Ejike Anyaduba

Some time ago, at a Pentecostal Church in Lagos, a plain-looking young man, without the usual aura of a new convert, sauntered to the altar to give a testimony. Shorn of histrionics associated with such exercise, he mounted the dais. He was sedate and exuded no contrition befitting the confession he was to make. Regardless, he made a declaration of his guilt and seemed purged of it.

For a congregation accustomed to a pattern of declaiming testimonies, his approach was at odds with “set standard”. Those already glued to the pews on account of the usual testimonies were surprised as he rambled on without the practiced declarations. He did not talk about a break of a family curse. He did not talk about a successful divorce from sexual grip of a succubus. He was not celebrating an escape from death by the whiskers. He had some worries to shrive himself of the high priest for penance and possible absolution.

As he began, after a short canticle, the congregation squirmed in their pews. The discomfort grew as he gave details of his gory exploits in Anambra state. The man was a security operative. He was a member of the defunct Bakassi boys that held the state in their palm for close to four years. He told the congregation how he coordinated the business of arresting and dealing with suspected criminals and their accomplices – the gory details of how each and every victim was dispatched. The high point of his confession was the arrest and killing of the alleged kingpin of the criminal ring. How he was arrested after several failed attempts, whisked away to Ochanja intersection in Onitsha, and slaughtered in public glare. By his account, the man’s arrest was subject to interplay of spiritual forces that snapped in their favour. He was quick to add, however, that the group’s invincibility derived from being sworn to about seven deities and ably led by a powerful but physically challenged spiritist.

By his account the Bakassi forbade killing a suspect, especially one seen as spiritually strong anywhere except at a road junction. He claimed the spirit of the violently dispatched easily exacts vengeance on killers if death is procured in a house or on a straight course. He was emphatic that the chance of the killer escaping retribution from the dead was almost impossible. A spirit according to him easily gets confused, wending its way through a maze of an intersection to exact vengeance. This aspect of the confession got everybody curious, including those who disdained it initially. He told the congregants that it was one rule the Bakassi, as a group, did not violate even at the pains of death. His confession mirrored the Anambra of the past where anarchy was loose and abduction/armed robbery a flourishing trade.

The intervening years in the security of lives and properties in the state did not experience better though not as bad as the Bakassi era until a few years back. The coming of the Willie Obiano administration brought a shift in crime prevention and fighting. Within 3 months of being, his administration reined in on criminals and brought an otherwise stubborn situation under control. The first to experience the Governor’s magic touch was the notorious skid row, Bridgehead/Upper Iweka. Until then, travelers, visitors and others scurried out of this very important portal to the state for fear of being mugged and dispossessed. But the narrative has since changed and people stroll rather scurry out of Upper Iweka. Echoing this view, author, Chimamanda Adichie, once told a story of how somebody lost his telephone set at Upper Iweka only to pick it days after. The story is told differently of population surge in the state since Obiano. Investments have since increased as were a halt to performing of traditional rites outside of the state like burial, marriage, naming ceremony, title-taking among others.

Flashpoints of insecurity in the state were rid of violence as streets were freed of confused mass of human obstructors like waifs, miscreants and beggars. Kidnappers’ dens were demolished and their investments seized by the state. But the high point of the war against criminality was the arrest at Murtala Mohammed, Lagos, on a South African-bound airline, the kidnappers’s kingpin, a certain Okechukwu Nnaegbo. His arrest and that of the others like Nonso Mgbe from Azia, Okechukwu Amasiatu from Ezinifite, Nnewi etc and demolition of their investments were enough warning to criminals in the state that the special anti-crime taskforce- Operation Kpochapu- of the Obiano government was in for business. The determination to wrest the the state from the vice grip of criminals was pursued by the administration with uncommon determination and support to the taskforce. To bolster the fight and stave off possible relapse the second phase of the war was launched as Operation Kpochapu 2. The anti-crime taskforce was reinforced with additional hundred and eleven security vehicles mostly of Innoson brand, seventy-one motocycles, and motorized hi-tech closed circuit cameras for smart city surveillance. The launch which was well attended by the nation’s security agencies, including the IGP of the Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, showed Obinao’s government as resolute in ridding the state of sundry crimes. To crown the effort, a lot of arrests have been made since the October launch.

Today Anambra is at its peak in the security of lives and properties. Safety in the state is so good that traditional events no longer hold outside of it while investors move in droves to exploit available opportunities for investment. Mass return during Christmas, hitherto shelved because of insecurity, has resumed. There might be a lapse or two, indicating that security is not an absence of crime, nonetheless criminals in state can attest to the tough time. Even a rabid critic of the government will not deny this fact. Obiano might not have tarred all the roads nor massaged every ego, but he has brought a model security that triggered multi-sector economic transformation in the state. No wonder Anambra has been adjudged one of the safest states in Nigeria with Governor Obiano chalking up a plethora of awards, including Security Icon in Governance in West and Central Africa by Africa Security Watch held in Dubai.

Ejike Anyaduba

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