“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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