The Nation Newspaper

Tag: murderers

  • Murderers’ll be brought to justice, Buhari promises

    President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed regrets over the Plateau State killings and vowed that his administration will bring the murderers and sponsors to justice.

    Reacting on his twitter handle; @MBuhari, on Sunday night, the President described the killings as “very painful and regrettable’’.

    Buhari condoled with communities and families of those affected by the dastardly act.

    He tweeted:  ”The grievous loss of lives and property arising from the killings in Plateau today is painful and regrettable.

    “My deepest condolences to the affected communities. We will not rest until all murderers and criminal elements and their sponsors are incapacitated and brought to justice.’’

    The Police confirmed that 86 people were killed in attacks on Razat, Ruku, Nyarr, Kura and Gana-Ropp villages of Gashish District in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of the state.

    Governor Simon Lalong imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on three local government areas – Riyom, Barkin Ladi and Jos South  – to check further breakdown of law and order.

    In a statement yesterday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, the President said: “We know that a number of geographical and economic factors are contributing to the longstanding herdsmen/farmers clashes.

    “But we also know that politicians are taking advantage of the situation. This is incredibly unfortunate.

    “Nigerians affected by the herdsmen/ farmers clashes must always allow the due process of the law to take its course rather than taking matters into their own hands.’’

    The Presidency quoted security information which indicated that about 100 cattle were rustled by a community in Plateau State, and some herdsmen were killed.

    The report also revealed that Lalong, had invited the aggrieved groups and pleaded against further action while the law enforcement agents looked into the matter.

    Less than 24 hours later, violence broke out.

    It further stated that some local thugs then took advantage of the situation, turning it into an opportunity to extort the public, and to attack people from rival political parties.

    “There were reports of vehicles being stopped, with people being dragged out of their cars and attacked if they stated that they supported certain politicians or political parties.

    “On his way back to Jos after attending the All Progressives Congress (APC) Convention in Abuja, the state governor had to dismantle a number of illegal road blocks set up by these thugs. There were also a number of dead bodies thugs had killed, lying along the road,’’ the report added.

    In a broadcast to the people yesterday, Lalong said the government would reinforce security in attack-prone communities.

    He said: “Government has taken decisive steps to reinforce security, particularly in communities prone to attacks.

    “In the same vein, government is working to tackle the underlying causes of conflict.’’

    The governor said that the resurgence of violence in the state was reprehensible as much as condemnable.

    Lalong, who condoled with the families of those affected, prayed God to grant the deceased rest in His glorified kingdom.

    The governor assured the people that the government was conscious of its responsibilities of protection of lives and properties of its citizenry.

    “I took oath to protect and secure the lives and property of our citizens as governor of Plateau.

    “For this reason, my administration has placed high premium on peace, security and good governance, being the first item on our five-pillar policy thrust.

    “Regardless of the threat we face today, we remain resolute in our commitment to arrest the vicious circle of violence and lay the foundation of sustainable peace,” he added.

    Lalong urged all and sundry to exercise restraint, observe the curfew in place, saying that traditional rulers, religious leaders, elders, political leaders and their subjects should remain vigilant.

    Lalong also advised them to cooperate with security agencies working to keep the peace.

    “Let me strongly caution against any deliberate attempt to politicise the crises, giving it religious colouration, fake news, deliberate distortions and misinformation.

    “Government through the appropriate security agencies will not hesitate to deal decisively with any trouble maker or peace spoiler,” the governor warned.

  • Amnesty for murderers?

    The death penalty issue is again taking centre stage with the report that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State is about to take decision on probable clemency on  cases of those on death row.  The battle between death penalty abolitionists and those for retention of death penalty have been long drawn and is not about to abate. Death penalty is imposed generally to curb heinous crimes, such as murder, to preserve the sanctity of lives. It remains controversial. The basic argument by death penalty abolitionists is that it negates the very essence of sanctity of life when the state takes the life of a killer while those for death penalty insist that a killer, by his deliberate action of terminating another person’s life, forfeits his own right to live.

    A secondary issue is the number of offences which attract the death penalty. On this, even many supporters of death penalty believe that the crimes which attract the death sentence can be reduced to those involving killing. Of the 41 offences which attract the death penalty in the United States, 39 involve murder and only two – treason and espionage – may not involve murder. China, which carries out the highest number of death sentence at an average of 5,000 per year till 2012 reduced the number of crimes attracting death penalty from 68 to 55 by 2011. However, studies show that prevalence of violent crimes often predisposes countries to impose the capital punishment as a deterrent. An example is the imposition of death penalty for armed robbery, and recently for kidnapping in Nigeria in response to escalating violent robberies and kidnap cases. Death penalty abolitionists also stress that because a death penalty once carried out is irreversible should make countries abolish the punishment to prevent the killing of an innocent suspect. Many contend, however, that that probability argument is self serving and cannot be enough ground for complete abolition of death penalty, irrespective of incontrovertible evidence of the gravity of the murderous violence visited on the victim. Death penalty is not revenge but retribution – reaping what killers sow.

    The world today is engaged in a titanic battle:  authoritarian application of law vs. liberal interpretation and application of law.  The liberals, parading under the fraudulent tag of human rights organizations, are becoming more and more of advocates for killers and other violent criminals. The so-called human rights communities do not preach against murder by individuals but are most vociferous in defence murderers’ right to life, when convicted, while completely discounting the victims’ equal right to life.  It is a fraudulent campaign and the name – human rights community, a misnomer.  The authoritarians, as advocates of rule of law and for wanting the provisions of existing laws enforced, especially with regard to violent crimes, are being projected in the public arena as mean hearted.  It is a propaganda tactics at demonizing those who insist that persons must face the consequences of the choices they make in their disdainful violation of the law. Death penalty is federal law in the U.S and is also applicable in 31 of the 50 states. The U.S. has executed 15,269 persons under death penalty, as at 2002, including 16 clergy, 12 lawyers and 19 doctors and since 1977 granted clemencies to 273 convicts. A feature of the duality of federal-state laws on death penalty in the U.S. was on display where Dylan Roof, a racist, who killed 12 African-Americans at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015 was sentenced to life jail in  state court but convicted  on federal hate crime charges by a federal jury and sentenced to death under federal law.  More than two-thirds of the world population live under jurisdictions with death penalty law, including Japan, contrary to the erroneous impression being created by human rights groups that only minority operate death penalty.

    Lagos, and particularly Lagos megapolis, faces tremendous security challenges with the influx of all kinds of people into the state, requiring courageous application of the law. One of such recent traumatic challenges was the rash of kidnappings that literally brought the state prostrate before daring criminals. It was this situation which apparently compelled the state to pass the law imposing death penalty on kidnappers. It was a situational response. While conceding that the death penalty could have applied only to kidnappers whose victims got killed, it nevertheless indicates the state government’s sensitivity to the intolerable siege the kidnappers were imposing on the state. Lagos is seemingly being blackmailed in its efforts to create a people-friendly, orderly city.  Skill-less, homeless  vagrants from other states cannot be evicted without a chorus of discrimination, its plan for a census to know those living within its borders was shut down on the charges of being divisive and its tax regime is vilified as being punitive even as people clamour for municipal infrastructure befitting a megacity.

    Governor Ambode and the Lagos State government must be resolute in their  law and order pursuit. Having sent a strong signal to criminals in its anti kidnapping law, the governor cannot allow himself to be stampeded into granting underserved clemency to vicious criminals.  The state Attorney General and Commissioner for  Justice, Adeniji Kazeem, at a press conference on Tuesday, April 18, was reported to have indicated the state government’s readiness to determine the fate of those on death row in the state. Among these is the General Overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly,  Chukwuemeka  Ezeugo  a.k.a  Rev. King, whose conviction for the  2006 killing of  one of his church members, a female, by dousing her with petrol and setting her on fire, was confirmed  by the Supreme Court last year. His case will be watched with keen interest as his die-hard adherents were already expressing confidence in his triumphant return. Kazeem was said to have recounted pressure from do-gooder persons and institutions, including the British High Commission, decrying some of the state’s legal stances and the notion among convicts “that even if we commit these infractions and they sentence us to death, they will never kill us”. That is the prize of indecisiveness in enforcing death sentences over the years by lily-livered governors.

    For the British High Commission, it is instructive to note that given the spate of repeat murders by convicted murderers let out on parole in liberal Britain, former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, was compelled to back ‘whole life’ without parole but for the European Union’s stand against this. Justice Minister, Jeremy Wright, had lamented: ‘ Reoffending has been too high for too long and we are introducing significant reforms’ in 2015 including  GPS satellite tags on paroled convicts for better monitoring. It was a situational response to multiple repeat murders by released convicts, including those  by Andrew Dawson, a 1982 murder convict who stabbed a 91-year old man to death weeks after his release (parole) in 2010 ; George Johnson, jailed for murder in 1986, released in 2006 only to batter to death 89-year old widow, Florence Habesch ;  David Cook, a 1987 murder convict  who killed his neighbor in 2011 on release from jail;  Ernest Wright, a 2010 repeat murderer and Desmond Lee, a gay who killed his lover, Christopher Pratt in 2009 on release from jail for the 1989 murder of his landlady.

    The growing violent crimes in the country demand forceful response from governments at various levels and state legislatures should experiment with impeachment proceedings against governors failing in their constitutional responsibility in refusing to sign death warrants of convicted felons.  However, a case-by-case review process can be put in place for death row inmates to determine possible mitigating circumstances which may compel commuting some death sentences to life jail, especially for offences where no life was lost. But for the callous killers, there should be no compromise, the position of weepers in Amnesty International and their local surrogates, notwithstanding.

     

    • Dr. Olawunmi is Senior Lecturer, Bowen University, Iwo.

  • Abia varsity murderers

    •The butchery that happened in the name of cults must be investigated and punished

    Cultism has been with us for long. Indeed, it has become a way of life for many students in our campuses and other tertiary institutions and, regrettably, in some secondary schools. Rival cult groups usually unleash terror in many of the institutions, killing and maiming in the process. In some cases, they hold hostage the school authorities who dare not challenge their activities.

    But criminals masquerading as cultists at the Abia State University, Uturu, took cultism to new lows when they beheaded two undergraduates of the university last Saturday night, and thereafter used their heads as goal posts. Their roommate sustained severe injuries from machete cuts inflicted by the criminals. The victims – Ebuka Nwaigbo,  a 300-level student of the Department of Estate Management,  and Samuel Ethelbert,  300-level student of the Department of Political Science – were living at Chi-Doo Lodge along  the Uturu-Afikpo Road.

    They were killed by members of a rival cult group who were on a revenge mission for one of their members that was killed last month. According to a source, their murder was as a result of the activities of two cult groups, Burkinafaso and Mafia, that had engaged each other in a battle of supremacy for years in the university.

    “Last month, one Collins Agwu, a member of  Burkinafaso,  was gunned down by the Mafia. His colleagues (Burkinafaso)  decided to retaliate  by killing members of the Mafia. That night, they came to the lodge on four motorbikes carrying four persons each and they forced themselves in when one of the students living there came out to buy Indomie Noodles. They beheaded their targets while the third person, their visitor, was seriously wounded. After killing them, they carried their heads and bodies in a sack and took it to a playground where they (cult boys) normally play football near the school gate and mounted their heads as goalposts.”

    It was horrible that students could behead their fellow students, but to use the heads of their victims as goalposts compounds the bestiality. A university is supposed to be a citadel of learning; it is also supposed to ‘pass through’ those who have passed through its four walls. Unfortunately, some students only pass through the university without allowing the university to pass through them, which is also important. Otherwise, universities would only be awarding degrees to those found worthy in learning. But most citations at graduation ceremonies say the graduates have been found worthy both in learning and character. Regrettably, some of our students, for various reasons, forget the essence of their being in the school by engaging in cultism and other vices that add no value to their lives, or at best turn them to criminals.

    A few years ago, many of the cultists in the higher institutions publicly renounced cultism and pledged to turn a new leaf. Nigerians and the government forgave their sins, embraced them and asked them to go but sin no more. Sadly, like dogs, many have returned to their vomit because they see cultism as rewarding since they are hardly made to account for their illegalities.

    We welcome the investigative panel set up by the state governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, to expose those behind the killings. The panel should collaborate with the Abia State Police Command that has mandated its criminal investigation department to probe the killings. We must state, however, that there should be no cover up because we will continue to experience such criminality until we begin to call people who kill in the name of cultism the murderers that they are.

    When people who have attained the age of majority kill willfully, they have committed murder and should therefore be apprehended and prosecuted for same. ‘Thou shall not kill’ is a law or commandment that is well known among all the major religions in the country. We are not helping the society when we allow adults who killed to escape justice simply because they are students.

  • Are they medical doctors or murderers?

    Perhaps a 300-Level Biochemistry student, identified as John, would not have died if the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) is not on strike. John was allegedly poisoned by a friend at an off-campus hostel. He returned to his hostel in pains, vomiting blood. Immediately, he was rushed to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH). On getting there, there was no medical personnel to attend to the dying student. Doctors were on strike, the symphathisers were told. No first aid was administered on him. The poor John was left to writhe in pain.

    He was then taken to the university Health Centre. Unfortunately, he gave up the ghost on the way. What a way not to die! What is the meaning of wickedness? How else can the brutality of mankind be felt?

    Just because of pride and administrative recklessness, innocent lives are being lost. The President is fighting tooth and nail to end terrorism and Ebola. Now, NMA is pursing another agenda.

    It was in grief that I wrote this piece about the ongoing doctors’ strike. If I had not lost a colleague, maybe I would not have given this article a thought.

    A philosopher had once advocated death for all men as solution to the mischief they have caused to the world. In his time, corruption was a norm and a way of life. In his own reasoning, he prescribed death as the solution to the trouble he faced.

    But it was evident that his solution was synonymous to the cynical attitude of the ostrich who buries his head below the sand in the site of trouble, while its other parts were exposed. This is the part that our Nigerian medical doctors have chosen to plough. The moment they really need their head to think, it is buried!

    Doctors, who swore to the Hippocratic Oath to save lives, are the ones snuffing life out of the people through their self-serving strike. Just at the time the nation needs them the most, the doctors turn their back. Threatened by terrorism and the gruesome Ebola, the medical doctors are sitting in their houses while scores are dying. This is exactly what an illiterate man would do and will be termed a murderer. The so-called elite doctors, under the guise of NMA, are doing the same thing, with full immunity. They are well exercising their right to murder!

    Since when did the NMA start passing by-laws for para-medical profession, such as Pharmacist Council of Nigeria (PCN) and other health workers association? Are these professions under the NMA? When will these doctors know that lives are more important than any other thing?

    They’ve shown gross irresponsibility, fatuous ferocity and crass insolence. Leaving your responsibility as a life saver, all in the guise of helping the patient, you are now sentencing them to their early grave. Has it ever been told where the police force go on industrial action? No matter how corrupt a police force could be, their importance can never be downplayed. They are ‘essential workers’. They know their place.

    They said pharmacists should not be called doctors. A pharmacist who graduated with a Bachelor in Pharmacy (Pham B) is not called a doctor, but those with a Pham D would be tagged doctors. They argued that Pham D would bring confusion to the hospital chain of command. Why have we not heard about the confusion in developed countries of the world were Pharm D certificates are also issued? This is nothing but a mere figment of their lustful imagination, driving them to a catastrophic, embarrassing and disappointing end.

    Who are mostly affected by these actions? The poor. This is simply because most rich people have their personal doctors and can also afford the exorbitant fees of private hospitals owned by these same doctors who are on strike!

    I began to ask myself whether our doctors are truly protectors of life as they claim, or merchants of death. I began to ask myself whether this group is humane or just a bunch of greedy wolves in sheep clothing. It’s really disheartening to know that the health and lives of the poor have been sold on the platform of individualism and overblown ego.

    Indeed, strikes are anti-medical profession; this is because the ultimate job of the doctor is to care for the sick and save lives, even in its tiniest form. I have painstakingly read the grievances the doctors tendered for the recent strike. They are not just selfish, but a sign of myopic thinking. Let it be known that whatever you have sown, that you shall reap.

     

    Ezekiel, 300-Level Pharmacy, UNIBEN

  • More mothers less murderers

    “God could not be everywhere, so he invented mothers”, so goes an old Jewish proverb. The thing that makes mothers such “deputy gods”, is often beyond human comprehension. An old cartoon once showed a young boy talking on the telephone saying, “Mom is in the hospital, the twins and Roxie and Billie and Sally and the dog and me and Dad are all home alone”. Imagine that! Obviously for the kid, when Mom is not home, hardly anyone is. The Spanish are known to say “An ounce of (good) mother is worth more than a pound of clergy”. To millions in the world the name “mother” means the entire world. The Yoruba idiom: Iya ni wura, baba ni dingi”, mother is gold, father, a mirror, expresses the fact to a great extent.

    Thomas Edison, great American inventor of many devices, including the motion picture camera and the electric bulb, wrote this tribute to his mother. “I did not have my mother long, but she cast over me a good influence that lasted all my life. The good effect of her early training I can never lose. If it had not been her appreciation and her faith in me at a critical time in my experience, I would never likely have become an inventor. I was always a careless boy, and with a mother of different mental caliber, I would have turned out badly. But her firmness, her sweetness, her goodness, were potent powers to keep me on the right path. My mother was the making of me. The memory of her will always be a blessing to me”. This complements the thought of Abraham Lincoln, former American president, that no man is poor who has a mother.

    Enduring image of motherhood

    The usual image of motherhood from nature, nurture, culture and Scripture all over the world is that of selfless love, sacrifice, devotion and affection. In an illustration about mothers, Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer once said: “When Eve was brought to Adam, he became filled with the Holy Spirit, and gave her the most sanctified, the most glorious of appellations. He called her Eve, that is to say, the mother of all. He did not style her wife, but simply mother, mother of all living creatures. In this consists the glory and the most precious ornament of woman” Well, that is probably why mothers would do anything for the good of their children, at least that is the way it used to be. Such are the mothers in the Bible who wanted the best for their children even at great pains to themselves. The mother of the seven brothers in the second book of Maccabees wanted the best for her children with God and she did not want them to be compromised by the fear of death. Her speech to her last son to face death courageously deserves attention as the Bible said. “More than all of them, their mother ought to be admired and remembered…” a woman “full of a noble sense of honour” (2Macc.7: 20-29).  Mary the mother of Jesus demonstrated this best. She went through thick and thin with her dear son, Jesus. She stood at the foot of the cross as her son was killed but it was all for a higher cause.

    Moments of Change

    We witness today the tragic transformation of motherhood. Many mothers kill their own children with impunity, many participate in public mob killings and others expressly promote anti-life policies and activities. This demeaning of motherhood has been on for some time both surreptitiously and even with the encouragement of the regulators of society. The moment the world chose to condone or liberalize abortion was the moment the floodgates opened up to the decay of motherhood and to the gradual demise of selfless love, compassion and empathy which true motherhood usually represents. Saintly Mother Teresa of Calcutta said no greater form of wickedness exists than when a mother kills her own baby, the very life in her womb. When the womb of life is turned into the tomb of death by the very custodian of the womb then there can be no limit to violence in society. Such thoughts have been vindicated as we now see women monsters, women ritualists and women gangsters killing not only in their wombs, but also outside of it. And it gets worse. More recently women terrorists have emerged in Nigeria heralding the era of women suicide bombers and women mass murderers too.

    Restore the glories of motherhood

    Saint Pope John Paul II had such great concern about the degradation of motherhood and he taught extensively about the subject. In his apostolic exhortation “Mulieris Dignitatem (the Dignity of Women) the Pope asserts that women are more capable than men of compassion because of their symbiotic connection to humanity through pregnancy, which men are incapable of (MD 18). He extols the contribution of the “feminine genius” in society. This “feminine genius” he says, is special to women. It is this special genius that we can call on to defend the right and dignity of women themselves. It ought to be the answer to the “culture of death” which drives modern society’s penchant for abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, war and murder. The pope insists that it is necessary to bring out this full truth about women for the purpose of inspiring and uplifting society. How sad it is then today to see the transmutation of the vital forces of motherhood to those of murderous monster-hood. It is imperative to salvage the true nature of motherhood as the last bastion of hope to preserve the humanity of modern society. Let us work to have more mothers and fewer murderers among us.

    •Emmanuel Ade Badejo is the Catholic Bishop of Oyo and Chairman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) Directorate of Communications

  • Government must bring Mubi murderers to justice

    Government must bring Mubi murderers to justice

    Sir: We strongly condemn the wicked massacre of about 40 students at The Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Adamawa State, on the wee hours of Tuesday, October 2. Indeed, this act was carefully plotted days before it was hatched and we do not completely agree that it has everything to do with the outcome of the Student’s Union Government election that was held few days before the killings.

    We call on the government and all the security agencies to do everything possible to unmask the killers of these promising youths. Perhaps, encouraging the female students to confide in any of the security agencies in identifying the killers may be of assistance. Again, it is also a wake-up call on the government and school authorities to provide enough hostels within the schools for the students, to discourage this private lodge springing up at every community hosting higher institutions of learning in Nigeria.

    It is also important that the Federal Government, states and local governments begin to take security in the country very serious; no doubt there are proliferation of arms and ammunitions in the hands of questionable characters. Those who are alleged to have committed heinous crimes must be arrested and dealt with to serve as deterrent to willing criminals. Allowing people with proving record of having committed heinous crimes free from punishment encourages others.

    Finally, we deeply feel for the families who lost their loved ones in this dastardly act. Once again, we call on Nigerians with useful information to give, to support the security agents in their investigations towards the arrest of these wicked killers for justice to take its cause.

    The barbarians must not go free!

     

    Uzodinma Nwaogbe

    Community Defence Law Foundation, CDLF, Abuja