armed, to engage them for more than four hours of gun battle. During the operation, unfortunately for the armed robbers, the police killed their leader, who was a medical doctor. The police out gunned them, and they ran away, abandoning the remains of their leader. The bandits came back reloaded for another onslaught that night in an attempt to retrieve the body of their leader. Meanwhile, the children, who were just about to go to sleep, were aroused by the battle of the machine guns. They kept on asking their parents what was going on, while they were busy docking and dodging the bullets that riddled the walls and the windows of the house they called home. Luckily, my friend, his wife, and their three children survived the ordeal of the night, what a night! They were able to escape alive, with the help of the police, they walked to a place of safety, abandoning all their belongings for their dear lives. They were back in the United State of America without celebrating the Christmas in their hometown as was previously planned. Thank God, my friend and his family are alive today because of the intervention of the Nigerian Police Force. My friend and his family, especially the children, are still having a nightmare about their horrible encounter with the men of underworld. They have never visited Nigeria since the incident, and they are not planning to visit in a near future. What a shameful thing. Open our daily newspapers; they are always reporting the activities of these armed robbers. If they are not operating on Lagos - Abeokuta road, it is on Onitsha - Enugu road, or Umuahia - Port-Harcourt road, or Enugu - Abakiliki road, or Abuja - Lagos road, etc. The activities of these men and women of the underworld do not stop on the highways alone. They extend their activities to homes, banks, businesses, and market squares. You name it. No wonder after building houses, and installing doors and windows in most of our cities, you have to fortify them with extra burglary iron proofs. Sometimes two or three layers of burglary proofs are installed before you can get to your bedroom. People are prisoners in their homes, simply, because of the activities of the men and women of the underworld. This will surely tell you how bad or worse security has gotten in some of our cities. Such newspaper headlines, as “Armed robbers in Military uniforms kill two in bank raid” as reported by the Lagos Vanguard on Tuesday, September 9, 2003, are very common on our daily Nigerian newspapers. In the above episode, the newspaper reporter, stated as follows, “Barely a week after five armed robbers were killed in Ondo state after hijacking and robbing a billion van belonging to a bank, another gang of 12 armed robbery suspects have raided the Akure branch of a bank, and carted away unspecified amount of money. They also killed two people.” It was also reported that the armed robbers killed three police officers during the shoot out. The stories about a notorious armed robber named Anini, are still vivid on our memories. This bastard terrorized the whole country for many years. He bit the celestial dust after the Nigerian Police Force finally cornered him. The activities of these men and women of underworld have no boundaries. It is the same story of stripping their victims of their hard-earned money and possessions, rape, kill, and leaving their victims scared for life. There is a common expression that the enemies of my enemies are my friends. The Nigerian Police Force has earned bad reputation because of the bad eggs, and there are a lot of them, among NPF. But if it is true that “In 2005, police officials told Human Right Watch that from January 2000 to March 2004 police personnel killed 7,198 ‘armed robbers’ in ’combat.’ Remarkably, during the first three months of 2004, the police claimed to have killed 422 armed robbers in shootouts, while recovering only 300 firearms.” If after thorough investigations, and it is established that these people killed were truly armed robbers, I do not have any problem with such a report. How many Nigerians have lost their lives and possessions to these scumbags in the same period? How about the police and their families who lost their lives in the line of duty fighting these bastards? Are these not fair questions to ask? Please give me a break. During some of these operations, the NPF have lost some of their men. Would you then advise the police to try to apprehend these armed robbers while the police are being shot by these men, just to grant them due process and justice? That will be unconscionable. The men and women of the underworld do not grant their victims due process and justice. Or, do they? They are the scumbags of our society. Most of them would like you to believe that they were forced into armed robbery because of unemployment. The leader of the armed bandits that attacked my friend and his family was a medical doctor like my friend. My only disappointment with the NPF is that the sweep has not been extended to our past and present corrupt leaders and politicians like Ibrahim Babangida, James Iboris, Patricia Etteh, Orji Kalu, Andy Uba, David Mark, Obasanjo, Atiku Abubakar, and the rest of them, who, instead of carrying machine guns, have used their offices and positions to loot millions of our wealth to enrich themselves and their sycophants. I do not see how anybody, or organization, can come to the defense of these ruthless criminals in the name of justice. As fire drives out fire, so be it. More kudos to Okiro and his boys, if they are bent on rooting out the activities of these men and women of underworld in Nigeria. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. If you are not an armed robber, do not behave like one, period. GOD SAVE NIGERIA FOR WE ARE ALREADY BLESSED.
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