Let the power-drunk remember the power-drowned

THE terrorists who abducted Lieutenant P.P Johnson in Enugu this week knew they had power. They knew they had majesty, hailed to the high heavens by a populace half-dead with fright. They had killed many, raped and robbed many, and watched many cower in naked fright as they got literally disemboweled. There is nothing as indicative of total surrender, and therefore as empowering to terrorists, as the sight of a naked body. On a good day women without grace are walking buckets of paint who hide stench under a forest of wigs while delivering lectures in body royalty as they prance about creation, but fashion is treason in the den of terrorists. You cannot be dainty in the presence of one teaching your naked body the lessons of life and brandishing a gun that may silence you at any moment. There is, I say again, no lower estate of humanity than a naked, pleading soul.

What pride can anyone stripped and tortured have in the face of endless pain? Pounded by terrorists, the victims have no care for their nakedness. This is not a shopping mall where an accidental touch may invite a slap. This is a moment of possible death when humility flows like a stream: it is just like the moment of birth when shame is not a thought. Terrorists have everything they need because they have no trouble actualizing any whim: a maiden on her wedding day, the bed of the man who in saluting them dared to omit a title, their neighbour’s daughter just manifesting the signals of adulthood, the wife of the chief who is attired in purple. Anything at all, because the State lies in deep slumber.

For work, Monday is the start of the week—it isn’t just Eko but all of human cities that tolerate no nonsense on a Monday—but the long-suffering people of the South-East hemmed in by terrorists on three fronts, namely nomadic killers, unknown gunmen and biased certified gunmen of the State, know exactly what awaits them should they cast caution aside because of daily bread and venture out into the streets. The abductors of Lieutenant Johnson live(d) larger than kings, their word the law. You may indeed disagree with a terrorist, but it is your corpse that will argue the case. In the mad world of terrorists, any talk of mercy is a passport to certain death.  When you beg Cain’s brood, as anyone facing death and destruction indeed would, you show them why they must kill you faster than they originally intended.

If experience in this clime is any indication, you do not even need to argue with terrorists before you die. As a matter of fact, terrorists attack you precisely because you have done nothing wrong.  Randy Borum, forensic psychologist and a Professor and Coordinator of Strategy and Intelligence Studies in the School of Information at the University of South Florida, characterizes terrorism as involving “acts of violence intentionally perpetrated on civilian noncombatants with the goal of furthering some ideological, religious or political objective.” Those are the kinds of acts perpetrated by ESN, Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen, but it is illiterate to reduce terrorists to illegal gunmen. The fact is that across history, and certainly in this clime, there have been many terrorists in uniform, including those whose cases were brought to light during the #EndSARS crisis. Or how else would you classify the case of Vandi Drambi, the lunatic just a few weeks away from retirement from the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) who gunned down a pregnant lawyer, Mrs Omobolanle Raheem, in a fit of mindless rage on Christmas day?

Listen to the victim’s husband, Gbenga Raheem: “My wife said since it was Christmas Day, we should take everyone out, so we went to a supermarket at Abraham Adesanya, then to Domino’s Pizza. After that, we headed towards Ajah to do a U-turn to come back to Abraham Adesanya. When we took the U-turn, we saw policemen stopping some vehicles. As we approached them, they said we should stop, and in the process, we heard a loud sound on my wife’s side window. All of a sudden, I saw blood gushing out of her chest. I immediately ran out; my sister-in-law, who was also with us, ran out and held the policeman; he cocked his gun at her too. Talking to him was pointless.” Terrorists do not need a reason to kill: they kill for sport. If this fellow has spent 33 years in the NPF, don’t tell me this is his first act of terror. He must have been inflicting pain on families for years, enjoying the sight of blood and tears. In any case, it has been alleged that a young man, one Gafaru Buraimoh, was killed by an officer from the same division where Drambi is stationed two weeks ago.

During the #EndSARS crisis, a police sergeant who was bitterly opposed to the SARS outfit told a story that is difficult to forget. She had investigated a case of phone theft but her superiors weren’t content with the outcome of her investigation, and so the case was referred to the defunct SARS. To extract confession from the innocent young man involved, the SARS men cut off his fingers! According to the woman: “I urinated on my body but the men were saying : Ah madam, you are a policewoman, you don’t have to be moved by these things!” At the end of the day, the SARS men found that the young man had been wrongly accused. There are many stories such as this buried in silence.

According to the scholar A.S Butler: “Terrorism is intended to provoke collective fear and uncertainty. This fear can spread rapidly and is not limited to those experiencing the event directly—others that are affected include family members of victims and survivors, and people who are exposed through broadcast images. Psychological suffering is usually more prevalent than the physical injuries from a terrorism event.” That is why apprehension is high across the land. There are many uniformed terrorists prowling our streets causing sorrow, tears and blood like the Abami Eda quipped, and you will never know merely by looking at them. They are people who may, as the Bard of Avon wrote, “Look like th’innocent flower/But be the serpent under’t.” And worse still, their terrorism is just a fraction of what the leaders who rig and rob their way into Government House do with our miserable lives. And that is why I have always warned in words of my careful choosing: let the power-drunk remember the power-drowned.

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