Special Report
By Anote Ajeluorou
Since news broke that Kelvin
Oniarah, kidnap kingpin has been arrested by the joint action of Joint task
Force (JTF), the Nigerian Army, Directorate of State Services (DSS), many
Nigerians have heaved a sigh of relief, especially those who had previously
been kidnapped and released with or without ransom being paid. Since early in
the 21st century when Nigerians woke up to the reality of kidnapping started in
the Niger Delta, as part of protests to give back to the locals a measure of
their oil wealth, there has been unease in that part of the country.
Overtime and increasingly, kidnap for ransom
purposes became elevated to an evil art of sorts, with the original intention of
drawing attention to the exploitation of oil resources at the expense of the
host communities lost in a babble of confusion. But with the kidnappers
becoming ever daring in their operations and unsettling whole communities and
the state becoming helpless, some cheer greeted the arrest of Kelvin Oniarah,
the Kokori-born, Delta State kidnap kingpin.
But while the rest of the country and those
who had fallen victim to his evil schemes breathe a sigh of relief, the entire
Kokori community is in agony because of a wayward son. Indeed, while the memory
of Kelvin may be fading away in Nigeria’s collective consciousness, with him
cooling his heels in detention somewhere in Abuja, a siege had probably just
begun for poor Kokori folks, who knew little or nothing about Kelvin. For
others in Kokori, Kelvin is likened to the late Ken Saro-Wiwa or Isaac Adaka
Boro, who were at the forefront of campaigning for fair and equitable use of
the oil wealth in Kalabari and Ogoniland. For them, Kelvin had only just drawn
their attention to the immense possibility of enjoying the oil wealth in their
land, which had long been denied them.
For the Kokori locals, who hold this view,
Kelvin had only just opened their eyes to the sheer deprivation the community
suffers in the hands of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) operating in
Kokori and its conniving partner, the Federal Government. While Kokori
community had hosted Shell’s oil operations for several years, with no less
than 36 oil wells, larger perhaps than can be found in some states among
oil-producing states, there was no infrastructural development of any sort in
Kokori to show for this.
This is the source of new anger in Kokori in
the heels of Kelvin’s arrest. For this group of Kokori citizens, mostly women
whose husbands and men have fled town from possible arrest in JTF’s lumping of
the entire community as Kelvin’s collaborators, there is need for urgent
dialogue with government, specifically with President Goodluck Jonathan and
Delta State governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan. They insist on amnesty both for
Kelvin for fighting for the community’s neglect over the years and immediate
release of the men arrested in the town.
More than these, the women, who have taken
effective control and governance of Kokori in the wake of the absence of their
men who have virtually all fled into exile for fear of reprisal attacks from
the few angry youths that were not arrested, want government to step in and
massively develop Kokori, rescue it from its abject poverty and put it on the
path of development. They also want JTF out of Kokori. For now Kokori is a
locked community, with the heavy presence of soldiers doing a round of patrol.
Also, the women cried out that there is
hunger in Kokori as soldiers were not allowing them to even go to their farms
to get food. They want the soldiers out. For most neighbouring communities,
visiting Kokori is out of the question for fear of being molested by JTF
soldiers, who have promptly mounted several road blocks on all the roads
leading to town.
THE
taxi man who took me to Kokori only agreed to do it because he was originally
from Kokori. But even at that, he wanted to know and asked me several times as
we made our way from Sapele to Kokori if I really wanted to go to Kokori. For
all the taxi drivers at Amukpe in Sapele, Kokori was a no-go place. Although he
was from Kokori, it was clear that he was only going there because I was ready
to pay his exact taxi fare far above what it ordinarily cost to get there.
I experienced a slight queasiness at his
questions, but it fired my adrenaline at the same time. I needed to see for
myself what had become of an otherwise peaceful community turned up-side-down
by the action of one misguided youth. He was ready to turn back and forfeit the
money even if he badly needs it, especially on a Saturday, when Delta Central
Senatorial District was having a by-election and was locked down as a result.
When I affirmed my willingness to continue the trip, he only grunted. All
through the drive, he wore a grim look, as if he was going to the warfront
himself and uncertain what his fate would be.
But like all Deltans, he was communicative
all the same. On the election, he said he would not vote, that it was a waste
of time, as the politics did little or nothing to add value to the people’s
lives. I asked him why he was still driving a rickety car, when the state
government had previously made available new cars to some of his colleagues? He
said those cars passed through a certain ready-made road and that if you didn’t
belong there, there was no chance you owning one.
He was bitter about politics and the use to
which Nigerian politicians put it. According to him, his son, a graduate for
two years now, couldn’t find employment, and he had had to continue fending for
him. Fed up with the situation, he bundled him off to Warri to learn deep sea
welding, where he hoped the boy would later find employment with any of the oil
mining companies.
In outlying towns and villages along the way, the
election was going on. At all the school premises from Aragba through to Eku,
Okpara Waterside, Egon, Samagidi, Egbo, election activities were in progress.
However, in Kokori the story was not only different, it was bitter. There was
no election. According to the town’s Council of Women, which had taken
effective control of administering the town following the ordeal they said JTF
meted to them, with most of the men either arrested or having fled town. They
vowed not to take part in any election until peace and sanity had been restored
to their community.
At the outskirt of Kokori the cab stopped at
a JTF roadblock. He searched through the car. When he saw my bag, he sought to
know its content. When I told him, he asked to see for himself. I opened it. He
asked me who I was; I told. He then sought to know my business in Kokori. ‘Just
visiting a friend,’ I replied.
When he saw the small laptop in my bag, he
asked me to step out of the car with it. I did and he took me to the shed. Two
of his colleagues were about, with one sitting on a bench and cuddling his
riffle. The young soldier then asked me to open the laptop for him to see some
of the files in it. I did. While it was opening, we started small talk. He
picked a file on the desktop and clicked it open.
“You pressmen are always writing false things
about us,” he said. “The other day one (not The
Guardian), one said we had declared a curfew in Kokori, but we did not.
Once it’s six o’clock, they will just lock their doors themselves. Is that how
to do things?”
“Well, officer,” I ventured, “in that case,
the army should carry the media along by coming out with its version early
enough. Rumours have a way of growing wild, you know. If Army Headquarters
comes out with its side, we publish it.”
“You are right. You people should help put
things as they are and not report falsehood.”
“We try our best, officer.”
At this point, one of his colleagues, bored
with the seeming zealousness of his younger colleague, asked in Yoruba to let
us go. Just when he was about to let us go, the file he clicked on opened. It
was Kalakuta Daries! He looked at me
with a measure of benign amusement. I quickly explained that it was friend’s
book I’d helped to edit on the life of the late Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo. He didn’t make much of it beyond
that. He asked us to go.
A young girl who rode her bicycle passed the
JTF roadblock was sternly asked to go back some 50 metres and a roll her
bicycle on foot before she could go pass the roadblock. The girl was deemed to
be rude and impudent to have ridden pass and not walking!
It was clear my taxi man had been thoroughly
discomfited by the encounter; he expressed his relief when he pulled his
smoking cab out to a tap in front of a house. His radiator had gone burst and
he needed to top water every now and then. He had topped it when we left
Sapele.
From the beginning of town and as we inched
our way inwards, it was clear Kokori was a deserted town. The taxi man first
commented on the near-emptiness. At the famous Egba shrine, said to provide protective juju for Kelvin, we saw
some people gathered. We mistook them for those who had come to vote. We drove
pass them towards the market; only a few persons who sat in the eaves of
rundown houses were about. There were cars smashed in places, smashed louvres
and doors in some of the houses as well. The taxi man turned round and drove
passed the Egba shrine and the
group of people in front of it, a white tarpaulin draped around it.
Up front, he hailed a bike taxi boy for
enquiries. The boy looked doubtful if there was a hotel in town anyone could
lodge. Finally, he had an idea. Before then, some two women bound for Eku,
strongly advised I return to Eku and to conduct whatever my business was
because of the unease in Kokori. I alighted and told them I would take my
chance. He drove off and, as it were, left me to my fate. The okada boy then took me to where he
thought was a hotel. But the man we met said it wasn’t and directed us
elsewhere.
When we got there, the big compound was
deserted; there was no one in sight. I then asked him to take me to where we’d
seen people gather. We went passed them to a restaurant and ordered food. It
was past 12noon and hunger had begun to gnaw at me. I realized I badly needed
an ally of sorts in town and the bike boy was a starting point. I also bought
him food.
After the meal, I asked the woman who runs
the restaurant aside. She it was who first gave me a glimpse of things in
Kokori. She wasn’t a native but had lived in town long enough to know things.
What had happened in Kokori, she said, was unspeakable, as the town was in a
grip of fear from the activities of JTF, which, after completing its assignment
of arresting the alleged kidnapper, Kelvin, ought to have left town, but
instead, they have stayed behind and thereby further unsettling the communal
peace Kokori had until then enjoyed.
She said when harassment from JTF became
unbearable, the women had to come out mass to protest. This action led to JTF
to somewhat restricting its activities to the outskirts of town, with
occasional patrols through the main artery of town. Since the women’s protest
action, the lady restaurant confided, relative peace and calm had returned.
What about the ovie (king) and his court? “They have all runaway?” she said.
“Why?”
“They are afraid that the youth would mob
them?”
“Why is that?” I further probed her.
“The people feel they sold out… My son was
severely flogged by the soldiers; I had to ask him to leave town for Eku to
stay with relatives until calm returns.”
Feeling she had spoken too much to a
stranger, she went to attend to her costumers.
Then I felt my way to those who had gathered
at the foot of Egba, whom I’d
mistaken for the electorate waiting for voting materials and electoral officers
to cast their votes. When I got close, I didn’t see anything that resembled
electoral materials. I then asked two men if they were waiting for materials to
come. They did not respond; they moved away instead.
AT
that point, I wanted to photograph the group, but paused briefly to look round.
I saw furtive glances on the faces of the crowd, mostly made up of elderly
women, some young women and a few young men. The looks I saw sent me warning
signals. Something was not right here. I lowered my phone and switched off the
camera mode. Then my bike boy called to warn me to be careful what I did. I
moved aside and knew instantly that I was among an angry crowd and that I could
either be perceived as a security agent or an informer of sorts. So, I waited
for them to make the first move. It didn’t take long in coming.
They beckoned for me to come see the women’s
leader, who sat eating across the road from the group at the entrance to the shrine.
Then the questioning came from all around me in staccatos. Who was I? What was
I doing in Kokori? Why had I taken photographs? Where were the photographs?
Didn’t I know Egba forbids
photographs? One woman actually said even I had taken photographs of Egba, that it would not show to which I
chuckled inwardly.
I explained myself as best as I could and
that I had come to monitor the elections, which wasn’t exactly the case;
instinct for self-preservation rose to the fore. But my being from a nearby
community with the same language affinity with theirs helped to cool the
tension and aggression. Suddenly, some felt I was the person they needed to
tell their grim story to a world shut out to them. That was how I emerged from
foe to a friend, somebody they could trust to relate their sufferings and pains
in the wake of Kelvin’s arrest and the seemingly Pandora box it had opened.
Egba… A defiled communal
deity
The
women, who sat in front of Egba shrine, which JTF defiled by breaking
down its walls in their invasion of the town in commando-style to effect the
arrest of the alleged kidnap kingpin, Kelvin, were in mournful mood. With the
absence of the men and the king, Ovie
Michael Oneru, they needed to plot their way out of the mess one of their sons
had put them. Their deliberations had consumed a number of Schnapps’ bottles
that lay around their feet in front of their shrine, which had a white
tarpaulin draped round to cover a village god rendered naked by the irreverent acts
of outsiders.
With its priest also arrested and in
detention, Kokori folks, largely women left behind, a few men and youths, feel
powerless and impotent in the face of what they regard as needless aggression
from government that should protect them. The women deeply protested a whole
community being labeled criminals because of the act of one man. In fact, they
pointed at the extensive destruction JTF wrought in the town as unjustifiable
in a bid to arrest one man.
Ordinarily in Kokori, and indeed, other local
communities, the village deity is sacred and no outsider is allowed to go near
it without necessary sacrifices of appeasement. Egba is no different. With the defilement by JTF, Kokori is hard
done by, as to who to hold responsible. Worse still, its priest is also seen as
Kelvin’s accomplice and in detention. So, no matter the level of defilement and
whatever consequences such defilement might bring on the community, for now
there is no one to offer the required sacrifices to appease the god.
In the meantime, Egba and Kokori will have to wait until the matter is resolved one
way or the other.
Kokori’s local economy is also gravely
impaired. With the menacing presence of JTF, the market is ordered closed. Its
eight-day circlic market day and daily market activities have been shut down.
The women cry out that hunger is ravaging Kokori citizens and that something
urgent needed to be done to save them from starvation, as the siege was total.
The destruction
For
those who still remember, the destruction visited on Odi in Bayelsa in 1999 at
the inception of current democratic dispensation is fresh. The military had
been drafted in to pacify Odi community following the killing of some
policemen. But by the time the soldiers’ guns’ smoke had cleared, Odi was laid
waste; it was a battleground only imagined in films. It elicited public outcry
the world over because of the extent of the human rights violations was total.
Kokori might have been spared Odi treatment
in some details, but the aftermath of JTF’s onslaught on the sleepy community
is no less disquieting. Whereas several youth were said to have been involved
in the killing of Odi policemen, the same cannot be said of Kelvin as kidnapper
in Kokori. So, why visit such widespread destruction on an entire community
when only one of its members was wanted, and eventually arrested? Indeed, it
was the pacification of Kokori.
Along the lone road built by Shell, by far
the only development provided from external sources, carcass of burnt cars
litter the way. One was upturned and left on the roadside. A truck of soft
drinks owned by a businesswoman just before the market is burnt with its
content. No less than five houses are smashed to the ground, one of the
belonging to Kelvin’s father.
From street to street, louvres and doors to
houses are smashed in. Vehicles parked way off the main road were not spared.
In parlours, broken TV screens bear testimony to the unwarranted destruction on
an entire community for the sin of one man. Close to the king’s palace wall,
two cars are torched.
All over Kokori, the psychological would
inflicted on the locals is still visible. Majority of Kokoris have been cowed
in exile to save their skin. Regularly, military vehicles patrol the town,
ostensibly looking for troublemakers. The extent of wreckage is huge, as the
army brought in a bulldozer to perfect its acts of destruction. From all
indications, the army knew well in advance what it wanted to do, and did
exactly so. Kokori was a battleground for the soul of one man.
Although the women couldn’t produce anyone
who was raped, they alleged that the soldiers entered houses and did other
havoc apart from the destroyed cars and houses. Women, they said, were not
spared the fury of the military, who saw it as opportunity to deal Kokori a
blow. Also, two young men reportedly shot dead by JTF were carted away. Some were
said to have fled into streams and drowned. As yet they could ascertain how
many people died, as many have also fled into exile to either escape JTF or
possible mob action, especially among Kokori’s prominent people believed to
have acted in concert with JTF in bringing Kokori to its knees.
Egweya… In Kokori, women in power
In
front of Egba, the communal deity,
the women had taken charge in Kokori. The king and his council and other
prominent citizens had all fled town in apparent fear of reprisals, with the
state government putting pressure on them to produce Kelvin or why it took so
long to get the notorious man. And like the proverbial Nneka, ‘mother is supreme’, Kokori women have seemingly risen up to
the challenge of seeking the soothing balm to their ravaged community.
Although Kelvin as kidnapper is the story that
has gone abroad, a new and contradictory twist has been added to the Kelvin
saga. Kokori Council of Women, with the support of some of the youth brave
enough to remain, are in command position and demanding for the town’s long
neglect to cease and for development to come to assuage their suffering.
In a fashion reminiscent of Aba Women’s Riot,
Kokori women are demanding for long denied rights to the communal oil wealth
being mined by Shell. Everywhere you look, the grimness of the poverty in
Kokori is written in bold letters. The town is still a cluster of poor houses
in dire need of rehabilitation; even the human persons are no better than the
small houses that dot the town.
They were embittered that no development of
any sort had come to the community in spite of playing host to some 36 oil
fields. This is the reason they claim had led to Kelvin being arrested. According
to oletu egweya, a wiry middle-aged
women leader, Kelvin’s father owned most of the land on which most of the oil
fields in Kokori are situated. She stated that Kelvin had only just opened the
eyes of the community to the shady deals involving some prominent members of
the community in collusion with Shell. As a result, he was being hunted down.
They questioned the rationale behind Kokori’s
unrelenting poverty in the face of so much oil wealth being mined from its land.
Kelvin, they claimed, was their hero, who had only confronted the powers in the
community to own up to the fraud they were perpetuating against the other
hapless citizens. For these aggrieved women, the rampart destruction was the
work of the king and his chiefs to silence the growing awareness among the
populace on what they were being denied.
If it wasn’t so, they alleged, why didn’t the
king stay to mop up the mess in town? Why did he and his chiefs run into exile?
Yes, they want peace, but it had to be peace that guaranteed development and
progress for Kokori from proceeds from its oil wealth from which they had been
excluded. They said Kokori had suffered for too long. They bemoaned acute lack
of infrastructural development in the community. Apart the from primary school,
no other presence of government could be felt in Kokori. The only secondary
school is in shambles. In Kokori, there’s no healthcare facility, portable
water. The Post Office is a shadow of what it should be.
With JTF laying siege in town, the women said
there was hunger, as they could not go outside town to do business with
neighbouring communities or vice versa.
The women had a simple plea for government. They
should be saved from suffering, moreso as an oil-bearing community like others
in the Niger Delta. Specifically, they implored President Goodluck Jonathan and
Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan to come to their aid and remove JTF
and bring sorely needed infrastructural development the community.
They also demanded amnesty for Kelvin, as it
happened to other militants in the region. For them, Kelvin’s crime is no worse
than what others had done in bringing attention to the plight of locals in the
oil-bearing region, whose fight brought focus to the environmental and
socio-economic issues.
SOS from Kokori Women
“Egweya wadoo, ukwori wadoo, eya ukwori wadoo!
We are suffering greatly in Kokori. Men, women
and children are suffering. The money that is coming to Kokori from the
activities of the oil company is not getting to us. Only a few have cornered it
for themselves and are enjoying it. They are using the money to marry wives
from outside town. This is what we want a stop to; we don’t want to suffer any
more. We call on Uduaghan and Jonathan to ease our suffering. The soldiers are
not allowed us to go to our market or farms. Our children are not going to
school. This is our suffering.
“Is it good that we should suffer like this?
We have many fields producing oil yet we are suffering. We want peace in Kokori.
But they should open our market so we can resume our normal lives. We want our
father (Egba priest) that was
arrested to be released. He had nothing to do with why soldiers came.
“What we are saying are no lies. We are
really suffering here in Kokori. We know that we are number two in oil
production in the state. What should government have done for us? I’m asking?
As we are here, government has not done anything for us. Look at this road; we
suffered so much before Shell eventually tarred it for us. Apart from this
road, no other roads are made in Kokori. We don’t have electricity. If they
manage to bring it, the accompanying bills will be so huge we can’t pay. They
will bring bills of N5,000, N10,000, N12,000. What are we using in our houses
that make them bring these bills? If we protest, they cut our cables and take
them away. Is it supposed to be like that?
“They have been doing us like this, but we
did not complain. We have been attending to our farms, planting yams, okro,
cassava, attending our markets, no problem. Then one day, we saw soldiers come,
and that our father called Osegba does nothing but say prayers. He only prays
for us, good prayers, not to harm anyone. Or is something wrong with a person
saying prayers? (a loud chorus of NO!
from the crowd).
“On September 25, we were inside the shrine
saying prayers. Then we saw a lot of cars, armoured cars and soldiers. In our
shrine, strangers are not supposed to enter. But they came inside and started
beating up everybody in sight. They took our chief priest outside and started
beating him. After which they took him away; any man that showed up, they took
away.
“They killed many; they entered houses and
destroyed property. They beat up anyone they saw. They raped women and girls
they liked. They burnt cars. If you enter the streets, you will see the houses
they destroyed. As if that was not enough, they brought with them bulldozers
and broke down many houses. I just can’t count them.
“We are calling on Uduaghan and Jonathan to
come and see for themselves what their soldiers did to us. They have to come
and see with their own eyes and sit down with us so that we can discuss the
sore point in this community. We are number two in oil producing communities;
should we be empty-handed like this?
“We want peace; we want peace. We don’t want
fight. We don’t want soldiers again in Kokori. Let the soldiers go; they have
been beating up our people. Our men have run away from us because of soldiers’
harassment. We are very angry. We want normalcy returned to Kokori.
“On the kelvin they took away, they should
bring him back to us. He opened our eyes to the evil going on in this
community. Before we knew it, they said they had arrested him. Why did they
arrest him? We don’t know. It’s because he does not want his parents and the
entire community to suffer being that we are an oil-producing community. He’s
fighting for us. We were blind before but he came and opened our eyes. We need
settlement from government and Shell.
“We are a defenceless people; we don’t have
hands; we don’t have legs. People that don’t have hands or legs, it’s God that
fights for them. We do not know how to fight; it’s God that is fighting for us.
If government does these things for us, there will be peace. We want peace. We
want peace! (All the women and children
that had gathered took up the peace chant)
“We want amnesty for Kelvin. Didn’t Jonathan
give amnesty to Ijaw youths fighting for justice? He should extend the same to
us here. We need development in Kokori.”
AFTER
the women addressed me with their grievances, they undertook to show me round
town to see the extent of damage the joint military action had wrought on a
broken community. It left bile in my palate.
Thereafter, I elected to leave town in
another route, which turned out to be a bush path. I didn’t want another
encounter with the JTF; the fellow that interrogated me earlier would want to
know why I was leaving town so soon having told him I was there to see a
friend.
And as the bike-boy tore through the forest
path that had water patches in part, I reflected back on the haggard old folks of
Kokori and the brutality they’d endured in the hands of those living off
taxpayers’ money, fellow Nigerians, who happened to be on the other side of
justice.
It was after all government. Whoever
investigates government and comes out with justiceable verdict?
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