[b]The hell called Aba: Raiders kill boy for refusing to have intimacy with mom
By IKENNA EMEWU
Tuesday, September 28, 2010



The Aba story has taken a dangerous twist in the last three weeks with the close down of the city literally. In the recent months and owing to the dangerous frequency of kidnaps and robberies, banks have been off and on in service.
Today, the city is where absurdities, abomination and oddities have been elevated to everyday life.

A good instance was that of a family that was reportedly besieged at their home off Port Harcourt Road during which two little boys were ordered at gunpoint to have intimacy with their mother. As the first boy bluntly refused, he was shot dead in the presence of the mother. The mother had to prevail on the second boy to do the bidding of the hoodlums as she never wanted him dead. “That is the level we operate at Aba and nobody comes to our aid. We are prisoners and captives in a city that has neither government nor defenders,” a distraught resident lamented.
Often times, banks close huriedly as robbers allegedly write them of their plans to attack. Because they don’t have adequate security to counter them, they simply stay off work to avoid the worst scenario.

A later bizarre incident was when hospitals in the city closed down to protest the laxity of the government in containing the kidnap rave. A doctor was kidnapped in Aba, amnd his family made to part with N30 million as ransom to ensure his release. But the story was that the doctor was later killed even after the money was paid.

What the situation entails today is that Aba is unhygienic. Aba is unsafe security wise. And Aba is unhealthy and unfit for residents who are ill as there are no hospitals to go and no medics to take care of the sick.
Daily Sun gathered from a reliable source late last week that the kingpin behind the dastardly acts is known possibly by the law enforcement agents and security operatives and allegedly by the government.

The terror merchant is said to hail from Obehie, a town in the Abia/Rivers State border in the Ukwa Council axis and also resident there. “The people we should complain to know this man too well. He has been their tool in the past and they still keep him in wait for another use”, a source said.
He is known to have been old in his art of terror and has been a tool in the hands of power seekers in the state who he stands in for to execute some clandestine duties that border on intimidation. The man whose name or alias, Daily Sun, withholds is known by even the men in the street in Aba, especially as the person behind the acts that chase people out of their homes.

In the latest move that made the man a prime suspect, one of his terror agents was said to have written a chieftain of the Ariaria Market union to keep some millions of naira as ransom for them or risk kidnap.
As the union chief ran to the officials that should provide him security, he was allegedly turned down and simply told to go back and comply with his attackers’ demand.

Wednesday last week, at about 11am, Daily Sun got a distress phone call from Obehie, a town about 20 kilometres off Port Harcourt, the alleged base of the Abia chief goon that robbers barricaded the road and had a field day for hours operating without let.

“We live in constant agony and fear because anybody and everybody is a victim at all times. We have no place to go and nothing seems to be done”, he further cried.

In another incident, the marauders wrote the traders in Ariaria asking for N50,000 advance ransom on each trader. The money according to the demand was to be contributed in a common pool and kept in wait for them so as to fasten the process of the collection on they day they will call. To this demand, the traders reportedly wrote them in reply that they prefer to re-enact the civil war of 40 years ago or face total extermination than be intimidated to this extent.

The informer who called Daily Sun fretted that: “Our annoyance is that while government would not protect us, it cannot also give us free hand to protect ourselves. This is the kind of situation in the late 90s that forced us to resort to self-help in forming the Bakassi Boys. They condemned us for that, yet, they have not done anything to secure us since they don’t want us to handle it our own way. The insecurity is getting to that same old level and we are still the same Aba people, one day, we will say no and handle it our own way because the government at all levels have failed us.”[/b][b][/b]