Dear Bamishe,
Many of us neither knew you nor heard about you until the news of your kidnap and dastardly killing inside BRT Bus was thrust into the limelight. The country went aflame! The women howled, the girls wailed, men of goodwill were aggrieved. We were and still are bitter about what happened to not only you but the many victims of kidnap and ritual killings. You died an unfortunate death, but you have exposed the evil monster in a hood. Who would have ever suspected a BRT bus? A government-owned and managed transport system? Only God knows how many have hitherto fallen victims of this heinous crime.
Please when you get to heaven, there are many things we need you to tell God. Tell God that Nigeria, our home country, is besieged by evil and evildoers. We are not at war, yet peace is far away from us, and tranquility has eluded us. Tell Him that killings and kidnappings have become the order of the day. Tell Him we live as refugees in our fatherland. Tell Him that the situation has got out of control and those who ought to protect us are the ones killing us. Tell God that they now use the body parts He gave us to make money, to seek power and to seek election victory. Because they are involved, they cannot protect us. Because they are involved, they cannot stop it. Tell God that ladies’ underwear, used sanitary pads and used babies’ diapers are now in high demand by these evildoers, how to dispose of them has become a headache for the users as they dare not dispose of them in the waste bins! Our youths now drink human blood as morning tea and munch human faeces as dinner.
Tell God that it was bad government that killed you. Tell Him that there is no security in our land. Tell God that no one is safe, nowhere is safe. Tell Him that Uchenna Chijioke, my kinsman, was murdered right inside his car in Onitsha, Anambra State. Tell Him that little Hanifa Abubakar was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by her school proprietor and buried right inside the school in Kano State! Tell God that Timothy Oludare, a master’s student of the Obafemi Awolowo University who lodged in a hotel in Osun State was murdered (allegedly by the owner of the hotel), and his corpse was buried in a shallow grave on the hotel premises! Tell God that Iniobong Umoren was murdered in Akwa Ibom State where she went to seek a job. How about Rofiat, the teenage girl slaughtered by her 17-year-old boyfriend and his friends in Abeokuta, Ogun State? Her head was chopped off and used to make a barbeque! Tell God about her too.
Please don’t forget to tell God that even His Church is not spared in this bandwagon of senseless killings as Uwa Omozuwa, a UNIBEN student was raped and murdered right inside the church! Where then do we turn to? Even staying at home is not safe. Chiamaka, Miracle and Peter, were the three children kidnapped by their parents’ co-tenants in Ifo, Ogun State. Shall we continue counting? The list is endless. What is more, none of these victims has got justice, at least not to the public knowledge.
Please tell God that while other countries advance in technology and human development, our home country, Nigeria, advances in ritual killing and witchcraft. Tell God that the Unknown Gunmen are known, and bandits are ‘noblemen’. They wine and dine with powers that be. Tell God to have mercy on our land and wipe away evil people, not for our sake but for the sake of our children and generations yet unborn. Let God arise.
- Unegbu-Ibebunjo is a Lagos-based lawyer
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