ZARKI BIAM AND ODI, NIGERIA AND ITS LEADERSHIP.......

IT is a story that breaks the heart: A group of soldiers arrives in town, asks everybody to assemble in an open field for an address by its military commander, encircles the gathering, and then opens fire.

Rat-tat-tat, the bullets keep flying. Ten minutes after, the firing stops. No one is left standing except the soldiers.

The waves blow the clothes of the victims hither and thither -- blood-soaked scarves and head gears of aged women, caps of elderly men, and toys of kids.

You are welcome to Odi, Bayelsa State. That was on November 20, 1999, not in the 14th Century, not in a Hobbessian state. That was a part of Nigeria’s recent history that former President Olusegun Obasanjo is still very proud of. It is a crisis management policy that the Army General who has had the rare opportunity to lead Nigeria as both military and civilian ruler, commends to the current national leadership.

A gang of militants had killed 12 Policemen near the town. When he deployed soldiers to apparently teach the militants a lesson, President Obasanjo reportedly told them not to "waste" bullets. In other words, every shot fired must hit target. Every building in the town, except a bank, an Anglican church and a health centre, was razed to the ground. Till today, the perpetrators have not been apprehended. It is in doubt if any effort has ever been made in that regard.

A similar treatment was given to the people of Zaki Biam in Benue State by the same Federal Government under Obasanjo about two years later. During a protest over the siting of a local government headquarters, some criminals killed 19 soldiers who were deployed to keep the peace. From October 22 to 24, 2001, on the authority of Obasanjo, soldiers killed anything and everything in sight. About 100 residents and passersby were recorded dead.

For the then president was not the need to sift the wheat from the chaff, investigate and identify the perpetrators. He simply gave an order to wipe out the community. Like in Odi, there is no record of any arrest of the culprits. It was enough for the Obasanjo government that the blood of entire villages was spilled in revenge!

It is quite easy for people to forget their pains and anguish of yesterday when faced with new challenges today. That explains why the people of Israel, as recorded in the Bible, had no difficulty thoroughly abusing Moses and accusing him of a genocide plot against them.

They were thirsty but there was no water in sight. So, they demanded why Moses bothered to free them from slavery in Egypt, where they had had at least had regular supply of water. These were people who were recorded to have only a little earlier witnessed the parting of the red sea and the annihilation of King Pharaoh and his army!

The Biblical story easily comes to mind whenever I hear Nigerians complain about the “cluelessness” of the Goodluck Jonathan administration in tackling the Boko Haram menace and wishing that they had a “strong leader” like Obasanjo who would have put an end to “the nonsense.”

That line of argument has gone on for long and, apparently, the retired but not tired Army General Obasanjo enjoys the adulation. He boasted of it recently at a public lecture and openly insinuated that President Jonathan is weak in tackling the menace.

He said: “My fear is that when you have a sore and you don’t attend to it early enough, it festers and becomes very bad. Don’t leave a problem that can be bad unattended. I attended to a problem that I saw; I sent soldiers.

They were killed, 19 of them (were) decapitated. If I had allowed that to continue, I would not have the authority to send security anywhere again. I attended to it. If you say you do not want a strong leader, who can have all the characteristics of a leader, including the fear of God, then, you have a weak leader and the rest of the problem is yours.”

Let us agree, for a moment, that the massacre of the elderly and kids of Odi and Zaki Biam worked in forcibly putting an end to terrorism in both the Niger Delta and Benue State as he claims. Did Obasanjo apply the same high handedness to the Northern part of the country as he is publicly upbraiding President Jonathan for not doing?

The imposition of Sharia rule in many parts of the North occurred during the administration of Obasanjo. A cow thief, Mallam Buba Bello Jangebe was amputated while the advocate of strong arm tactics was in office. What was his reaction? If the imposition of Sharia is for religious purpose, it will endure but if it is a political action, it will die out!
That was what President Obasanjo told the nation and the world. It was a smart way to avoid confrontation with the masterminds of the Sharia rule whose main intent then was crystal clear: To provoke the Federal Government into making any comment or taking any action that would stir a national crisis.

Obasanjo read the action of the Sharia proponents wisely and spoke wisely. Today, many of those who took Sharia implementation from civil and family law to the realm of criminal law have been cited for stealing public funds, denying the people they would have led to war basic necessities. They luxuriate in wealth beyond imagination, stolen from the people. Some of them are standing trial for raiding public treasury, while Mallam Jangebe and other victims continue in poverty.

Obasanjo knew their plot and gingerly walked the minefield. Why does he want Jonathan to apply the Odi and Zaki Biam treatment to states that are under the yoke of Boko Haram, when the group claims to be motivated by religion? Jonathan should deploy soldiers to communities in, say Bauchi or Borno State, gather the innocent old and young, and gun them down? Just like that? Would that not be an open invitation to Al Qaeda to permanently make Nigeria ungovernable?

As an elder, Obasanjo is expected to counsel the administration on the time-tested dictum that you exercise discretion in killing a fly that perches on your male member. That the people of Odi and Zaki Biam have not mustered enough political will and clout to bring those who masterminded the genocide on them in a world war crimes tribunal is no reason for the perpetrators to gloat.

Yes, the killing of Policemen by criminal activists in Odi and Zaki Biam should not have gone unpunished. But the duty of the state is to apprehend the killers, duly prosecute them and apply the maximum weight of law on them. A knee-jerk approach of rounding up everybody on sight and dispensing instant, jungle justice on them is not something to be proud of. It was, indeed, one of the saddest chapters of Nigeria’s recent history.

Foreman-Brown Idogho
Writes from warri, Nigeria.

So what is the way out

jhydebaba: So what is the way out

OBJ would not had done that if it was in his village that the soldiers were killed.
Ethnicity and Religion are the bases of mischief in Nigeria: Governments are not spared.

Split Nigeria! Let us govern ourselves. WE are tired of internal colonialism.

noblezone:


Split Nigeria! Let us govern ourselves.

Is that the solution

If yes, u re not better than Obj and as clueless as GEJ

jhydebaba:
Is that the solution

If yes, u re not better than Obj and as clueless as GEJ

YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY WORST, INFACT A BIGGER DEVIL THAN THOSE YOU JUST MENTIONED.......

chosen04:

YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY WORST, INFACT A BIGGER DEVIL THAN THOSE YOU JUST MENTIONED.......

Any reason for ur asertion?

This appeared like a fiction to me...one horror movie. If this is true then i also think GEJ is truely weak. How can he be in power and still allowed this kind of jungle justice on his people go unpunished.

centje: This appeared like a fiction to me...one horror movie. If this is true then i also think GEJ is truely weak. How can he be in power and still allowed this kind of jungle justice on his people go unpunished.

Man....when you are fighting on many fronts, you have to choose additional battles wisely...

DaLover:
Man....when you are fighting on many fronts, you have to choose additional battles wisely...

well let's hope he has a reason. But if he steps out of office without tackling some of these issues then i would still rate him so.

I just have this feeling that GEJ will make alot of drastic decision towards the end of his tenure especially if he senses he is not coming back to the seat.

centje: well let's hope he has a reason. But if he steps out of office without tackling some of these issues then i would still rate him so.

I just have this feeling that GEJ will make alot of drastic decision towards the end of his tenure especially if he senses he is not coming back to the seat.

Fair enuf

DaLover:
Fair enuf

hmmm

centje: well let's hope he has a reason. But if he steps out of office without tackling some of these issues then i would still rate him so.

I just have this feeling that GEJ will make alot of drastic decision towards the end of his tenure especially if he senses he is not coming back to the seat.

I tink so too. I see a lion in GEJ at d end of dis administration.

@Mikeuz, bros no long thing. That's "Nigeria" for you! Massacre? Remember the historic/unequalled FG-supervised massacre, pogrom or genocide of 1966; the well-sponsored incessant Jos killings of today; the well-funded dreaded Islamic Bokoharam weekly doses of bloodbath; the post Abiola election victory protest FG-enforced mass killings; many more people are dying everyday in the hands of our police, just you name it . . . All symptoms of a progressive united 'one' Nigeria.
Sometimes you cant but just wonder where exactly it is we are heading as a nation . . .
Your heart may continue to bleed if your loved one has ever been directly involved. Saint Obasanjo has been talking around peace and security, of recent and nobody knows exactly what it is he is really up to.

centje: This appeared like a fiction to me...one horror movie. If this is true then i also think GEJ is truely weak. How can he be in power and still allowed this kind of jungle justice on his people go unpunished.

I guess you listened to timaya's first album,if you did ,timaya recounted the bayelsa incident in his song "DEM MAMA" so its not a fiction.


And if I may ask what do want GEJ to do,fight OBJ? That isn't an easy battle.

mikeuz:



I guess you listened to timaya's first album,if you did ,timaya recounted the bayelsa incident in his song "DEM MAMA" so its not a fiction.


And if I may ask what do want GEJ to do,fight OBJ? That isn't an easy battle.

definitely he may not initiate a direct war with obj but he can make some moves towards that by bringing to justice,the officers who directed operation.

mikeuz:
ZARKI BIAM AND ODI, NIGERIA AND ITS LEADERSHIP.......

IT is a story that breaks the heart: A group of soldiers arrives in town, asks everybody to assemble in an open field for an address by its military commander, encircles the gathering, and then opens fire.

Rat-tat-tat, the bullets keep flying. Ten minutes after, the firing stops. No one is left standing except the soldiers.

The waves blow the clothes of the victims hither and thither -- blood-soaked scarves and head gears of aged women, caps of elderly men, and toys of kids.

You are welcome to Odi, Bayelsa State. That was on November 20, 1999, not in the 14th Century, not in a Hobbessian state. That was a part of Nigeria’s recent history that former President Olusegun Obasanjo is still very proud of. It is a crisis management policy that the Army General who has had the rare opportunity to lead Nigeria as both military and civilian ruler, commends to the current national leadership.

A gang of militants had killed 12 Policemen near the town. When he deployed soldiers to apparently teach the militants a lesson, President Obasanjo reportedly told them not to "waste" bullets. In other words, every shot fired must hit target. Every building in the town, except a bank, an Anglican church and a health centre, was razed to the ground. Till today, the perpetrators have not been apprehended. It is in doubt if any effort has ever been made in that regard.

A similar treatment was given to the people of Zaki Biam in Benue State by the same Federal Government under Obasanjo about two years later. During a protest over the siting of a local government headquarters, some criminals killed 19 soldiers who were deployed to keep the peace. From October 22 to 24, 2001, on the authority of Obasanjo, soldiers killed anything and everything in sight. About 100 residents and passersby were recorded dead.

For the then president was not the need to sift the wheat from the chaff, investigate and identify the perpetrators. He simply gave an order to wipe out the community. Like in Odi, there is no record of any arrest of the culprits. It was enough for the Obasanjo government that the blood of entire villages was spilled in revenge!

It is quite easy for people to forget their pains and anguish of yesterday when faced with new challenges today. That explains why the people of Israel, as recorded in the Bible, had no difficulty thoroughly abusing Moses and accusing him of a genocide plot against them.

They were thirsty but there was no water in sight. So, they demanded why Moses bothered to free them from slavery in Egypt, where they had had at least had regular supply of water. These were people who were recorded to have only a little earlier witnessed the parting of the red sea and the annihilation of King Pharaoh and his army!

The Biblical story easily comes to mind whenever I hear Nigerians complain about the “cluelessness” of the Goodluck Jonathan administration in tackling the Boko Haram menace and wishing that they had a “strong leader” like Obasanjo who would have put an end to “the nonsense.”

That line of argument has gone on for long and, apparently, the retired but not tired Army General Obasanjo enjoys the adulation. He boasted of it recently at a public lecture and openly insinuated that President Jonathan is weak in tackling the menace.

He said: “My fear is that when you have a sore and you don’t attend to it early enough, it festers and becomes very bad. Don’t leave a problem that can be bad unattended. I attended to a problem that I saw; I sent soldiers.

They were killed, 19 of them (were) decapitated. If I had allowed that to continue, I would not have the authority to send security anywhere again. I attended to it. If you say you do not want a strong leader, who can have all the characteristics of a leader, including the fear of God, then, you have a weak leader and the rest of the problem is yours.”

Let us agree, for a moment, that the massacre of the elderly and kids of Odi and Zaki Biam worked in forcibly putting an end to terrorism in both the Niger Delta and Benue State as he claims. Did Obasanjo apply the same high handedness to the Northern part of the country as he is publicly upbraiding President Jonathan for not doing?

The imposition of Sharia rule in many parts of the North occurred during the administration of Obasanjo. A cow thief, Mallam Buba Bello Jangebe was amputated while the advocate of strong arm tactics was in office. What was his reaction? If the imposition of Sharia is for religious purpose, it will endure but if it is a political action, it will die out!
That was what President Obasanjo told the nation and the world. It was a smart way to avoid confrontation with the masterminds of the Sharia rule whose main intent then was crystal clear: To provoke the Federal Government into making any comment or taking any action that would stir a national crisis.

Obasanjo read the action of the Sharia proponents wisely and spoke wisely. Today, many of those who took Sharia implementation from civil and family law to the realm of criminal law have been cited for stealing public funds, denying the people they would have led to war basic necessities. They luxuriate in wealth beyond imagination, stolen from the people. Some of them are standing trial for raiding public treasury, while Mallam Jangebe and other victims continue in poverty.

Obasanjo knew their plot and gingerly walked the minefield. Why does he want Jonathan to apply the Odi and Zaki Biam treatment to states that are under the yoke of Boko Haram, when the group claims to be motivated by religion? Jonathan should deploy soldiers to communities in, say Bauchi or Borno State, gather the innocent old and young, and gun them down? Just like that? Would that not be an open invitation to Al Qaeda to permanently make Nigeria ungovernable?

As an elder, Obasanjo is expected to counsel the administration on the time-tested dictum that you exercise discretion in killing a fly that perches on your male member. That the people of Odi and Zaki Biam have not mustered enough political will and clout to bring those who masterminded the genocide on them in a world war crimes tribunal is no reason for the perpetrators to gloat.

Yes, the killing of Policemen by criminal activists in Odi and Zaki Biam should not have gone unpunished. But the duty of the state is to apprehend the killers, duly prosecute them and apply the maximum weight of law on them. A knee-jerk approach of rounding up everybody on sight and dispensing instant, jungle justice on them is not something to be proud of. It was, indeed, one of the saddest chapters of Nigeria’s recent history.

Foreman-Brown Idogho
Writes from warri, Nigeria.

I used to have sympathy for Odi people over the massacre, and hope that Obasanjo will be hanged one day for killing thousands of innocent Odis without apprehending let alone killing a single one of the real culprits.
But all that sympathy and wish for justice melted away from my heart when in the 2003 elections the whole of Bayelsa State including that very Odi voted massively for Obasanjo. It was then it dawned on me that you can't love a people more than they love themselves neither can you fight for a people who don't really care.
As an illustration, ever since you put up this post as a concerned non-Bayelsan from Deltan State, how many Bayelsans on Nairaland have even given likes to your post let alone give supporting comments?
Policeman and solders were later killed in Ota and Shagamu both in Obasanjo's home state of Ogun but he could not repeat the same response there because he knew he would forever become an outcast among his Yoruba people who would not tolerate any nonsense he does towards them in the name of preserving the military institution from further harassment.
If he had done it in a core Hausa-Fulani village up North, he would have been impeached and assassinated by the Militaristic Northern Oligarchy.
It is only in the SS that people rationalize and justify the evils a government does towards them and that explains why we are mostly the target for oppression by leaders and politicians from other regions. We the SS alone now preach "One Nigeria" despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary.
As long as Obasanjo could later win overwhelmingly in the SS in an election which followed just 4 years after the Odi massacre, then Odi people don't deserve this pity you are trying to show to them.