Uniport Killings: Metaphor for a Debased Life – By Arnold A. Alalibo

Posted by admin Arnold Alalibo, Articles, Columnists, NNP Columnists, Rivers, State News Friday, October 19th, 2012

By Arnold A. Alalibo | NNP | Oct. 19, 2012 – Biringa Chiadika Lordson, a Theatre Arts student, Ugonna
Kelechi Obusor, a Geology undergraduate, Mike Lloyd Toku, a Civil Engineering
student, all year two students of the University of Port Harcourt, and Tekena
Elkanah, a Certificate in Education student of the same university, knew pretty
well that death was certain for all mortals. But what they did not know was
that their time had come. On Friday, 5th October 2012, the four youths were
brutally cut down by a mob at Omuokiri, Aluu, a community adjoining the
University of Port Harcourt.

The incident attracted wild outrage and shock given how the
students were crudely debased, thoroughly beaten and eventually hacked to death
by gleeful villagers who accused them of stealing a laptop computer and a
phone.

However, soon after the killing, pictures and videos of
which were widely publicized on the internet, various versions of the story on
the cause of the unfortunate incident emerged.

One account had it that the deceased students were cultists
who actually went on a failed mission to kill. Another version of the story
stated that one of the victims, who was accompanied by his slain colleagues,
went to demand a debt owed him by a friend in the community. And somehow, in
the course of demanding the money, an argument ensued and the debtor raised
alarm referring to them as thieves and alerting the indigenes of the community
to come to his rescue.

Unfortunately, the incident coincided with a sad state of
insecurity in the community. Consequently, the boys were rounded up and taken
to the chiefs who gave them a summary trial and ordered their execution against
their plea of innocence. They were then stripped, paraded as robbers, beaten to
stupor with all manner of instruments and burnt alive later, even when there was
no clear evidence of stealing established against them.

The Rivers State Government reacted promptly to the
killings. Speaking in a pensive mood on behalf of the government, the state Commissioner for
Information and Communication, Mrs Ibim Semenitari, declared that the state
governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, found the incident unacceptable and
reprehensible. She said the government was alarmed at the gruesome killings and
had ordered a full investigation into the incident.

“This crime will not go unpunished, she said, and added that the traditional
ruler of the killer-community, Alhaji Hassan Welewa, who allegedly ordered the
killings, and other suspects, had been arrested by the police for
interrogation.

Apparently touched by the killing of his students, the
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Joseph Ajienka,
called on law enforcement agents to unravel the circumstances surrounding the
incident. He declared that no one had the right to take life.

“We condemn all forms of criminality. The authority of the
University of Port Harcourt wish to state here in unequivocal terms that nobody
has the right to engage in extra-judicial killing or resort to self-help no
matter the level of provocation,” the VC stated.

He announced the suspension of the students’ week billed to
commence on October 8, 2012. He also said flags were currently flown at half
mast in honour of the students. According to him, security had been beefed up
within and outside the campus to forestall breakdown of law and order.

Smarting from the devastating effect of his son’s murder,
Mr. Toku Mike, an Assistant Director, Programmes. Radio Rivers, and father of
one of the victims (Lloyd), narrated how he got a distress call that his son
was being beaten up by a mob.

“On Friday morning at about 7am, we got a distress call that
our son was being beaten up alongside three of his friends. So we quickly
rushed down. Initially, it was very difficult for us to locate the place. By
the time we got there, we saw a huge crowd with a few Joint Task Force members
there. I moved close to the four corpses on ground and I discovered that one of
them was my son. We were also able to identify the other three boys as his
friends. We took the corpses to the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital
(UPTH) to ascertain whether they were still alive. A doctor came out, examined
them and said they were all dead. My son has never stolen before,” Toku
explained amid tears.

He called on the government to punish the killers of his
son.

“All I want is for justice to be done. That’s all. Whoever
carried out that dastardly act should be brought to book. That is all I want. I
have not got that assurance. No one has talked to us yet.”

Toku berated the police for not doing enough to avert the
ugly situation. He, however, acknowledged the presence of the police at the
scene, but claimed he was told by a policeman that the crowd numbering about
3,000 people, over-powered the police. He said it was unusual for the police to abandon the mob
without being able to save the situation.

The public Relations Officer of the State Police Command,
Mr. Ben Ugwuegbulam confirmed the incident, but debunked claims that the police
were over-powered and fled the scene, but met the boys already dead. He
dismissed the allegation and described it as spurious.

The African Representative to the World Assembly of Youth,
Mr. Marvin Yobanna, disagreed with the police image-maker and blamed members of
the force for their slow response while the lynching of the students was going
on. He called for the sack of the Divisional Police Officer of the area and the
security officer attached to the university.

Mrs Jane Toku Mike, mother of one of the martyrs, also
expressed shock that the crowd could watch her son and his friends bizarrely
murdered. Jane spoke with The Tide and said:

“When we got there, one of them was still breathing. He was
gasping for breath, but the crowd were all there watching while my son (Lloyd)
was butchered.”

Continuing, Jane said:

“I went to Salvation Ministry with my son on Sunday and we
came back. He then gave me a book; ‘How Faith Works’ by David Ibiyeomie, and he
said ‘mummy read this book and you will understand what faith is all about.
When I return on Friday you will tell me what faith is all about.’

“I went to that scene and saw the lifeless body of my son on
the internet, his burnt body, his butchered body, his tattered body. Oh God,
what did my son do? Justice! Justice! Justice! Oh Jesus, my first son, my first
son, Jesus.”

Also, Mr. Messiah Obuzor, who lost his only son (Ugonna) to
the Aluu killing, spoke to The Tide with rage and outburst on the killing of
the boy. He said he was informed about the killing by an unknown person, who
invited him to the emergency ward of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching
Hospital (UPTH). He got there, according to him, and saw the lifeless body of
his son.

“I saw him butchered and burnt. I touched the body of my
son, the boy I have actually taken time to raise because I lost the mother in
2005. Since then I am their mother, I am their father. I did everything for
them. I went to the market and cooked for them. My son is not a thief. He has
never stolen from me. He is not a cult boy.

“Somebody decided to kill him. While I was crying in the
mortuary, I was told that the chief of the community ordered that he should be
killed. Let the chief tell the world what the boy did,” Obuzor lamented.

A sociology lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, Dr.
Sofri Peterside, related what happened at Aluu to the total breakdown of norms
and values in the area. He described the bestial act as un African and berated
some Uniport students for watching the torture and killing of their own
colleagues.

“What has happened is that the Aluu community has
demonstrated that there is a total collapse of norms and values in this area.
Because even within the African tradition, our people have a very high regard
for life. But what we have seen in this incident has brought to the public a
total collapse of norms and values.

“You need to shout when you see this kind of thing happen
and not just swallow everything hook, line and sinker and only filming. In this
age of information technology, you can stand and send information across the
world,” Peterside stated.

Meanwhile, the senate also joined in the widespread
condemnation of the killings. The strong reprobation came against the backdrop
of the incessant killings on campus particularly the recent massacre of over 40
students in Adamawa and Borno States and now the Uniport slaughter.

The upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly
passed a resolution asking the police and security agencies to fish out the
perpetrators of the crime including the
spectators captured in the video making the rounds and prosecute them
accordingly.

Against his earlier position on state police, the Senate
President, David Mark, moved by the killings, stunned everyone, and called for
its introduction to check the worsening insecurity in the country.wp_posts

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Posted by admin on Oct 19 2012. Filed under Arnold Alalibo, Articles, Columnists, NNP Columnists, Rivers, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry