(Intersociety Nigeria, 4th May 2016)-“Spinning”
is a police public relations
methodology, designed to reduce deceitfully, the gravity of casualty figures,
property destructions and distortion or suppression of general facts associated
with social vices or disturbances; for the purpose of manipulating public
opinion and saving police image or sustaining its mechanical legitimacy. In
other words, it is a sustained distortion or corruption of facts of the matter
or information by the police. “Spinning” is very common among policing entities
of the third world or developing countries, owing to their failed intelligence,
gross incompetence, lack of effective preventive policing, graft and inability
to carry out their established duties and functions. To ensure these, scene of
crime figures and facts are brutally mangled and information grossly corrupted
or distorted in the context of “official crime findings or criminal statistics”.
Onitsha Bomb Blast: The True Story: “Kara” is a settlement
quarter along Atani-Ogwuikpere Federal Road, in Ogbaru LGA of Anambra State.
Its left side is dominated by Nigerian citizens of Hausa-Fulani extraction; who
have settled in the area for over 30 years. It was formerly a cattle depot and
slaughter. The area has a large space, occasioned by the presence of an
inter-State electricity high tension wire, leading to erection of kiosks,
shanties and other makeshift dwelling and trading structures. Its main
entrance, down to Otumoye Primary School, is surrounded by kiosks and shanties
from left, right and center. The area is very popular and serves as poutry,
sugar-cane, suya and onions markets. It also houses Hausa-Fulani laborers,
cobblers, artisans etc. At its boundary with the SS Peter & Paul Catholic
Church, Nkutaku and the Otumoye Primary School in Okpoko Layout, lays a thriving
commercial sex business. At the right
side of the Road are mechanic workshops, repairing assorted brands of vehicle.
This section of “Kara settlement” is dominated by Nigerian citizens of Igbo
extraction.
In the evening of Tuesday, 3th of
May, 2016, between 8.30pm and 9pm, there was a heavy explosion with deafening
sound; resulting in people around the area including parishioners of the SS
Peter & Paul Catholic Church, at Nkutaku, scampering for safety. From Atani
Road, down to Iyiowa Layout was thrown into panic. In the morning mass held at
the St Gregory Catholic Church in Iyiowa Odekpe, the officiating priest of the
Parish informed his parishioners how he got a distress call from the Parish
Priest of the SS Peter & Paul Parish, informing him of the blast and its
deafening noise. The SS Peter & Paul Parish shares a perimeter fence with
the “Kara settlement”. As early as 8am in the morning of 4th May
2016, the scene was already besieged by security agencies in Onitsha zone. Some
of the earliest visitors are the authorities of the Nigerian Navy, Ogbaru Post
and the Onitsha Military Cantonment.
More security agencies,
politicians, humanitarian, human rights and media bodies including Prof Peter
Katchy (deputy chairman of Nigerian Red Cross, Anambra State), Mr. Victor Aguluo
(chairman of Ogbaru LGA) visited the scene between 10am and 11am same morning.
The Board Chairman of this organization in his capacity as human rights
activist, volunteer general of the Nigerian Red Cross in Anambra State and a
trained criminologist, was also part of the visit. The eyewitnesses’ accounts
of what actually transpired were totally in tandem with circumstantial
observations and commonsense.
A key eyewitness and leader of
the settlement, Alhaji Sabo Mohammed later informed the visiting Deputy
Commissioner of Police in charge of Operations (DC-OPS), Mr. J.B. Kokomo;
accompanied by DPOs of Okpoko Police Station (CSP Kayode Olabanji), Fegge
Police Station (SP Rabiu Garba), Central Police Station (SP Mark Ijaradu),
Nteje Police Station (SP Daniel Barnabas) and that of Inland Town Police
Station that “a young man came to one of food restaurants located at the center of
the settlement at about 8.30pm and demanded for a plate of food. He quietly
dropped two rubber-cans containing undisclosed fluid substances, took few
spoonfuls of his ordered food, left the food unfinished as if he was going to
ease himself and never came back. Few minutes after, there was a loud explosion
hitting the food kiosk and injurying its customers”. This empirical
account is corroborated by those of other witnesses including victims. They
sharply contradict police account or angle (explosion resulting from ignition
of stored fuel in jerry-can).
The explosive devices only
shattered and burnt the food kiosk. Other surrounding shanties, kiosks and
nearby conventional buildings like SS Peter & Paul Catholic Church, the
First Baptist Church, the Good News Hospital and a nearby four storey building
were not affected. The initial figure given by the Nigerian Red Cross, Ogbaru
Division, as it concerns the victims; was seven. It later rose to about 11.
Five were admitted at the Chioma Hospital in Ogbaru; one at the nearby Good
News Hospital; one in critical condition with round-the-body bandages, was admitted
at the nearby Multicare Hospital while others were admitted at the St Charles
Borromeo Hospital in Onitsha and other undisclosed ones in Asaba, Delta State.
For records and technically
speaking, there are varieties of low intensity explosive devices that are cheaply
produced and can easily be detonated. They are presently in possession of
malicious non-State actors around the world including Nigeria. These can easily
be produced and manipulated by fresh graduates or under graduates of tertiary
institutions particularly graduates and students of science and technology.
With little tutorship, their end-users and handlers can successfully detonate
them against their targets. Combination of their low and high intensity is
generally classified as “Certain Conventional Weapons (CCWs)” or “Incendiary
Explosive Devices”. They are also scornfully called “poor man’s grenades or
explosives”.
These include petrol bombs,
improvised explosive devices, anti personnel landmines etc. Incendiary
explosives or devices can cause low intensity fires leading to destruction of
sensitive equipment or body burns and cuts. Produced using thermite, magnesium
powder, chlorine triflueride, white phosphous, etc; when detonate, these can
cause painful and cruel injuries to the victims including body-burns and body
cuts; usually difficult to treat medically.
The high intensity CCWs are capable
of causing widespread destruction of civilian objects and infrastructures. The
United Nations has placed global ban on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCWs)
through the CCWs Convention of 1980. Another example of CCW is anti personnel
landmine (APM).
Distorted Police Angle: While the Anambra State Police
Command admitted that there was an “explosion”, it unprofessionally linked it
to “ignition of stored fuel in jerry-can”. Our expository questions to the
Command are: What is explosion? Does it not include loud and deafening sound or
noise? Can explosion and its loud noise or sound occur from ignition of a
hand-held plastic gallon or can with premium motor spirit? If stored fuel in jerry-cans were ignited or
lit, why were surrounding and littered kiosks, shanties and other makeshift
structures including commercial sex shanty brothels not caught up in flames?
Why were the fires or flames not
extended to nearby conventional buildings (i.e. SS Peter & Paul Catholic
Church, Good News Hospital, the First Baptist Church and a nearby four storey residential
building)? Was there the presence or intervention of any fire service on the
scene? How many shanties, kiosks or makeshift structures were burnt other than
the referenced food kiosk? Why did some victims sustain body-cuts? If the
incident was a mere flame from stored fuel, was it also responsible for high
presence of the authorities of all security establishments in Onitsha zone and
beyond? Why did many of the security establishments spend over thirty minutes
or an hour on the scene? Why was the security beefed up around the area if it
was a mere flame from stored fuel? How many of such “minor” infernos in the
State have attracted such high presence of security agencies and government
establishments?
One of the main reasons behind
our visit to the scene is to ascertain factually and empirically what happened
and how it happened through eyewitnesses’ accounts purified by commonsense,
technical expertise and circumstantial observations. We knew the State Police
Command was going to “spin” or distort the facts. As a matter of fact, if it
was the DSS that first visited its angle or on-the-spot findings would have expressly
been linked to “another IPOB or secessionist homicidal plots targeted at
Hausa-Fulani citizens in Onitsha”.
The Onitsha bomb blast is a wakeup
call on security agencies in Anambra State and the entire Southeast and South-south
regions to wriggle themselves out of their securitization slumbers and sharpen
their mental security and intelligence capacities so as to rise and tackle the
incessancy of public security and safety threats gripping the citizens. There
is need for radical restructuring of the country’s ailing and epileptic
intelligence policing or securitization. Flooding every nook and cranny of the
Southeast and the South-south regions of Nigeria with uniformed men and women
brandishing automatic weapons or robbing road users with same, is nothing but
anachronistic and gun-culture securitization.
Visiting the crime scenes after
the havoc has been wrecked is a worse policing methodology of modern time.
Modern security is holistically rested on preventive and intelligence policing.
On the other hand, self vigilance remains the most effective form of informal
or non-State actor security and safety approach. People of the Southeast and
the South-south must maintain a round-the-clock vigilance in their places of
worship, markets, offices, homes, schools, motor parks, garages, relaxation
spots and even public transport routes. We remain committed to advocacy
campaigns for security and safety of all Nigerians irrespective of tribe,
religion, class, section, age or sex.
Signed:
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
+2348174090052
Obianuju
Joy Igboeli, Esq., Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
Mobile
Line: +2348180771506
Website:
www.intersociety-ng.org
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