By Steve Uzoechi
Owerri, the Imo State capital, is known for a lot of things but not violence or terror. The city loves life and lives it unapologetically. Owerri is particularly known for the good life. A robust night life, enchanting weekends and the knack for celebrating festive seasons to the fullest, all add up to the true social character of the city. Needless to add, the city boasts of the largest concentration of hotels and eateries in the entire South-Eastern Nigeria, with the attandant regular influx of patrons from within and beyond the region. So the average Owerri resident has high ambitions and places great premium in human life. He works hard to make enough money to pay his bills and live a good life.
Easter Monday like no other
So when on Easter Monday, the staccato of automatic gunfire and multiple bangs of explosives kept residents awake from 1:00am till dawn, it was a rude awakening to the emergence of a new order of lawlessness in the city. The attack shook up and challenged every belief and perception held about the city of Owerri – its crime types, security and public safety. Before now the Government House Layout, where the attack, that left the state Police headquarters and the Owerri Correctional Services in ruins, occurred was perceived as impregnable and the most secure part of the state capital. Not anymore or at least, now argueable. Especially not with the horrid experiences of visitors that stayed the night of Easter Sunday in the city and residents alike.
Ugly experiences
Bethel (second name withheld for security reasons) lives in their family house located within the triangle of the Owerri Custodial Centre (prison), the Police Command headquarters and the Government House. For him the wee hours of Easter Monday was like walking through the valley of the shadow of death while the crack of dawn brought a reprieve from a nightmare. He told his story: “We live in the centre of the affected facilities. It was slightly past 1:00 am last Monday when all hell was let loose. We are not new to the sound of gunfire living within the vicinity of these security facilities but the loud reports that shattered the peace of the neighbourhood that Monday morning was on a different level. “My father and mother are aged pensioners who are still managing their blood pressures and it is still a miracle they both did not pass out that night. As the bullet rains fell outside, managing my aged parents was Herculean.
“I succeeded eventually when I calmed them enough to lay on the floor in the sitting room while I dashed into the bedroom to bring their two grandchildren who were fast asleep, on their demand. “Everything appeared to be shaking following the unending loud reports of automatic gunfire and explosives. It was not long I heard feet land within the compound, I peered and saw a policeman clutching his AK-47 loooking for where to hide, not long after another two jumped over the fence into our compound both clutching their guns and one wearing just boxers, they scurried to hide in the dark.
“I thought my home was under attack believing the gunmen were waiting to bust our doors. I was frantic, but it was when I made calls to the Police command and prison guards I know, that I realized that the men in my compound were running for their lives.
“Soon after, three prison inmates also jumped into our premises frantically looking for a means of escape. “By 3:00am relative calm was returning and by 4am, I noticed that the Policemen and inmates in my coumpound had all disappeared. By 6am, we opened our doors and walked outside, grabbed a lung-full of fresh air, my parents made a note that the family will plan a thanksgiving service for our survival. “We realized the whole neighbourhood was awake and had not slept a wink. We got the full information of what happened and around 7:30am, some of us went back to sleep as it was a public holiday after all.”
There are many other similar stories as told by Mr. Bethel. A lodger at a hotel, which is located about 200 meters from the scene of the attack, said she lost control of her excretory system and had to use the toliet more than seven times before dawn as her blood pressure soared.
“All the phone calls I made for help, none was answered. “I blamed myself for lodging in Owerri. I came into town in good time and I could have as well gone straight to my village but I decided to stay the night in a hotel and go home Monday morning. “A lot of thoughts ran through my mind and I blamed myself for anything that may happen to me. My bad state was worsened when I dared to peep through my window. I saw a crowd of persons running and some marching briskly along Wetheral Road, coming from the Government House axis. “I thought to myself, ‘Owerri is under attack and the people are fleeing and I am here sitting duck in a hotel room’.
“I arranged a few of my things I could carry and was about going downstairs to escape the city when I saw through another window that the hotel gate was still locked and the hotel security men were peeping through the gates at the fleeing crowd in the streets.
“They made it clear that the hotel gates stayed locked until they understand what was going on. “I went back to my room. It was in the morning that I learnt that the crowd running, were the fleeing prison inmates. Only God knows what would have happened to me if I had blindly fled into the crowd.” Even Rockview Hotel located within the triangle, which is widely considerd the safest and most secure hotel in Owerri, felt the horrible impact of the night. Guests were awake till dawn. By as early as 7am, several of them were already checking out, still struggling to figure out what happened. As usual, the hotel fortified its in-house security but it was not their war. A guest, who confided in our correspondent, recalled his horror.
He said: “There is a security post near the walls of Rockview hotel and around the Government House roundabout. Two patrol cars parked under the tree there were burnt by the attackers. “While they were burning, parts of the tree also caught fire and it is a slightly tall tree positioned very close to the walls of the hotel. From a distance, you will assume Rockview was on fire. “Some of us nearly blew a fuse because we thought the attackers were about to burn the hotel. But thank goodness it was not their target and the hotel management were professional, they took time to reassure guests.”
Immediate implications
With the obvious fact that the state government and security agencies still seems to be guessing and wondering what happened last Monday, it is doubtful they have put any action plan in motion yet. Until that is done the logical implication of that attack and apparently the safest assumption now is the fact that the Government House Layout is not as safe as we have been made to believe. That implies that residents of the Government House including Governor Hope Uzodinma are not safe spending the night in the Government House. Already, there are reports that the governor neither sleeps in the Governor’s Lodge nor his country home at Omuma for security reasons.
The question now is, if the governor of Imo State feels unsafe in a state he presides as first citizen, then who is safe in Imo? Another implication of this attack is the fact that residents of Imo and its environs would most likely experience an upsurge in crime in no distance time. This is premised on the fact that more than 1800 prison inmates were freed from the Owerri Correctional Services and about 500 other suspects from the detention cells of the tactical units in the Police Headquarters.
It has been reported that about 85 inmates are back in custody but even that is not encouraging, as no fewer than 2000 criminal elements are presently on the loose in a state that had barely managed its crime rate. An impeccable prison source confided in our correspondent that of all the 85 returnee inmates of the prison, none fall into the category of the dreaded Hardened and Condemned Inmates (HCI), inferring that there was nothing to cheer about afterall.
Taking responsibility
While the civil society group, Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to take responsibility of the galloping insecurity and devaluation of human life in Nigeria, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Imo State has called on Governor Hope Uzodinma to quit his blame game and take responsibility for the collapse of security in Imo state. Executive Director of RULAAC, Mr. Okey Nwanguma in his reaction to the incident, told Nigerians to demand the resignation of President Muhammadu Buhari if he proves incapable of protecting Nigerians. Nwaguma, who deplored the response of the Police authorities to the attack in Owerri, regretted that insecurity is growing and worsening by the day in Nigeria for obvious reasons as the present formations are not designed or structured for optimum performance. According to him: “Government is politicising security. The criteria for the appointment of heads of security agencies are not competence and professionalism, but politics, ethnicity and religion.
“Secondly, it is either that government is not investing enough in security or the resources invested are being mismanaged. “Either way, the buck stops with the President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The primary purpose of government is security and welfare. If the President is incapable of securing the citizens he is ‘elected’ to secure, then, we (Nigerians) should not hesitate to ask him to resign.” Frowning at the resort to blame games by Governor Hope Uzodinma, the PDP Chairman said: “It is unfortunate that rather than think out plausible explanations to Imo people, Nigerians and the world, the governor and Chief Security Officer of Imo state, Senator Hope Uzodinma, chose to go about speaking tongue-in-cheek. “In his speeches and interviews since after the incident, he has blamed the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the Eastern Security Network (ESN), the opposition and God-knows who else.
He struggles rather subtly to exonerate himself and his regime of any complicity in the sad incident. What has happened is a catastrophic failure of governance.” The PDP regrets that Uzodinma’s blaming of IPOB, ESN and opposition parties all at the same time merely trivializes a serious security issue to a guessing game which clearly depicts unseriousness. “It is nauseating that Uzodinma tells lies with much ease. We thought the incident was too grevious to be subjected to the rubrics of politics and politicization as the governor has been doing,” the party said.
