BY IYORWUESE HAGHER.
He died like a fowl. Two urchins on a rickety motorbike approached him. The passenger on the bike clasped death tightly in his bosom. He raised his head to see the two young men approach him. He smiled at them hoping he could help them, as he sat near the perimeter fence of his old property at Katsina-Ala. They didn’t smile back. The passenger Aondover Nyough, a nephew of Dickson Orlu Pawa, leaned on one side and Bang! Bang!! Bang!!! It was over! The rickety motorcycle snorted away in a bored drone carrying the deadly duo to another assignment, another target on a long list of politicians in Benue state of Nigeria who must be eliminated.
It was on Friday, 17th July at eleven o’clock in the morning that the assassins triggered and killed Rt. Hon. Atoza Ihindan. He died sitting. He was aged seventy-two. He becomes in history the first high profile political assassination in Nigeria since the first fifty days of Buhari’s presidency in Nigeria. Although not a household name in Nigeria (until now), in Benue state, he bestrode the political landscape like a colossus. An educator and academic, he left the classroom to join politics. He was elected and re-elected member of the Benue State House of Assembly. He made his mark as a great debater and became a Cicero of the assembly and the political class. He not only brought colour to politics, he was brilliant, eclectic, erudite and passionate in everything he did. No body liked to be on the opposite side of Atoza’s formidable rhetoric. He was quintessentially a born contrarian imbued with a formidable sense of humour. His strong grounding in French philosophy and literature provided a perfect garnish to his oratorical accomplishments. It was difficult to defeat him in debates. But since that fateful morning his lips have been silenced forever. Silenced by a gun whose trigger was pulled against a man the urchin hardly knew. One victim has been added to fourteen others killed in the previous one week in the local government of Katsina-Ala, Benue, Nigeria. But the assassin Aondover Nyough has been arrested by the local youth and handed to the police. Orlu Pawa: Ortom’s chief security officer has been reported to the police as the mastermind of the assassinations.
President Buhari’s zero tolerance of political assassinations as policy pits his will against the killers in Benue state where political conflict has reached a boiling point. Politicians hire armed robbers, militants and cultists to eliminate their opponents. Armed youth patrol local villages, raping, stealing, vandalizing, cattle rustling, and killing at whim. Katsina-Ala local government is my Local government and my place of birth. Today it has also won a dubious notoriety to become the assassination capital of Nigeria. The warlords in Katsina-Ala boast of infinite connection with the government at the state level. Each time a person is killed or kidnapped and the community blows a whistle a few youth are arrested. Then they are taken into police custody for a few days until an influential politician comes to bail the criminal. On return to the communities they wreck havoc in retributive vengeance killing with gruesome humour. A friend of mine and a local politician in Ukum local government; Mr. Anyamtswam was crucified on a mango tree in the middle of his compound. His offence was reporting crime. My herdsman Musa was dragged from my compound in May this year and hanged by the youth in my village daring anybody to raise a finger. They did it as fun. They watched him die and laughed at his pleas for his life to be spared in return for money or cattle!
There is no greater evidence of failed state status like Benue state where human life has no value. Like Somalia a decade ago, human life is cheap. People doing business must pay protection rackets to cult leaders, armed robbers and a ubiquitous militia that brandish firearms as if we are at war. And we are at war. Lawlessness wars law; disorder wars order and violence has overcome peace just as hate has plucked love from the hearts of the insipid senseless political class. But it is really only a matter of “for whom the bell tolls.” It may not toll for you and me today. The bell tolled for Atoza and fourteen others. It will surely toll as long as the conditions that make conflicts to escalate to violence exist and persist.
A society that is riddled with politically motivated killing has already taken a path of no return. Development will not reside here until there is perfect peace. You wonder why there is no generalized rage at the contempt for life exhibited by those in power. Apathy, cynicism and hopelessness have taken over. Most Local chiefs are helpless and confess so. Others are in joyful company with the outlaws who steal and rustle cattle to share with them. A traditional ruler in Katsina-Ala rose in a meeting some months ago after the elections and declared that the outlaws were more important to them than the useless politicians who cannot match the value of the outlaws to them!
The people of Sankera axis and most parts of Benue have sunk into apathy, hopelessness and cynicism. Divergent political realities have robbed the people of human feelings. Political opponents are reduced to grotesquely distorted stereotypes that deserve elimination. We don’t empathize with the dead or their families. A shocking massacre like the one in Benue does not deserve a presidential mention, even though the timing was perfect. It was done when the president was taking off to the US. But the mind of the Nigerian is numb. Too many atrocities have inoculated our minds to passivity. The Nigerian mind in order to save itself must conjure a deliberate numbness and collective amnesia that liberates those in power from the guilt of responsibility and a guilty conscience – that is if politicians have a conscience around here.
My heart goes out in sympathy to Governor Ortom who must be both a Christian Theocrat and a politician. Watching him dance and sing “move on the righteousness of God” shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of the Christian Churches in Benue state today while murderous things are happening in his state is deeply ironic. We are moving on the righteousness of God while the souls of the citizens perish. Those who are alive can see the light from the tunnel of a speeding train that crushes justice and human rights, coming against them. I clearly see Ortom’s dilemma. How could he allow his Chief Security Officer who is a person of interest Superintendent of Police Dickson Orlu Pawa to be arrested, investigated and even tried? Pawa is a righteous man and much more. He is a born again brother. Besides, the said Pawa, richly deserved his appointment having fallen out of favour with his previous boss, of over seven years, Dr. Gabriel Suswam and in a deft move of political calculation moved into Ortom’s camp that won at polls. He is an unusually gifted person on security matters so much so that two Governors who openly hold each other in derision require him to continue to fan the embers of hate. This is one appointment that Benue State could have done without. The person of Orlu Pawa who was the embodiment of the much hated and maligned Suswam administration till the very tail end of Suswam’s regime, has become the cornerstone of Ortom’s security operations. The Governor is the Chief Security Officer of the state. But Pawa is the Governor’s Chief Security Officer. He governs the governor and is not a small man to be easily brought down by unproven allegations. Political enemies of Ortom are at it again! It is these political considerations, arrogance of power and hubris that chain the arm of justice and the sinners get free while the sinned against get punished.
The pathetic narrative of blames and counter blames within Benue seem to have forgotten that unarmed Benue citizens were killed. The dead will leave a retinue of wives, children dependents and followers. When a political figure is assassinated it impacts not only on their loved ones but thousands of their supporters, associates and followers. The social media is cruel to suggest that Ortom was happy because he was dancing at a Christian function in his Gbajimba Local Government while condemning the massacres. Ortom is my friend and I know him well. He is not a killer. Ortom is a born again Christian who rejoices with those that rejoice and mourns with those that mourn. I was on Ortom’s side when I read his implied homily at that occasion which was drawn from his Theocratic doctrine drawn in Job. 36: 11 that “ If they (Benue People) listen and obey God, then they will be blessed with prosperity throughout their lives. All their years will be pleasant.” But when I read the next verse Job 36:12, I saw something that frightened me. “But if they refuse to listen to him, they will perish in battle and die from lack of understanding.” It is my hope that the boys that are on rampage killing PDP chieftains and massacring the people are not doing this through the warped belief of a religious judgment against those who have refused to listen to God’s anointed in Benue. Atoza Ihindan certainly refused to listen to the Ortom’s self declared messiah-ship to Benue as ordained by God and no tribunal can snatch his mandate, as his lawyer announced to a delirious crowd of supporters. Atoza dared to go early to the tribunal and sat in the front pew believing that another God, the God of justice that is alive, will retire Ortom from his messianic mission to Benue state. But Atoza is no more. He will no longer hear the verdict of the tribunal. He lies in the morgue with lethal wounds from those who have made their mind that their power is same with God. They deprive others of a life they didn’t give.
Mr. Tahav Agerzua, Ortom’s image-maker frightens me with the same intensity that the fear of Orlu Pawa instills in me. The former police boss, retired Police Commissioner Abubakar Tsav, wrote in the papers expressing concerning and urging President Buhari to investigate killings in Benue because of their political undertone. Tahav fired a quick succession of salvos at the retired policeman. He said that Tsav’s comments ascribing responsibility to the Chief Security Officer of the state, Governor Ortom were “baseless and mischievous”. Ortom’s attack dogs can’t brook introspection. They believe in the righteousness of their cause the same way the fanatics of Boko Haram believe in the righteousness of their cause. How many more assassinations should take place in Benue state before a citizen can cry to the President who promised to unravel assassinations? But my fear of Tahav is the deep injury he inflicts on Ortom’s governance. When he asks why Tsav was silent when Gwa Jande of Benue State University and Pastor Adoor were assassinated, the impression is being given that perhaps assassinations took place under Suswams administration and they were okay, and since nobody questioned them nobody should question Ortom’s records of assassinations either. Both Tahav and Pawa were Suswam’s kitchen cabinet members. Now they both work for Ortom doing valuable work of creating political space, while the spate of assassinations grow in intensity.
Unless President Buhari takes over and compels the dysfunctional political class of Benue to rise from their self-destruction we are going to dig deeper and deeper into the quagmire. Former Minister Comrade Abba Moro accuses the APC of the assassinations in Benue state. The Other Abba, also a comrade (of?) who is the APC Chairman blasts the former minister, with his own AK 47. He tells the minister to shut up, he is a gunrunner and that it is Suswam who is killing his followers, from exile because he didn’t win elections, and because these followers took his money but didn’t deliver. Here again is an attempt to ignore the tragedy and mock the victims as an alibi. The simple solution is to rid Benue State of warlords, criminal gangs, and officials armed with vengeance. Let crime be investigated and the facts laid bare. The law does not permit any person no matter how high to take another person’s life.
A government that cannot take criticism or responsibility but buries its head and neck in the sands can do little about the flies nestling on its backsides. Ortom is governor today. He might not be governor tomorrow. Nobody in a democracy governs forever. We govern by laws. The Ortom I knew was not a killer. But power corrupts. He should do the decent thing. He should allow the prime suspect in the assassination of Hon. Atoza Ihindan to be temporary relieved of his powerful position where he is still supervising security in the assassination belt of Nigeria with impressive increase in figures of assassins and victims. After all Benue and Nigeria are better than one man’s ambition to hang in the Government House Makurdi at all costs. Police superintendent Dickson Pawa should be prosecuted by the police or a private lawyer if the State refuses to prosecute him. If he is innocent he should be reinstated on his rank in the police, but if he is guilty he should be corrected! Whosoever had a hand in the killing of Hon. Atoza Ihindan and massacred 14 other citizens must be tried, convicted and punished. Anybody who killed in the past or present or who steals money meant for the people should be brought to book. Period.
Finally, I must say I am deeply worried that all is too quiet among all the Benue Senators. Could they be saying the PDP members killed got what they deserved? Could it be this has not affected them in any way? Apathy is the involuntary homage of the Nigerian political class to the unfortunate, the poor and the disadvantaged powerless. But all too soon, we all must face the reality of life when we embrace that moment in life when the Assassin’s bullets fall on someone near and dear. This is my moment. These are my fallen heroes. They are my kinsmen and women. They belong to my clan base. I am deeply affected. But I am not carried away from my life creed to pursue peace at all times because no price is too much to pay for peace. Without peace we tear our societies and ourselves apart.
I mourn Rt. Hon. Atoza Ihindan, Chief Iormanger Moughna, Elder Orseer Ajon, Elder Ihomdue Nyamken, Mrs. Veronica Terfa, Mr. Kator Terfa, Mr. AJa Samuel, Mr. Aja Mesuur, Mr. Anweh Kente, Mr. Ugese Aondo, Ityavyina James, Mrs. Doom Monica Yina, Mr Unom David, Mr. Ernan Aseta and Orseer Mgbanye. Since I heard of your senseless death I have kept repeating to myself the words of the Bible in Philippians 1:23 “I am torn between two desires: Sometimes I want to live and sometimes I long to go and be with Christ. That would be better for me. But it is better for you that I live.”
