Aniebo Nwamu-

Boko Haram bombs may have been defused successfully in many parts of the country, but more deadly bombs are currently being planted in cities that matter in Nigeria. The bombs are made of very poor people who are desperate to stay alive. The cities of Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt have been the choice destinations of these wanderers each of which does not know where the next meal will come from.

A recent encounter I had with these impoverished folks has enabled me to understand the reason behind the arrest of 486 people in Aba as they were travelling from parts of the north to Port Harcourt in May this year. But since the Aba incident and the outcry that followed, no such case has been reported in other states. The truth, however, is that the mass movement of people from mainly the north-east and north-west to other areas has never really stopped. They may not be travelling in a convoy of 35 buses at 2am like those arrested and detained at 144 Battalion Barracks, Asa, Aba, but they still find their way to the cities.

During the screening of the Aba detainees, it was found that most of them had nothing in their pockets. That should be a pointer to the life they were going to lead. Of course, one trader could have claimed that he invited penniless people to live under shacks in Port Harcourt; what he wouldn’t admit was that he won’t be responsible for providing food and other needs for them.

Towns near Abuja like Suleja in Niger State and Masaka in Nasarawa State have become danger zones because of these desperately poor migrants. So have Dei-Dei, Nyanya and Karimo in the FCT. Many other towns on the outskirts of the capital city are endangered too. The FCT Administration once threatened to demolish every unoccupied building in the FCT. Nothing has happened; nothing will happen.

The country is so far gone that nobody cares about what happens to his neighbour. I wonder why almost every Nigerian university runs courses in Sociology, Psychology and other social sciences but no one seems to have given consideration to the threats to peace in places inhabited by unschooled, jobless, unskilled, penniless people. How does a young man survive in the city without N1 in his pocket and without hope of eating any meal in one week? I heard there is a local herb they chew that could ward off hunger for 48 hours.

From my experience and the experiences shared by other people, I know that these boys (and girls) start out as barrow pushers. Each hires a barrow on a daily basis at N100 and could make N800. Healthy-looking ones look for work as labourers at construction sites. From there, they move to petty trading or water vending. After some weeks or months, some graduate to motorcycle (achaba or okada) riding. And that is where the danger lies.

Since they were driven from the Abuja city centre, a few years ago, they have been wreaking havoc in the hinterlands. Training in okada riding lasts less than two hours. And, of course, the training does not include understanding road signs or any driving rule at all. It is not surprising, therefore, that these dangerous riders are killing people and getting killed every day in the streets of Abuja and Lagos.

An example: On the morning of Saturday, September 20, one of these urchins carried a pregnant woman straight to the tyre of a truck at Dei-Dei International Market. The trailer crushed the pregnant woman; the foetus spilled out! Bystanders said the cyclist disappeared, that is, with the aid of charms. The next day, on the Zuba-Kubwa expressway, another okada rider crossed over five lanes –illegally – to the spot he hit a vehicle with his passenger. Hundreds of okada riders in Dei-Dei soon assembled to shield the rider while the motorist that did nothing wrong was asked to take the wounded passenger to hospital. By the time the motorist came back from the police, the hoodlums were set to vandalise his vehicle. He had to “settle” the police, fuel the police van, pick the wounded man’s hospital bills and repair his own car. He soon learned that, in any case with okada, the motorist is always wrong! Acting as a mob, such hungry boys have at times killed motorists that dared knock down okada riding recklessly on the wrong lane.

At a market in Mararaba, last week also, a housewife carefully parked her vehicle at a corner. A boy selling sugar cane bumped onto the boot of the woman’s stationary vehicle and his sugar cane sticks fell. “Sorry boy,” the woman said in sympathy. Soon, a number of men speaking the same language gathered and asked the woman to pay for the sugar cane. When she wanted to explain that it was no fault of hers, one of them asked her why she said “sorry” if indeed it was not her fault. To avoid further exchange of words with the hungry-looking men, she paid the boy N700 and fled.

I have given a few examples to show how dangerously wicked these unschooled, unskilled people that troop to the cities could be. Needless to add, some of them are armed robbers. In fact, when they go for robbery, they are merciless: they could kill everyone and steal everything in the house and then disappear into their ghettos. Some are thieves or cattle rustlers. Some work with dangerous criminals like drug sellers. At accident scenes, they are the ones that rob corpses and wounded victims. No human sympathy!

A solution for these poor but dangerous urchins must be found quickly. For a start, the use of okada for commercial purposes in every Nigerian city should be abolished. It is better. The job is not even helping the young men. All orthopaedic hospitals are filled with okada riders and their victims. Many are in the mortuaries.

It is selfish to ban okada in areas where the rich live and allow them to ravage places where the middle class and the poor live. I know that motorcycle importers won’t let any such policy see the light of day, just as generator importers are said to frustrate power reforms. But government at the local and state levels must start working to sanitise our cities before everybody gets consumed. If commercial motorcyclists are sent packing from the cities, many of the young people may be forced to return to the farms in their home villages.

The urge to move to the city – where “things are happening” – is one that afflicts every young person. They hear stories of their mates making millions of naira just in the cities not knowing they do so by stealing, robbing or killing people. It’s not everybody that succeeds. Life is more difficult in the city than in the village, especially when one goes without money. And crime doesn’t pay. One day, the criminal will be caught, jailed or killed.

The people I’m talking about are now in their millions in Abuja. Millions of them also reside in Lagos, Onitsha, Aba, Port Harcourt, Kano, Kaduna and other cities. . They cannot read these words because they are unschooled. Those using them for terror activities should please pass the right message to them. Government has a responsibility to care for them. Where it can’t, they should be persuaded to seek greener pasture in their villages and not constitute a nuisance to city dwellers.

 

SOURCE: http://leadership.ng/columns/385397/desperately-poor-dangerously-wicked