•Militant or otherwise, it is time to face down and defeat organised violent crime
The heinous attack on the Ijebu Imushin community, which claimed no less than two lives (if you believe the police account) or 20 (if the claim of the community is true), had economic roots.
Gangs of criminals had always, near-freely, operated in that vicinity, according to sources, stealing fuel; and selling the criminal proceeds on the cheap, to opportunistic buyers who ask no questions. However, tightening of controls, which threatened that illicit trade, earned the ire of the bandits.
But the immediate trigger of the attack, according to newspaper reports, was an intelligence that led a detachment of the police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) to a Top-Catt Hotel, Elepete, in the community. That raid reportedly resulted in the killing of two of the suspected criminals, which led the band to reportedly swearing it would kill 110 people in a revenge mission. The criminals reportedly spoke pidgin English, which tended to suggest they were non-indigenes or residents of the area.
The threatened revenge would then explain the hideous murders at Imushin. The victim communities included Oke Muti, Elepete, Ajegunle, Ola Imam, Ereko junction, Igbo Olomu, Pakisa and Magbon, which the invaders attacked one after the other. Indeed, so brazen was this band, which always escapes on the creeks, that it attacked the convoy of the visiting Ogun State Deputy Governor, Mrs. Yetunde Onanuga, to the crime neighbourhoods, thus partly aborting the trip.
To start with, it is absolutely unacceptable — indeed disgraceful — that a criminal band, no matter how fearsomely armed, would attack and kill lawful and innocent citizens, in a country founded on law. That is tantamount to challenging the might of the Nigerian state — which is why the security agencies must accept the challenge of that affront, move into the area, ferret out the criminals to face the law.
That, however, is the final goal. To reach that destination, the problem must be clinically pared, to determine the most efficient and effective way to get there.
As earlier stated, the criminality has its source in illicit fuel trading. These criminals steal fuel by rupturing oil pipes, and selling the proceeds cheap to abetting buyers, because it is dirt-cheap.
The first thing to do is block the supply side. From reports, that is being done. Indeed, the initial ire of the bandits was that they could not operate as freely as hitherto. But the security agencies must reinforce the process and seal off every illicit pipeline leakage. Eternal vigilance, they say, is the price of liberty.
Then, the demand side. Though the Imushin community is now victim to this murderous band, it would appear members of the community, and outsiders had, one time or the other, patronised the illegal fuel market. That sweet opportunistic behaviour of yesterday seems therefore to have morphed into the mindless killings of today. Surely, that tragedy could have been averted if that illicit trade had not gained traction, and the creek criminals had not got so brazen.
The killings should therefore act as rude wake-up call: the community should rigorously declaim such criminal trading; and expose, to the security agencies, whoever is involved. If and when the market dies, the criminality dies with it.
To boost this process, however, the security agencies must demonstrate their total capacity to secure that environment, such that the evil fallout of the raid on Top-Catt Hotel, Elepete, does not repeat itself.
But the most roiling part of it all is that some criminals can freely kill and maim, sure they would vanish on the creeks! That calls the urgent attention of the marine police to go in there and flush them out. A state is no state if it cannot secure every part of its territory, onshore or offshore.
