OBINNA OKPOKIRI: THE WICKEDNESS IN THE HEART OF MAN

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MURDERED NYSC MEMBER WORKING AS AD-HOC STAFF OF INEC IN THE GENERAL ELECTIONS.

Earlier on today I was writing an article titled “The Fall of The Tin God and Delta State Gubernatorial elections”, it was a piece about the Ibori / Uduaghan years in Delta state and the chance for Delta voters to end their stranglehold on the state.

Unfortunately I had to stop the article midway. The reason was because by sheer coincidence of fate, I got an SMS and email within one minute of each. The former contained the telephone number of Joyce the elder sister of the late Obinna Okpokiri and the latter that of the younger brother; Kingsley

Instantly I parked the Ibori article to one side and after deliberating which one to call first, I dialed Kingsley Okpokiri. Surprisingly he sounded strong. He was full of thanks for the coverage about the brutal killing of his brother. I wanted to know how his parents were coping. According to him their father was alright but their mother was in bad shape emotionally. He then asked for me to speak to his older sister Joyce. Words can never quite capture people’s emotions so there is no wayI can possible come near recreating the emotions that came down the line as I spoke to Obi’s sister. There was strength in her voice and bucket loads of grief. I will try my very best to rehash our conversation.

As at 18:30 hours 25th April 2011, over a week after the brutal murder of Obinna, no representative of the state / Federal Government had been in touch with family. The officials of the NYSC are yet to official confirm the death of Obinna. The NYSC, they were told, is still in the process of trying to confirm the actual number of those that died before contacting individual families. According to them it is possible Obinna did not die and might be one of the Youth Corps members who fled into the bush! Seriously you couldn’t have made it up! How did these people sneak into the genetic pool talk more of ending up in positions where they oversee the welfare and safety of our wards?

The Okpokiri’s have been the ones chasing the NYSC for answers instead of NYSC officials providing them updates. It sounds to me as if the Okpokiri family members have hit a brick wall in their search for their son or his body. They have been told, by unconfirmed sources, that Obinna’s body is at the General Hospital in Bauchi. I have been personally informed by a reliable source about a conspiracy of silence by Government (both state and Federal) and the NYSC to keep a lid on information regarding the actual number of corpers killed as they are predominantly from a particular section of the country. The strategy I have been told is to keep the bodies until after the elections when they will be quietly released to the various families. This is to ensure the remaining elections are completed without the threat of further disruptions in the form of retaliatory attacks.

No election is worth the trauma and agony the Okpokiri’s have been going through. They at the very least deserve the dignity of properly mourning and paying their last respects to their son. This family is not alone in this situation, there are many others. The family of Ukeoma Ikechukwu is most likely facing the same situation. I have been told about a 70+ year old devastated woman whose last child was one of those also murdered. There are the dead what about the traumatized survivors? What about the girls that were raped? How do they begin to heal? It seems to me that nobody really cares. After all Youth Corps members are dispensable and life is cheap in Nigeria.

With time the true horrors of what happened in the North will come out. I tried very hard not to smash my laptop when I read about the harrowing experience of some corpers that survived the human carnage in Kastina state. According to NEXT newspaper over 100 Corps members had gathered at the Police station in Daura Katsina state. Preparations had been made to move them to the state orientation camp that had better security and facilities, but just before they could move off, under armed guards, the NYSC Katsina State coordinator, Abdul Salisu Taura in nauseating show of power and incompetence, stopped the planned relocation and instead gave each member N1, 000.00 and then vanished into thin air. The corps members were left in the open and by next day had to make their own arrangements.

Their first attempt was to make a written application to Yusuf Bala Usman College of Legal and General Studies, Daura, for a bus to convey them to the orientation camp. I have lifted the section below directly from NEXT newspaper.

The school authorities initially refused on the grounds that they needed to see the security which would accompany the vehicle they would release to the corps members. But when Captain Omotade with several soldiers drafted to ensure the corps members safety presented himself, the school's provost, Husseni Umar, in the presence of the registrar, Mohammed Daura and the director of works, still refused citing several reasons.

"One, it is unlawful for the army or the police to come into the school premises. Two, we cannot guarantee the safety of the people if we release our vehicle. Three, are corpers of a privileged group that they alone need protection? I am the chief security of the college and I will not release it. Even we as a board we have superiors we report to," Mr. Umar said.

The underlined above is nothing but pure evil. The provost would be out on his ear in any civil society but this is Nigeria we are talking about, a place where incompetence is tolerated and evil appeased. I have riled against General Buhari and I have run out expletives to describe him, in private, and I have no intention of wasting another computer byte on him. But one man who has literally hit the bottom and is now digging in my opinion is that guttersnipe called Pastor Bakare. He is a man without shame and in his heart ego and wickedness are in constant battle for ascendency

Here is a man who claims to be a man of God who has not deemed it proper to empathize with families that have lost their wards or members. Lets forget about Pastor Bakare not coming out to speak forcefully against his party supporters as they killed people burned churches and raped women. Lets assume his word did not carry any authority with the rioters but what has stopped this supposed man of God from publicly offering words of comfort to the grieving families?

Pastor Bakare demonstrated crass insensitivity when he talked to the media about his house getting burnt. According to him the house was insured and as soon as he was certain his children were safe, he slept well in his hotel room. Haba Pastor! As you roll side from side to side on your hotel bed, spare a thought for parents like Mrs Okpokiri who have not had a good night’s sleep since this horror show (you titled “Wild Wild North”) was put on by your CPC party supporters. Spare a thought for those who could not afford to insure their humble dwellings that were burnt to the ground and are now at the mercy of the elements. Spare a thought for the countless girls and women that were raped by your party supporters. Pastor Bakare was more concerned about going to court to contest results of the elections. Pastor was the election in your ward also rigged? On the two occasions he spoke to the media, Bakare made a song and dance about the cause of the fire at his Lagos home, even though one of his church members had said it was spark from his son’s room. But Bakare the consummate rabble rouser wants us to believe otherwise, according to him, the cause was not a spark but a mystery. Really Pastor? Try Holy Ghost fire.

Pastor Bakare is just like every other selfish leader we have had in Nigeria, they are happy to use other people’s children as cannon fodder whilst they shield their own from harm. Like I said before, the death of these corpers must not be swept under the carpet. We must keep it in the public consciousness and in this regard I must thank Nigeria Village Square for what they have done so far. They were the very first to publish the story when others pulled back from it initially. I must also thank the friends of Obi, especially Olachi Okoro who have worked tirelessly in the background. We should all ensure the foot soldiers and their sponsors who killed Obi and others are made to face justice. No one is advocating retaliation, all we ask is justice and that is not asking too much.

Written by Patrick Okene. [email protected].

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