The killing of some youth corps members by mobs protesting the outcome of the April 16 presidential election in some northern states sparks off debate about the nation’s unity and the relevance of the National Youth Service Corps scheme
He cheated death in 2010. At that time, Ayotunde Gbenjo, a graduate of Economics from the Olabisi Onabanjo University, OOU, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, should have been part of the three-week orientation programme of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC. But a grave illness prevented him from making the first batch. The ailment brought him so close to death that he had to shelve plans for youth service. He was lucky. Gbenjo, 30, survived the illness and gladly joined the second batch for the one-year compulsory service.
Unknown to Gbenjo, death still lurked in the corner. He was first posted by the NYSC to Tafawa Balewa Local Government area, Bauchi State. Then, as an ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Gbenjo was assigned to Giade town, Bauchi, as a polling officer. Despite the postponement of the National Assembly elections on April 2, Gbenjo happily carried on with his job. But on April 18, a horde of rioters stopped the music. Gbenjo and eight other youth corps members were hacked to death in the violence that rocked six northern states after the April 16 presidential election.
Last week, as the nation celebrated the Workers’ Day, Gbenjo’s corpse arrived Gbongan, his hometown in Osun State for interment. At St. Peters Anglican Church, Oke-Apata, where the event took place, wailings and howls of anguish made the rounds like a basket of offering. As the choir sobbed through the hymns, sympathisers inside and outside the church wept profusely. Seated on the front pew, her head bowed, Grace Laoye-Tomori, deputy governor of Osun State, sobbed into her handkerchief. Oladayo Olaniran, the clergy, described the deceased as harmless and godly. Despite his university education, Gbenjo, an assistant organist, often helped to clean the surroundings of the rustic church.
At the family house of the Gbenjos, 71-year-old Modupe, Gbenjo’s mother was already an emotional wreck. Supported by her husband and scores of sympathisers, she seemed frozen by the event and her wrinkled face burned with grief and anger at the failure of the nation’s security agencies to protect her son on a national assignment. On April 18, nine youth corps members were killed in the violence that claimed over 50 lives, but Gbongan, a rustic town in Osun State, appears to the most hit by the tragedy.
Apart from Gbenjo, another victim, an indigene of the town was Kehinde Adeniji, a graduate of Banking and Finance from University of Ado-Ekiti, UNAD, Ekiti State. Like Gbenjo, Adeniji, 26, was butchered on the same day during the riot in Bauchi. As Gbongan buried Gbenjo, on May 2, it also prepared for the Islamic burial of Adeniji the next day. Though they never met, ironically, both Adeniji and Gbenjo are said to be distant cousins.
Adesina Adeniji, elder brother of the deceased, was devastated last week. As he supervised the freshly dug grave meant for his slain brother, Adesina recalled the events that culminated in the death of Kehinde. “I called him on April 17. I remember he complained about the prevalence of underage voters and I told him not to bother about that. I called him on Monday April 18, when I heard of the riots in the North. I tried his two lines but couldn’t get through. I thought he had run into the bush to escape the rioters so I sent him a text message asking him to call me as soon as he switched on his phone.” He never did.
When the riot broke out in Bauchi, in the early hours of April 18, Seun Adewunmi, a graduate of Social Sciences, OOU, Ago-Iwoye and a polling officer in Giade called Samuel Ojo, his uncle in Lagos. “He called me and said the CPC supporters have attacked INEC office close to their quarters and they have been chased out. He said they were running towards the Giade Police Station for refuge. I told him to keep running. When I called him 20 minutes later he was crying that he was in trouble. He said, ‘Oga, I am in trouble, these people are here and they are shooting at the police station’. I told him to keep praying”, said Ojo, the presiding provost of the African Church Cathedral, Ifako-Ijaiye, Lagos. That was the last anybody heard of Adewunmi, as his cell phone could not be reached again.
Delta State was also in a sorrowful mood last week. It received the body of Elliot Adowei, a Computer Science graduate and another victim of the Bauchi bloody crisis. Adowei, nephew of Edwin Clark, a prominent Ijaw leader, voted with his feet when the rioters attacked the Corpers’ Lodge in Giade, Bauchi State. While running, Elliot called Unuendjen, his mother in Delta State to tell her the situation. As his call credit ran out, the frightened lad asked his mother to send him a call credit. She did. Minutes later, Unuendjen called her son to find out if he got the credit. But the voice on the other end was not Elliot’s. It belonged to a female who simply told Elliot’s mum, “We burnt down the police station and killed them all because of Jonathan!”
Surprisingly, all the nine corps members serving in Giade were hacked to death in front of Giade Police Station. But others like Wunmi Aiyegbusi were lucky. They escaped with wounds from machete cuts. According to Aiyegbusi, who ran into Giade Police Station with Aiyegbusi and others, the police on duty confronted the bloodthirsty mob with only teargas canisters. When the mob moved to torch the station, Aiyegbusi said the police callously threw them (youth corps members) out. She said, “The rioters had their way because the policemen were only shooting teargas canisters at them. One of the stones hit the Divisional Police Officer, DPO (of the station) on the head and it was at this point that he ordered all of us to leave the station. As we were just running in different directions, they were inflicting machete cuts on us. They hit me on the head, shoulder and back but I kept on running.’’
Felled with Gbenjo, Adowei, Adeniji and Aiyegbusi were five other defenceless corps members: Tosin Teidi, Anselm Nkwazema, Obinna Okpokiri, Ibrahim Akonyi and Ikechukwu Ukeoma.
As early results of the presidential election gave President Goodluck Jonathan, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, an early lead, a spontaneous uprising rocked Kaduna, Bauchi, Katsina, Sokoto, Gombe, Nasarawa and four other states. The mob, consisting of youths and teenagers armed with daggers, knives and sticks seized the streets, chanting Sai Buhari or ‘Change’ (slogan of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC). From Badawa, Nasarawa State to Malumfashi, Kankari, Daura and Gibia in Katsina State, the rioters hit their targets unchecked burning churches, killing and maiming southerners, especially youth corps members who they accused of rigging the election in favour of Jonathan.
But beyond the human and material losses of the tragic event, the families of the slain corps members are still at pain over the manner the deaths were handled. According to Funmilade Adegoke, the Gbenjo family was not aware of their son’s death until April 24, nine days later. Adegoke, who is the immediate elder sister of the late Gbenjo, said the NYSC office in Bauchi did not deem it fit to inform the family of the incident. “When I heard that there was violence in Bauchi and my brother could not be reached I called Stella Abba, the NYSC director in Bauchi, (but) they kept tricking us. At a point we were told that the corps members were hiding in the bush. After a while, she (Abba) was not picking her calls. Even her assistant, one Mr Ede refused to pick my calls. We had to raise an alternative search team who told us that the boy had been dead since April 18,” she said.
Adesina also complained that the NYSC command in Bauchi mishandled the affair. He told the magazine that it was the NYSC command in Osun State that eventually contacted the family days later. On their own part, the Adewunmi family got to know the fate that befell their son on April 21. But Abba refuted claims of neglect by family members of the victims. Contrary to the report that she was not picking her calls, Abba said that breaking the news to the families was not within her schedule of duties. She told the magazine that she was “on a rescue mission. We had to go from one local government to another. There was no information at the time and when we eventually got the information, I had to pass it on to the (NYSC) headquarters because I was not expected to speak directly with the family members’’, she said.
Then statements attributed to Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State to the effect that the corps members were destined to die the way they did have not gone down well with families of the victims. The statements, which Yuguda claimed were a misrepresentation of what he said, have also attracted snide remarks from concerned individuals who accused the governor of not exercising restraint on the issue. Yinka Odumakin, national publicity secretary of the CPC, described the statements as highly irresponsible. Ojo, on his part, questioned the governor’s leadership credentials wondering how Yuguda as the state’s chief security officer could make such unguarded statements. For Adegoke, Yuguda should be treated as the mastermind of the killings. “If corpers (sic) could be killed at a police station and he as the governor could open … say that trash, then it shows that he supported the killings. The governor should be asked why he could not call them to order.”
But the Bauchi State government, in a statement by Sanusi Muhammed, senior special assistant on media to Yuguda, explained that, “the death of the corps members was purely an act of destiny. As human beings we should always accept our destiny either in our favour or against our interest. The unfortunate death of the corps members was destined to happen in the course of their service to Nigeria.”
Laoye-Tomori, Osun State deputy governor, regretted that the lives of the young men were cut down midflight describing them as national heroes who would always be remembered. “They stood for electoral integrity and paid with their lives. They are our national heroes”, she said assuring that the matter would not be swept under the carpet, as the perpetrators would be brought to book. “This is a symptom of a wider malaise of the refusal of some people to live with others. With the assurance of Mr President, we hope that the perpetrators and their sponsors would be brought to book,” she said. Maharazu Tsiga, director-general, NYSC, also bemoaned the killings of “innocent hapless Nigerians by cowards and agents of darkness.’’ He praised the courage of the fallen corps members to drive the process of credible election, saying they championed the course of true democracy. Tsiga admitted that, “nothing has ever diminished me in my 30 years of service like this dastardly act’’.
But the death of the young Nigerians has fears of possible threats to the nation’s unity and the relevance of the youth corps scheme to the attainment of this goal. Many Nigerians who have lost their kith and kin in the North following ethno-religious or similar crises are worried about the increasing level of intolerance in that part of the country. The apparent inability of government to protect lives and property in the area has compelled emotional reactions to the brutal loss of the corps members as many Nigerians are calling for a review of the scheme in a way that will prevent further loss of the nation’s youths and future leaders.
Among those caught in this emotional tangle is Wole Soyinka, Nobel laureate and social critic, who said the incident put a question mark on the youth scheme. It was an angry Soyinka that said “if I were to make the mistake of having any more youth serviceable child and he wants to go to that area, (the North) I will tell the person over my dead body. That is the mood in which I am, after what has happened to the children of this nation who were brought together and sent to different parts of the country, in order to foster unity.”
Ojo shares Soyinka’s view in this regard saying the scheme should be revisited to allow graduating students from the nation’s universities serve within their geographical localities. “The scheme is bringing about disunity and I will never forget it. If the scheme is to be retained then the young people should serve within their regions. The purpose of the scheme has been bastardised. Even if I were to forgive, I would never forget. If someone I know wants to go to that area in the future for anything, I would not support it,” he said.
Ojo may be right. For a multi-ethnic country emerging from civil war, the NYSC was introduced in 1973 to bridge ethnic and religious divides. It was meant to promote the understanding and appreciation of various cultures and divergent views existing in the country. Thirty-seven years after, the scheme has encouraged inter-tribal and inter-religious marriages. But by an irony of fate, an institution designed to foster unity is being threatened by the nefarious activities of some misguided individuals who have no modicum of respect for human lives. These criminals think the best way to redress perceived injustice is to kill, maim and destroy properties of perceived enemies. The killing of corps members is just one of thousands of their evil deeds.
For the corps members however, the attacks are fast becoming a recurring decimal. Besides the nine killed in Bauchi, 13 others were also murdered in other northern states where the post-election madness occurred. Before then, precisely on April 1, the eve of the botched National Assembly elections, eight youth corps members and some INEC ad hoc staff were bombed at INEC headquarters in Suleja, Niger State. But that was also not the first time youth corps members would be attacked. In the past, there had also been pockets of attack on these young Nigerians. For instance, a lady corps member was raped and killed in Borno State allegedly for wearing a pair of trousers.
To put an end to the horrendous killings of the nation’s future leaders, Ike Ekweremadu, outgoing deputy Senate president, said the process for the review of the scheme has been put in motion. Expressing his disappointment at the sad turn of events, Ekweremadu lamented that some people have failed to take advantage of the objectives of the scheme. If she could have her way, Lydia Akhigbe, a batch B 2010 corps members in Ilorin, would ensure that areas prone to violence would be excluded from the scheme. She is of the opinion that the scheme has lost its values. She recalled that her parents, who equally participated in the scheme in its early years, told her stories of affection and respect that corps members were accorded by the various host communities. However, Kunle Akin-Laguda, her colleague, noted that the killing of corps members is a reflection of the state of the country and a fraction of wanton waste of lives of southerners living in the northern part of the country. “I understand (that) the challenges of the NYSC are an extension of the problems of Nigeria. I believe the country still needs the scheme.”
Kunle Adegoke, an in-law to late Gbenjo, frowns at the frequent youth restiveness in the North, which he describes as barbaric. “We cannot continue like this. We need to have a sovereign national conference to determine the basis of our continued existence as a nation. It is obvious that we do not share the same value for human lives. We are different nations and they should be allowed to go their way,’’ he said.
But Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, director, Centre for Constitutionalism and Demilitarisation, does not subscribe to such radical intervention. While admitting that the scheme has been devalued by the killings of its members, the regionalisation of the scheme would only further threaten the nation’s unity. He advised government to provide them with security and prevent hoodlums from attacking them.
For Princewill Akpakpan, human rights activist, the killings would have been avoided if the police were truly determined to protect the victims. “It is quite unfortunate, barbaric and unwarranted. How embarrassing does it sound to hear that people on a national assignment died in a police station? Does it not show that government was ready to sacrifice them? If the police could not save them from those barbaric militants who then could have saved them?’’ Although the police have arrested some suspects in connection with the mayhem it remains to be seen if the suspects would be prosecuted and punished as promised by President Goodluck Jonathan in an address to the nation on the incident.
Perhaps when this is done the hundreds of angry Nigerians including families of victims of this heinous crime, will be mollified. And the victims themselves will rest in peace.
Additional reports by MUYIWA LUCAS,
JULIANA EZEOKE
and ARUKAINO UMUKORO
