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Business is back full swing in Aba, Abia State, one year after the kidnap saga but areas which served as headquarters for the kidnappers are still deserted

Despite the restoration of peace by the joint military task force, the people of Ogwe, Ugwati-Uzoata and Obokwe communities in Ukwa West local government area, and Ngwaiyiekwe and Ihie-Ukwu in Ugwunagbo and some parts of Ukwa East Local Council of Abia State are yet to return to their ancestral homes. Soldiers sent to restore peace in the area have pleaded in vain for the people to return.  These areas are said to be places where kidnapping activities in Abia State actually started. It is generally believed that what happened in Aba town was a spill over of what these areas had experienced for three years. As at August 13 and 15, when Newswatch visited these communities, only a few residents had heeded the call by the soldiers. 

For instance, Ogwe community is still almost a ghost town with no sign of religious, educational, commercial or social activities. Schools, churches, recreation centres and industries located in the area were overgrown with weeds. There is no functional health care system in place as mattresses and hospital equipment were looted and nurses chased away by the hoodlums.

Samuel Chimezie Nwaibe, a community leader in Ogwe, told Newswatch that some of the residents were still in “exile” because their houses were destroyed during the insurgence of kidnappers, while others were afraid to come back for fear of being molested by the remnants of the kidnap gangs scattered all over the places. Nwaibe explained that no fewer than 30 houses were burnt in Ogwe community alone when the hoodlums and soldiers clashed in 2008. “The kidnap menace actually started in 2007 in this area. Those years were like years of holocaust in my area as people were left to rot away in the hands of criminals. There are other communities that were affected by the insurgence. Ugwati-Uzoata was the centre of kidnapping. From there, the evil spread to other communities,” he said.

Nwaibe told Newswatch that his people were still refugees in other communities because they are sceptical of the whole situation. 

Nwaibe said the Ogwe Comprehensive Secondary School which served as the camp of the kidnappers is still in a shambles and there has been no effort on the part of government to post teachers to the school. The former teachers and students were relocated to other parts of the state in the wake of the kidnap saga. In the past two years, people have stayed away from the community.  “There was no peace, no food to eat, no source of income, no social activities and no education. Our children have lost grip of their educational pursuit. The Ogwe Golden Chicken industry built during the Sam Mbakwe regime in old Imo State has also been vandalised by the hoodlums,” he said. 

Nwaibe confirmed that the presence of the military has made the difference in the long battle against kidnapping in the state and appealed to those that had fled the communities to return and continue their life.

It was the same story in Ugwuati-Uzoata and Obokwe communities. Although soldiers are still occupying what used to be the kidnappers hideout, the people are afraid to come back home.  Okeikpe Igwe, a native of the area, told Newswatch that his people’s bitter experience in the hands of the hoodlums was responsible for their refusal to return.  “I don’t blame those who are yet to come back. This place was turned into a war zone,” he said.

Ebere Nwogu, a.k.a Ohuokaa, a kidnap victim from Ngwaiyiekwe community in Ugwunagbo local council area, narrated how he was manhandled by the hoodlums when they besieged his home last year. “It was a narrow escape. In the process I lost more than N100,000 the day the hoodlums attacked my home. We really suffered in the hands of those kidnappers and it might take another one year for the people to return fully,” he told Newswatch.

While these areas are bemoaning their plight, Aba, the commercial nerve centre in the south- east, has practically come back to life. In fact, commercial, educational and social activities are once again booming in the city one year after the kidnap saga that brought the town on its knees. Ariaria market, Cemetry market, Main Park market, Eziukwu, Faulks, Cameroun and Port Harcourt roads are bubbling again with business activities.

Between May and October 2010 last year, the entire city was a shadow of itself as citizens, residents, businessmen, civil servants and other professionals in the township deserted the city following unprecedented waves of kidnapping, armed robbery and general insecurity. George Okafor, a dealer in textile materials in Ariaria market, said Aba is now relatively peaceful and business is booming once again. He said the heavy presence of soldiers and mobile policemen stationed at strategic positions in and around the vicinity was responsible for the quiet situation. “People now come into the town to do their businesses without fear of being molested by miscreants or kidnappers. I appreciate the presence of soldiers and other security operatives in the town. Between Aba and Port Harcourt, there are more 20 check points manned by soldiers,” he said.

Festus Onyeike, a shoemaker, also corroborated Okafor’s views. “The time of insecurity has gone. Sanity has been restored in the city and commercial activities are booming in the market,” he said. Onyekachi Onuoha, food stuff trader at Eziukwu road, also confirmed that peace has returned to the town. “Here we now carry our businesses without fear of being molested. People are also coming into the town once again from our neighbouring states to do business unmolested. We saw hell last year when kidnappers and robbers invaded the town. All these people you are seeing now deserted this place when the situation became unbearable. We thank God the town is calm and we are back to business,” Onuoha said. The situation is the same in Ohanku, Abayi, Osisioma and Ogbor Hill.

Indeed, the situation in these areas and Aba town last year was simply terrifying. What started as a political tool by the Niger Delta militants seeking to draw attention to the shameful state of neglect of the region became a flourishing business in the South-East region, especially in Abia State. There were more than 20 kidnap gangs that turned the nine local government areas that make up the Ukwa/Ngwa ethnic group of Abia State into a “no go” zone.  But the most notorious kidnap gangs were the ones led by one Obioma Nwankwo, a.k.a. Osisika nkwu (meaning, a tree that is greater than the palm tree), a native of Ugwati and a young man simply identified as “Stone” who hailed from Ogbaku, Imo State.  Osissika nkwu was said to have three wives, built his home in his village at Ugwati area, which he used as his camp. He lived among the villagers. They knew him and his activities, but could not stop him.

On daily basis, people were kidnapped, robbed or killed. All the banks were shut leaving their beleaguered customers revving over their predicament. As a result, traders, civil servants and residents fled the once bubbling centre of commerce to avoid being abducted or killed by the rampaging kidnap gangs. The nefarious activities of these kidnappers also affected transportation business negatively between the city and other neighbouring states. Commercial drivers avoided going to Aba for fear of being kidnapped. Commuters were equally not left out of the fear. Traders from Port Harcourt axis also diverted their goods to Onitsha in Anambra State through the Elele-Owerri road, in spite of the fact that the transport fare was higher and the journey longer.  The ugly trend caused great loss of businesses both in the town and other neighbouring cities and states.

Between May 14 and June 8, 2010, several banks were robbed by different gangs, security personnel were brutally killed, women were raped and innocent people kidnapped for rituals or for ransom under the nose of heavily armed security men, including the “blood-thirsty” Abia State Vigilante Services, a.k.a. Bakassi boys. As if that was not bad enough, four female members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, were kidnapped at Eberi Omuma in Omuma local government area of Rivers State by the rampaging gang. 

Aba residents will not forget in a hurry the pathetic story of how Stanley Uche, a gynecologist and proprietor of Victory Christian Hospital, Aba, was abducted and later killed by his abductors. The doctor was kidnapped along with his wife, Miriam, in the presence of their children on September 16.  Uche, his wife, their two children and his younger sister were accosted by the kidnappers on their way to their village in Mbano, Imo State, for the burial of a cousin.

Miriam was later released to look for a N10 million ransom. But after the ransom was allegedly paid, Uche was killed by his abductors and his body dumped at Aru-Ngwa in the Osisioma local government area of the state. “It was not as if I did not give them the ransom. We agreed on an amount which I gave them within 24 hours. They said I should bring it and I did. I did not know what prompted them to kill my husband,” Miriam said. The widow recalled that it was on the Enugu - Port Harcourt expressway that the kidnappers intercepted her family. “It was at Aro-Ngwa junction that the hoodlums blocked our vehicle, and about four-gun totting men jumped out and bundled me and my husband into the boot of their car and sped away as other people watched, leaving the shocked children and the other girl, a university undergraduate, in utter confusion,” she recalled.

There were other heart-rending tales of how the kidnappers devastated many families and turned Ukwa/Ngwa political zone into a jungle city. For instance, on January 12, three British nationals, Kevin Gray, Martin Phillip and John Bennet, and Fabian Sanchez, a Columbian, all workers at Shell Afam VI power plant were kidnapped at Owaza, while the mobile police officer attached to their convoy was shot dead. On July 10, one Victoria Ori, 48, was kidnapped and later released after spending 16 days with her abductors.

The kidnap of four journalists July 11 also evoked outrage among the citizens of the state.  Wahab Oba, chairman of the Lagos State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Adolphus Okonkwo, Sylva Okereke, Sola Oyeyipo and the driver of the vehicle they were travelling in, were kidnapped on the Ikot Ekpene-Aba highway on their way back from Akwa Ibom where they had attended the Union’s national executive committee meeting. The kidnappers reportedly demanded a ransom of N250 million, which they later reduced to N30 million. Osisikankwu claimed responsibility. On August 24, the gang led by Stone robbed five commercial banks in the city in one day. In the process no fewer than five police officers attached to the banks were killed, while millions of Naira was carted away.

On September 7, about 15 members of a gang invaded the Jerusalem for All Nations church, Umuneke in Ukwa west local government area of the state and abducted the pastor, David Kelechi. It was during the fracas that Lambert Nmecha, a prominent politician in the state was gunned down when he resisted being abducted. The same month, an Indian national working with an electronic company in Aba was gunned down when he challenged the abductors.

The kidnappers did not also spare law enforcement officers. On September 25, two mobile policemen on patrol were killed in an, ambush led by the kidnappers at Umuafor in Obingwa area of the state. Newswatch learnt that in six months, the Abia State police command lost 27 of its men to attacks by the kidnappers.

The height of the lawlessness that existed in the zone was when the kidnappers on September 27, 2010, hijacked a school bus conveying 15 pupils of Abayi International School, Osisioma, to their school and took them to an unknown destination.  Newswatch gathered that the driver of the school bus had gone out that morning to designated points as was the schedule to pick the pupils to school.

On getting to a spot at Ekeakpara, in Osisioma local government area, a Toyota Camry saloon car driven by the hoodlums waylaid the school bus and ordered the driver out of the vehicle at gunpoint while they drove off with the pupils towards Etche in Rivers State. The kidnappers later demanded N20 million ransom for the release of the pupils. The abduction of the 15 pupils triggered another round of trepidation in the state, forcing many schools to close down as a protest against the abduction of the pupils. It took the intervention of the soldiers deployed by the federal government to rescue the children at Ngwaiyiekwe, a community where the kidnappers had taken them to. In fact, the deployment of over 5,000 soldiers from the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army to the troubled zone restored peace in the area. 

Despite the return of peace, Aba residents are still grappling with mountains of refuse and bad roads. Virtually all the major roads in the metropolis are dilapidated and serve as death traps. A journey which ordinary should take 15 minutes lasts for hours. The most affected roads are Osisioma-Flyover, Asa-Port Harcourt, Aba-Owerri, Ogbor Hill and Faulks roads. Not too long ago, Theodore Orji, governor of the state, wept over the deplorable condition of the roads in Aba. “Aba is our greatest problem and you can see tears in my eyes. I don’t feel ashamed to cry, after all former governor Samuel Mbakwe cried several times over the poor state of Aba roads,” Orji said.

In the same vein, practically all the major roads are covered with refuse. Residents have expressed worry over the offensive odour oozing from the mountains of refuse in the city. The affected areas are Asa-Port Harcourt road, Park road near the Abia State University Teaching Hospital, Ogbor Hill and Ngwa road. Residents blame the Abia State Environmental Protection Agency for the poor handling of sanitation in the city. Following the unprecedented heaps of refuse, the city is always flooded when it rains. As one resident puts it, “it is never dry in Aba even in the heart of dry season.”