Onyia Towers is a three-storeyed
building erected in the heart of Umuchima, one of the neighbouring four rural
communities of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. It is a popular
off-campus residence or lodge (as most prefer to call them) among the student
community, a good number of whom are housed in it. One of the students residing
therein is Emeka Agu, a 200 level student of Statistics. At about 9pm on the
evening of Tuesday,the 22nd of March, Emeka had just eaten dinner whn his
Ebuka Opus, a 500 level student of Computer Science who lived next-door called
him over. Expecting a neighborly chat, Emeka strolled over only to face
accusations from Opus. It happened that whenever Opus switched on his
generator, a bulb in the Emeka’s verandah always came on. Onyia Towers has been
noted for having a faulty loop-like electrical structure such that there are
frequent cases of light in one or more rooms being controlled by the switch in
another. Emeka reminded his accuser of this but Ebuka seemed notto hear,
insisting in a rapidly-escalating voice that Emeka had better fix the problem
or he (Opus) would get him arrested. When what should have been a neighborly
chat turned into a ruckus, another neighbor who asked to not be identified,
butted in. he was more forceful in telling Opus that the electrical fault was
no fault of Emeka’s. The caretaker of the lodge who is known by all as Shagaman
had at this point, heard the noisy argument broiling on the top floor all the
way from his room on the ground floor. He proceeded to investigate and upon
hearing the details, he tried his best to pacify Opus. In Shagaman’s later
words, “I talked to both of them…I promised Opus that I would invite an
electrician to fix the problem by the next day. Everybody then calmed down and
went to sleep but I did not know that he (Opus) had other plans”.
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| Biggie and his knocked out tooth |
Opus’ ‘other plans’ met the
unsuspecting Emeka headlong on his way out as early as 7am on Wednesday. Emeka
recounted his experience thus: “I had to go buy out water at about 7 the next
morning. Immediately I stepped outside through the gate, three bikes carrying
six guys including Opus stopped in front of the lodge. He (Opus) pointed at me
and said, ‘he is the one’ so one of the guys came down and told me to board the
bike. I guessed they were Man O’ War guys so I quietly climbed the bike and
they took me to the Command headquarters in Hostel C. I was thrown into the
dungeon there and locked in. after about two hours, one of them came to me with
paper and asked me to write my statement. It was then that I heard that the
case had blown up”.
‘Blown up’ was no exaggeration.
After Emeka had been arrested, four other members of the Man O’ War came back
to also arrest the anonymous neighbor who had sided Emeka in the argument of
the previous night. They had him in custody and were about to leave when
Shagaman, the caretaker accosted them. Speaking in the vernacular, Shagaman
reported, “As the caretaker of this lodge, I am responsible for the safety of
all the students. So when I saw those boys with one of my charges, I stopped
them and enquired about what was going on. They said they were from the Man O’
War and had come to arrest him over the matter of the previous night. I asked
for their identification but they couldn’t provide any. I therefore refused to
let them pass insisting that there was no way they would leave with a student
resident in Onyia (Towers) without proper identification. It was at this point
that one of them pulled out a machete threagthening to cut anyone who tried to
stop them. By then, Achike (the caretaker of Emak Place, a neighboring lodge)
and some other Onyia boys had gathered. The guy’s motions and manner were so
suspect that I concluded that he was not what he claimed to be. Infact, I
thought he was an assassin so I locked the gate and ordered him to leave the
boy alone. His refusal to comply led to a struggle and with Achike’s help, I
overpowered him. Since he had neither an arrest warrant nor an identity card, I
kept him in the custody of Achike and a few other male students while I took
the emergency gate out to invite members of the Vigilante service”.
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| balcony from which a student jumped to escape them |
With all the noise and excitement,
the other three members of the arrest team were left unnoticed. They scaled the
walls of the lodge and escaped to their Command headquarters. They then
returned at the command of their Commander-in-charge on what they later termed
a ‘rescue mission’
.
The students in Onyia were still
questioning the alleged member of the Man O’ War when bangs resounded on the
locked gate with yells for the gate to be opened. They of course refused to
open but were surprised and eventually took to their heels when armed men
started scaling their walls. The padlock with which the gate had been secured
was broken and in poured a roaring mob of between 10 and 15 men mostly dressed
in black and armed with an assortment of weapons ranging from a pestle (which
was stolen from the kitchen supply of a nearby commercial cook), machetes,
pistols and shotguns. An eyewitness who pleaded anonymity identified one of the
armed Man O’ War men as Jude. In his words, “I was in my room when I heard GBO!
GBO! out front. I peeked out from my balcony and saw Jude with a shotgun. He
shot it then he bent and picked something which he put into his mouth”. The
eyewitness did not know it at the time but what Jude had picked was the empty
shell of the bullet he had just fired. The Man O’ War guys, he later found out,
were ordered by the Commander-in-charge to clean up every trace of gunshots by
picking the empty shells.
The time was just about 7.30am them
and a good number of students were still in their beds. When they were roused
by gunshots, they understandably panicked. Fearing that armed robbers were
repeating a visit they had made to the lodge sometime last year, a male
resident of the first floor jumped out of his balcony aiming to land on the
fence and escape into Emak Place, the neighboring lodge. He unfortunately
missed his footing and fell. His stars must have been up and about however,
because his fall was broken by a bus parked close to the fence in Emak Place.
At press time nevertheless, this unidentified student was still undergoing treatment
for chest pains at a hospital in Owerri.
Meanwhile, the Man O’ War men
proceeded on their ‘rescue mission’ which entailed vandalizing the lodge's
doors, windows and water pumps, raiding students’ rooms, dragging male students
out, mercilessly beating them up and ordering them out to the frontage where
there were made to either lie on the floor or frog-jump as the case may be.
Patrick Chimaobi is a 500 level
student of Polymer and Textile Engineering and he spoke to CAMPUSLIFE. “My door
was broken down and about 3 armed guys came in” he said, “One of them tried to
throw my ceramic flower vase on me but it caught on the ceiling fan and
shattered. I was then ordered out to join the other guys at the frontage. Maybe
one of them recognized me or maybe I was just lucky but I was not beaten”
James Onyeukwu and his roommate
known to everyone as Biggie, both ND 1 students of Mechanical Engineering in
the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede were not so ‘lucky’. The duo were just about
eating a breakfast of cereal when they heard the commotion in the hall outside
their door. They opened the door and seeing the fracas, attempted to escape.
James escaped a swinging machete and tried to run. He only got as far as the
lodge gate where he met “two guys standing with axes. One of them raised the
axe but I held on tight to his arm. He then head-butted my mouth and used the
handle of the axe on my head. I fell and both of them started kicking at and
beating me”. Biggie did not even get that far. An eyewitness reported that “Biggie
tried to run up the stairs to the first floor but one of them (Man O’ War men)
pulled him back. He rolled down the stairs to the bottom where the Man O’ War
guy picked him up and head-butted his mouth. Biggie’s tooth fell out and blood
dribbled out of his mouth”. At press time, Biggie was still in Aba where he had
gone to receive treatment.
The popular opinion was that female
students were left alone but Shagaman’s wife was not. Even though visibly
pregnant, the poor woman was slapped earning her a prominent black eye. The
injuries inventory ranged from machete-slap marks and cuts to bleeding gashes
on limbs and torsos, black eyes, swollen faces and a case of suspected internal
bleeding all of which were confirmed to CAMPUSLIFE albeit grudgingly by a nurse
at the FUTO Medical Centre where the injured students had received first aid
treatment, drugs and injections.
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| gash on a student's leg from the attack |
At about 8.15am, Shagaman returned
with men of the Vigilante service who together with officers of the
Anti-terrorism Squad (who had been called by concerned students of neighboring
lodges) brought the near-carnage to an end. Lobbied by the lodge president, the
battered students took their critically injured to the FMC while the rest
proceeded at about 11am on a protest march to the office of the Chief Security
Officer (CSO) of the university. The Dean of Student Affairs, Engr. Dr. Remy
Uche was also alerted and he with the CSO accompanied the students back to the
lodge for an assessment of the damage. Apart from vandalized doors and windows,
students reported finding their phones and laptops missing upon return to their
rooms. Shagaman’s wife was the most vocal of all, screaming that “one of them,
one tall yellow boy took the N10,000 I kept for my business. He must give me my
money oh!” It was also discovered that the men who had come on the supposed
‘rescue mission’ had also broken into rooms that were locked from the outside
indicating absence of the occupants. Ogechukwu Okeke, a 400 level student of
Industrial Physics was absent during the entire ordeal but she returned later
in the day to find that “my window and door were broken through. I also couldn’t
find N10,000 which I had withdrawn recently for a program we organized in
school” All these losses were reportedly taken note of by the Dean who did his
best to reassure the students. On the phone with CAMPUSLIFE a few days later,
he conceded that nothing had been done yet while reiterating that, “On my
honor, I promise to do something about this”
Students who opened up to CAMPUSLIFE
on the grounds of anonymity however, expressed dissatisfaction with the Dr.
Uche’s promise to do ‘something’. According to one of them who is a fourth year
student, “since I came into this school, the Man O’ War has always meted out
brutal treatment to FUTO students especially those living in the hostels and
neither this Dean nor the one before him did anything to remedy the situation.
They (the Man O’ War) seem to have the backing of the Dean of Student Affairs
so they freely abuse the excessive power they are given at the expense of the
Nigerian students in this school” “For God’s sake,” another infuriated student
seeking anonymity added, “these boys came onto us like cultists with machetes
and guns; they molested and robbed us yet just two days after the incident, I
saw some of them strolling through school freely as if life couldn’t be
sweeter! Is that how life should be?”
While we ponder that question, it
might also help to wonder why and how the FUTO Man O’ War Command has access to
sophisticated weapons like pistols and shotguns when their comrades in other
schools like the nearby Federal Polytechnic, Nekede are known to possess only
the notorious koboko or horsewhip.
A
year has passed and the victims have not received any form of
compensation from either the school management or the Man O' War
command. The landlord of the lodge in question even repaired the damages
to his property himself
P.S. I WROTE THIS PIECE ABOUT MARCH
LAST YEAR WHICH WAS WHEN THIS EVENT TOOK PLACE. I TRIED TO GET IT PUBLISHED TO
NO AVAIL, MOST PROBABLY DUE TO THE SENSITIVITY OF THE MATERIAL. SO NOW I AM
PUTTING IT UP HERE BECAUSE I PROMISED THEM - STUDENTS WHO WERE BETRAYED BY THE
SAME PEOPLE WHOM THEY PAID TO PROTECT THEM - THEIR STORY WILL BE TOLD. I'M
SORRY IT TOOK THIS LONG BUT IT HAS AT LEAST BEEN TOLD. THAT THE WORLD MAY
KNOW!!!!
WRITER’S PROFILE
Chisom Ojukwu is a Nigerian student of Chemical Engineering
with a burning passion for the pen and the strength that lies therein. A writer
that cuts across all the genres, he favors creative non-fiction which gives him
"the opportunity to tell everyday people's stories so that the reader not
only understands, but feels them". His major source of strength and
inspiration lies in his readers - "as long as people read and get the message,
I am fulfilled". In addition to reader satisfaction, Chisom has also
garnered awards for his essays, stories and articles. He holds the CAMPUSLIFE
Reporter of the Year 2010 award and the Cultural Reporter of the Year 2011
award among many others. Chisom Ojukwu writes THAT THE WORLD MAY KNOW.