Michael Abiodun
Once upon a time, a village in Uganda never had peace due to the presence of the world’s most prolific man-eater. ‘Osama the crocodile’, lived in Lake Victoria and never spared any human it comes across.
Measuring 16ft from snout to tail, and weighing one ton, Osama allegedly devoured humans and maimed several others.
The crocodile, believed to be over 75 years back then, reportedly ate a father-of-two Bosco Nyansi, a local fisherman whose tattered clothing was discovered floating on the water. Osama is reported to have feasted on over 80 victims from Luganga village in Uganda.
Since 1991, Osama attacked both the young and old, eating his way through a tenth of the village population. The people of Luganga Village once called the crocodile ‘John Major’ because of his size and his namesake’s global prominence at that time.
But following his reign of terror and the al-Qa’eda attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he was re-christened Osama. He would carry children away from the shore as they filled buckets with water. He would often swim beneath fishing boats and capsize them.
According to reports, Osama began to exhibit a highly unusual behaviour for a crocodile. He would jump into the wooden vessels before carrying off victims. Paul Kyewalyanga was rowing in the back of his boat while his brother Peter fished from the prow when Osama came aboard.
“He just emerged from the water vertically and flopped into the boat,” Kyewalyanga told The Telegraph. “The back of the boat where I was sitting was submerged.” As Paul called frantically for help, the crocodile latched on to Peter’s leg and began to pull.
“Peter was clutching the side screaming,” he said. “They fought for about five minutes until I heard a tearing sound. Peter shouted, ‘He’s broken my leg.’ Then he let go and was dragged into the lake. A few days later we found his head and his arm.”
Osama’s terror gripped the village. Children were forbidden from the shore. However, the livelihood of the community depended largely on fishing. While some avoided the lake, others were unperturbed. “All we could do was pray,” 64-year-old villager, John Mangene said. “We did a lot of that. I would wake up in the middle of the night and get down on my knees.”
Only 15 people have felt Osama’s teeth and lived to tell the tale. Many families who have lost dear ones in the hands of Osama longed for the day this terror would be captured.
Finally, Osama’s days of hunting humans in Africa’s largest lake came to an end in 2005 when it was trapped by officials using meat on a hook and transported out of the village on a truck. It was a huge sigh of relief for the villagers.
Osama was captured by 50 local men and wildlife officials after a stakeout in southern Uganda lasting seven days and seven nights. Osama is now the property of Uganda Crocs Ltd, purveyors of fine crocodile-skin handbags destined for the followers of fashion in Italy and South Korea.
Authorities say Osama will be used for breeding stock and will now spend his remaining days giving birth to handbags.
Alex Mutamba, the proprietor of Uganda Crocs, with nearly 5,000 animals in his care, who accepted the country’s wildlife authority’s request to a home for Osama said: “All Nile crocodiles like Osama will eat a human being if they perceive their territory is being encroached on.”
Uganda is famous for its man-eating reptiles. In the 1970s, Idi Amin, the former dictator, reportedly threw 4,000 disabled people into the crocodile-infested headwaters of the Nile of which Osama is believed to have been a benefactor of that cruel act.
Asoro aiyan oro lo pa Elenpe isaaju to ni igba wuwo ju awo lo.
(It was failure to be explicit that killed the king Elenpe who said that a calabash is heavier than dish). The king Elenpe said that calabash is heavier than dish without being explicit that it is the fresh calabash that is heavier than the dish. Unfortunately for him when they went out to verify the truthfulness of his claim they saw a dried calabash and found out that the dish was heavier than
the calabash. Thus, the people killed him and not being explicit was responsible for his death.
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These illustrations are simply to draw attention to the fact that we are not saying anything new today that is different from the discourse of the 1990s, 1980s or 1970s. Forget all the big words used, they all boil down to one simple issue – corruption captured Nigeria long ago. If and when we deal with corruption, we will recover our country…
What I hear on a daily basis is that the Nigerian state has died or is dying and people want the remnants shared out so they can try to save their portion. There is a basis for concern about the survival of the Nigerian state because the prevailing insecurity and sense of injustice has never been so dire, or so we think. I always say that break up is not an option because we cannot slice up the country without an all-consuming war about how and where to slice. Our only real option is to fix our dear country and live therein happily thereafter. Today, I address my younger readers to say: Don’t be overwhelmed by the ambient discourse of pessimism, we have lived through it for a long time. Let me start by saying that a long time ago, there was a lot of optimism about the future of Nigeria. In his 1971 book, Nigeria: Crisis and Beyond, John Oyinbo reminds us that:
“When in the first minutes of October 1, 1960, the Union Jack was hauled down and the Nigerian flag of green, white and green broken in its stead, there were few men of goodwill, whether British or Nigerian, who did not have the highest hopes for the success of Africa’s newest nation… It would have been hard on that joyful and elaborate celebration to have found anyone, both involved in the present and committed to the future, prepared to predict coup, counter coup, massacre, secession and civil war within the decade.”
There was indeed great optimism at that time, which has since transformed into the despair of pessimism. Looking through my old papers written in the 1990s, I was reminded that the current discussions on the collapse of the Nigerian state have been there for a long time. For decades, there has been an excess in the search for adjectives to describe the Nigerian state gasping to its death. Political scientists moved from simple ones, such as corrupt and authoritarian to prebendal, patrimonial, sultanic, kleptocratic, predatory, rentier, praetorian and even rogue to label the state. In 1986, my own base – the Department of Political Science, Ahmadu Bello University, published a book entitled Nigeria: A Republic in Ruins. The book was the outcome of a National Conference on the State of the Nation, which was hosted by the Department and concluded nineteen days before the fall of the Second Republic. The book adequately reflected the intellectual mood in Nigeria in the dying days of our second experiment with democracy. Since then, there has been a flood of literature on “Endgame in Nigeria”, “Twilight in Nigeria” and “Crises and Collapse in Nigeria”.
Richard Joseph maintains the imagery of a long and frustrating journey, as he puts it, through a dismal tunnel, from a prebendal republic to a rogue state. Prebendalism, which thanks to Joseph has become a very popular concept in defining the Nigerian state, refers to the close relationship that developed between the administering of public office and the acquisition and distribution of wealth.
Much of the writing on the Nigerian state can be described as intellectual journeys into what Richard Joseph (1995), following Awolowo, has called the dismal tunnel. It is a dark tunnel of pessimism and despair. For the late Oyeleye Oyediran in his 1997 publication, it had been a long journey, through four democracy transition programmes that have led the country from hope to despair. He described the dynamics of the journey as akin to the story of Sisyphus: “Nigeria like the story of Sisyphus succeeds in rolling up the rock of democracy to the top of the hill, only to let it roll back into the valley, over and over again.” The first transition was from colonialism to independence and it set the pace for the future. The power elite that took over the mantle of state power manipulated the rules of the game and institutions. They placed a very high premium on power and therefore viewed politics as war. The seeds of mistrust, avarice and division sown in the decades before independence found, as he put it, good soil and thrived from 1960 onwards. The second transition, was the one from military to civilian rule in 1979 and it was a second chance, an opportunity for the civilian class to democratically resolve its differences and compete for public office without threatening the stability of the political system. However, the second chance was taken over by the civilian political gladiators of the First Republic. They contested for power violently, they had no regard for rules and were corrupt. Indeed, said Oyediran, the First Republic reached full bloom in the Second Republic, opening the gates once again for the entry of the military into the nation’s political life.
The third transition orchestrated by General Babangida started with a lot of goodwill and restored hope. Midstream, the tide turned, aborting the transition and swallowing its author. It plunged Nigeria into its worst political and social crisis since the turn of events that led to the civil war. Thanks to the greed of the politicised generals and power elite, the unprecedented level of official corruption and deep-seated economic crisis further raised the stakes of political contest: “the seeds of 1960 which had borne fruit in the Second Republic had multiplied a thousand-fold”. Hope turned to grief on June 23, 1993, when a presidential election globally recognised as free and fair was won and lost – annulled by the author of the third transition. The subsequent ethnicisation of the June 12 crisis brought the nation to the brink of collapse and led to the fourth transition, from crisis to despair.
Richard Joseph maintains the imagery of a long and frustrating journey, as he puts it, through a dismal tunnel, from a prebendal republic to a rogue state. Prebendalism, which thanks to Joseph has become a very popular concept in defining the Nigerian state, refers to the close relationship that developed between the administering of public office and the acquisition and distribution of wealth. Joseph, following Weber, defines a prebend as a state office procured by an individual and used for his personal benefit and that of those around him (Joseph, 1987). The state, especially from the time of the Second Republic, was conceived as a “national cake” that was to be divided and sub-divided continuously among office holders who had lost all commitment to performing the statutory tasks they had been employed to do. In four decades, corruption has developed so phenomenally that it has moved from the prebendal to the “pharaonic” phase, contends Joseph. He even suggests the use of a Chinese expression – liumang zhengfu, meaning ‘hoodlum governance’ as the most appropriate description of Nigeria in the 1990s.
The polarisation of ethnic and regional differences, which had played a major role in leading to the collapse of the First Republic, was being addressed during the march towards the Second Republic through state creation and the federalist provisions of the 1979 Constitution. The continued growth of the cancer of corruption however eroded this…
The journey of Peter Lewis is similar to that of Richard Joseph; it is from prebendalism to sultanism. He focused on the terrible legacy of Babangida’s failed transition for future democratic reform. The June 12 election was fair and the voting he argues, suggested an historic merger of southern and northern populist interests, superseding the ethnic faultiness which traditionally structured electoral politics. The chance to use the elections to move forward were ruined by the annulment of the election. He outlines the decline of institutions, including the judiciary, during the Babangida era. He is particularly concerned with the absence of countervailing forces, of a strong democratic movement rooted in strategic elite groups, to constrain the prerogatives of the military (1994). Civil society has been beleaguered by the authoritarian state. Nigerian society has been undermined by ethnic and communal divisions and finally, mutual disaffection between the political class and civil society has alienated potential democratic leadership from their potential organisational and popular base. In consequence, only a small, easily marginalised section of the middle class championed the democratic cause, contends Peter Lewis.
The journey of Larry Diamond also begins on a very optimistic note and ends in the development of an uncivic society and praetorianism. Nigeria, he argues, is a country with a deep commitment to political freedom and popular accountable government (1987). The polarisation of ethnic and regional differences, which had played a major role in leading to the collapse of the First Republic, was being addressed during the march towards the Second Republic through state creation and the federalist provisions of the 1979 Constitution. The continued growth of the cancer of corruption however eroded this positive development, Diamond posits. The rise of high-level corruption, including the dealing in narcotics at the highest levels of the Babangida Administration, compromised the transition programme (1993). Diamond contends that the so-called new breed politicians also became as corrupt as the military. They wanted power so badly that they were ready to do anything to get it and therefore conducted politics as warfare. The gains of office were excessively high and as the politicians became too corrupt, the masses became too cynical.
These illustrations are simply to draw attention to the fact that we are not saying anything new today that is different from the discourse of the 1990s, 1980s or 1970s. Forget all the big words used, they all boil down to one simple issue – corruption captured Nigeria long ago. If and when we deal with corruption, we will recover our country and live happily ever after. If not…
A professor of Political Science and development consultant/expert, Jibrin Ibrahim is a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Democracy and Development, and Chair of the Editorial Board of PREMIUM TIMES.
So, despite its inability to defeat Israel, it also lost its international credibility; it was ostracized as a “terrorist” organization by the governments of the most important countries of the world.
The word “strategy”, has a military origin. For simplicity, it can be defined as a planned or mapped out technique or approach for achieving a given objective or goal. In its struggle against Israeli continued occupation of Palestine, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has a strategy. In its resistance against Apartheid South Africa, the African National Council (ANC) had a strategy. The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)’s neo-Biafranism is a colorful, melodramatic and media-savvy, but purposeless, movement. Not surprisingly, it has no articulated objectives, and consequently, no strategy.
Earlier, in its fight against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in defiance of United Nations Resolution 242, the PLO adopted a strategy of unrestrained guerrilla warfare against Israel, including indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets. The strategy proved ineffective because, although it unsettled Israel, it could not defeat Israel, even if it is sustained and intensified for decades. Essentially, it backfired because it portrayed the PLO as a terrorist organization.
So, despite its inability to defeat Israel, it also lost its international credibility; it was ostracized as a “terrorist” organization by the governments of the most important countries of the world. Consequently, the PLO changed its strategy. It backpedaled on its guerrilla warfare. It embraced diplomacy, and burnished its international image; it became diplomatically relevance. This was the precursor to the botched President Bill Clinton brokered peace agreement between the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli Prime, Minister Yitzhak Rabin in year, 2000.
In its fight against Apartheid South Africa, the ANC had a strategy. Having learnt from the mistakes of the PLO, it focused on building a global diplomatic and economic alliance against Apartheid South Africa. Although it periodically launched guerrilla attacks within South Africa to impress the restive masses of Black South Africans, its fixation remained on shocking the conscience of the world with the evils of Apartheid. After nearly two decades of painstaking labor, the ANC anti-Apartheid campaign had successfully troubled the conscience of the world with the horrors of Apartheid.
Appalled by the atrociousness of Apartheid, the global community rallied against Apartheid South Africa. Anti-Apartheid movements sprouted across the world amongst students unions, labor unions, corporations, human right organizations, governments, etc. Many countries broke diplomatic ties with South Africa, and corporations, universities, governments, etc. disinvested from South Africa. Finally, the Apartheid government buckled under the weight of this encircling international economic and diplomatic pressure; it consigned Apartheid to the heaps of history.
Unlike the PLO and ANC, the IPOB has no legitimate grievance. Consequently, it cannot genuinely rouse the world conscience against the Nigerian government. Therefore, it found psychological refuge in falsehood and cheap propaganda. Its trumped up allegations against the Nigerian government, like the enslavement of the Igbo and ongoing extermination of the Igbo in Nigeria, are resounding nonsense; they ring hollow in international circles. The global community realizes that, like most Third World countries, Nigeria is muddling its way through the 21st Century; and by Third World standards and within the limits of human frailties; Nigeria works for every Nigerian. There are tribalism and ethnic injustices in Nigeria, and no particular ethnic group is totally innocent of these vices.
As such, the IPOB agitation for an independent Biafra is strictly a Nigerian internal affair; it does not elicit the concern and attention of the international community. Ostensibly, IPOB’s goal is the creation of an independent Biafra through a referendum. It is the prerogative of the Nigerian government to hold such a referendum. Similar referendums were held by the governments of Canada and Britain for separatist regions of Quebec and Scotland respectively.
The earlier attempt to create Biafra between 1967 and 1970 was made impossible by a number of factors: the reluctance of the ethnic minorities of Eastern Region to be part of an Igbo dominated country; the commitment of the federal government and the generality of Nigerians to Nigerian unity; the opposition of African countries, as represented by the Organization of Africa (OAU), to secession in general, and Biafra, in particular; and the opposition of the British and American governments to the dismemberment of Nigeria. The political and geo-political dynamics that made the earlier attempt at Biafra impossible have not only remained in place, but have been reinforced over the decades. Therefore, Biafranism remains a senseless and fruitless enterprise that can only bring the Igbo death, pains and sorrow.The Nigerian constitution has no provision for such a referendum. Therefore, the first step towards a referendum on Biafran independence is making a constitutional provision for a referendum. Ordinarily, IPOB should have focused on making the federal government amenable to holding a referendum on Biafran independence, and nudging the National Assembly towards a constitutional amendment that will allow for a referendum. Paradoxically, IPOB is working against these two objectives. It incites violence, breaks the laws, and antagonizes the Nigerian government. As such, IPOB has been proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government. How then can the referendum hold?
Nnamdi Kanu and his senior lieutenants know there cannot be a country, Biafra. However, Biafran activism makes them relevant and makes them very rich. So, the object of Kanu’s continued agitation for Biafra is not to achieve Biafran independence but to retain his mesmeric sway on his followers, which, in turn, builds his financial empire. Not surprisingly, his speeches are not strategic. They are tendentious rubbish – gossips and trivialities – that resonate with his credulous and deluded followers. He gossips about Babangida and his late wife, Miriam, and Jubril from Sudan; and prattles about other trifling issues about Aso Rock. His speeches are a truculent blend of falsehood, incitements and insults. They nauseate discerning minds but enthrall his ignorant and confused followers.
To his followers, he postures as a statesman promoting the Biafra cause among European and American presidents and prime ministers and international bureaucrats at the United Nations and European Union. One salient element of diplomatic protocol is reciprocity. Governments negotiate with governments, presidents meet with presidents, foreign minister, with foreign ministers, etc. There is neither a country, Biafra, nor a government, government of Biafra, anywhere in the world. The UN is an association of sovereign nations. Kanu represents no sovereign nation. He is a fugitive, running away from the law of his country. In addition, his speeches are vulgar, virulent and provocative. Invariably, they outrage the civilized and genteel sensibilities that populate the United Nations, European Union and the corridors of power in Western countries. So, on his “diplomatic” trips, who do you think this Nigerian fugitive meets with?
Although his propagandists attempt to cast him as hobnobbing with the powers that be on his “diplomatic trips”, he cannot meet with any worthy member of any government or international organization. The central question remains how does IPOB’s posturing, lies and propagandistic distortions advance the prospects of a referendum on Biafran independence?
Tochukwu Ezukanma writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
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Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha
By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha
The federal troops bombed a school. Abbot School owned by an Igbo man. Mere vandalism. There were no enemies in there. The bombing shook the town. It was my first real experience in war time bombing. Later a lone Biafran war plane would bomb targets in the town. We lived without slat and onions. Security lights were switched off. Those lights gave away targets to bombers! Our parents secretly listened to Biafran broadcasts. Uche Chukwumerije. Oko Okon Ndem. Those guys had the tongue to turn white into black! Their concoctions were sweeter than the drab from Lagos! Hahahahaha! That was their Nigeria.
Gowon had taken over in Lagos. Before he settled down, the war started. They tried to prevent war. His archfiend was Col. Odumegwu-Ojuwku. Rebel leader. Secessionist leader. We believed the latter was more intelligent than the former. They went to Aburi in Ghana. Gowon led his team. Ojukwu led the Biafran team. At the end peace was announced. But the joy was short-lived. Gowon came home and rejected the Aburi Accord. Ojukwu said: ‘On Aburi we stand! How the war was fought and won, is it not recorded in books written by the Generals? Obasanjo. Alabi Isama. David Jemibewon. Alexander Madiebo. I will not bother the reader with the details. I will not bother you about the war time hero Col Adekunle. He was a crank. But he delivered. He was capable of disobeying headquarters. That man! He made a name. third Marine Commando. I will also not bother you about how federal troops massacred innocent civilians in Asaba – The Asaba Massacre. What about how Murtala Mohammed recklessly sacrificed hundreds of Nigerian soldiers when he attempted to capture Onitsha by crossing the Niger? Or when he attacked from Abagana and lost soldiers? Or how he raided the Central Bank in Benin to ‘abduct’ money to prosecute the war? those are stories for another day! Colonel Obasanjo took over the command from Adekunle and on January 15 1970, Major General Phillip Effiong surrendered on behalf of Ojukwu who had fled to Ivory Coast ‘in search of peace’. Hehehehehe! That was Nigeria!
Yes, o! After thirty long months, Biafra crumbled. We saw pictures of starved kids. They were walking skeletons. They said Awo suggested a food blockade of Igbo people. Some family friends returned. We did not recognize them. Some lost their property to Midwesterners. It is true that some people handed over property of Igbo people to those who returned. But it was a bitter time. Yet Gowon proclaimed: No victor no vanquished. He declared the three Rs- Reconciliation. Rehabilitation. Reconstruction. Whether this was achieved is matter for another day! Gowon could now settle down govern Nigeria. That was Nigeria!
Yakubu Gowon! For nine years, from Age 32 that man occupied the seat of federal government in Dodan Barracks Lagos. I am sure some of the young ones reading this piece do not know that Dodan Barracks was once synonymous with power in Nigeria. Gowon lived the life. He attended ‘owambe’ parties. He was Queen Elizabeth’s friend. He built Lagos with Niger Delta money. He ignored the Niger Delta. He played politics of the Big Three ethnic groups. Once they were okay, Nigeria was okay. Amid the war he had an elaborate wedding. Victoria, a self-effacing beautiful nurse was the lucky bride. We loved Gowon though. We even appropriated Gowon to ‘Go On With One Nigeria! First Lady Victoria had her baby in LUTH. Yes, LUTH. The same LUTH we now consider a death sentence! He didn’t fly her to London. In our innocence we thought Gowon would take us to the Promised Land. Yes oo! He was our Moses. There was money, too much money. Gowon did declare that ‘our problem was not money, but what to do with it! Hehehehehehehe! The international vultures started circling Nigeria! But Gowon made civil servants happy with the Udoji awards. I enjoyed some of it through my father the civil servant. That was Nigeria!
But the honeymoon soon ended. He had promised to hand over power to civilians in 1976. But in 1974, he changed his mind. The politicians were not mature enough to inherit power! Ha! The whole country was abuzz. Aghast. The smiling General had fallen with power. One man, how can I forget the great Tai Solarin, wrote an essay ‘The Beginning of the End’. Ha! That man! He was afraid of nobody. There was talk of rampant corruption. Gowon could not control the state governors. They were members of Supreme Military Council, the highest ruling body in the country. There was a massive importation of cement into the country. The ports were blocked. The ‘Cement Armada’ it was called. In July 1975, while Gowon was in Kampala for an OAU conference, his government was toppled by a group of Colonels! One of Gowon’s trusted men, Brigadier Joseph Nanven Garba, Commander Brigade of Guards, announced the coup to the Nigerian people on 29th of July. I was in Port Harcourt that day, visiting with my dad. I woke up to hear ‘Where are all the soldiers Gone’ on radio. Soldiers were celebrating along the streets! Ha! So, our beloved Gowon was gone! That was Nigeria!
In those days, any time we heard martial music on radio stations at dawn or when the station was silent at night, we knew there was a change of guards! How many radio stations did we have then? There were no private radio or TV stations. Not these days that we have TV and radio stations everywhere like moinmoin and akara! That was Nigeria!
The new Head of State was announced. General Murtala Mohammed. His deputy, then titled Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters was Lt. General Olusegun Obasanjo. That man! His was a whirlwind. From Day One, he knew what he was about. He set about it with a fiery temper and determination that altered history. He condemned the rot of the Gowon administration. He removed all the governors and probed them. Governors were yanked off the SMC. He warned that that being posted to govern a state was a military posting! There was a new kid on the block, a non-nonsense kid! He retired civil servants in a mass purge, calling them dead woods. Ha! They were not all dead wood o! he destroyed the confidence and stability of the civil service. The so-called ‘Super Permanent secretaries were kicked out. But he showed he was a man of action. He announced a return to civil rule scheduled for 1979. Then on February 13th, 1976, while driving to work, Murtala Mohammed was gunned down in Lagos! Just like that! Fiam! His life was over! The whole county was in a turmoil. News filtered in. What had really happened? That was Nigeria! CORRECTION: REMI Fani-kayode did not lose his life in 1966 as erroneously stated in Part 1 last week. He lived till 1995
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–Read the first part of this article here
–Professor Eghagha (who writes from the University of Lagos) can be reached on 0802 322 0393 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." style="box-sizing: border-box; color: red;">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
–Credit: Daily Times
London based social media commentator, Adetutu Balogun has come for little Success Adegor’s family for saying donations made to them are fake.
Success is the little school girl who instantly became an internet phenomenon following a video of her ranting at her school over her dismissal from school because of school fees.
Success Adegor resurfaced on social media but this time, she called out all those who agreed to help her with her schooling.
Success claimed that her life hasn’t changed after people pledged support. According to her, all the promises made to her family are FAKE
Disproving this, Adetutu Balogun revealed that the family got over 1 million naira from the campaign she personally ran for them.
She called them greedy and ungrateful. She wrote:
“It is quite sad that her parents are using her to spread lies! l know of number of people that gave her money through my campaign. Mazi was one of them. He came to my DM to ask about how to donate to her. I even told him to spread the payments. (Ask him)”
“From today, l am going to change my campaign strategy on this street… sometime throwing money at poverty is not the solution! This family is very lazy, greedy, ungrateful and suffering from extreme entitlement mentality.”
“The campaign through me alone was over N1million. l still have the DM messages between me and Mazi.
He wanted to transfer £1000 to me, l told him to wait for Success’s mum to open her acc, that l don’t collect donation in my acc. And immediately the acc was available he donated.”
A widower who lost his wife and almost got killed by his house boy has shared his heart-breaking experience.
Mr Ralph Wilcox, from Bonny LGA in Rivers State, revealed how tragedy befell his family on June 1, 2020.
His wife, Victoria Wilcox, a mother of two, from Arondizuogu, Imo state, woke on that fateful day to mark her 55th birthday, not knowing it was going to be her last day.
At about 8pm, their houseboy named Abdulkareem Babangida, simply called Abba, a native of Kachia LGA of Kaduna State, clubbed Mrs Victoria Wilcox to death with a newly acquired cutlass.
When she was dead, he dragged her lifeless body and deposited it under a tree in the compound then waited patiently to administer the same treatment to her husband, Ralph.
It was revealed that the deceased retired from the Nigerian Housing Insurance Trust Fund (NHITF) in 2005 and started her private business. Victoria and her husband then hired Abba in July 2019 to assist in Victoria's shop at the Aco Shopping Complex, Lugbe, Abuja, where she used to sell some household items and sacramentals.
Narrating his experience to Vanguard, the widower, Mr Ralph Wilcox, who miraculously survived Abba’s attack, said in tears: "Abba has blown my life away."
He voiced his concern about coping with life without his soul mate.
Mr Wilcox, who was a Director in the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture until 11th March 2020 when he retired from service, said: "It was about 8 pm that fateful day that I drove in to my compound and he (Abba) opened the gate for me and when I entered, I asked, ‘Abba why is it that there is light everywhere and there is no light here?
"He responded saying, 'there was an explosion in the metre and that the Mummy was aware, so I decided to switch on the generating set'.
"I told him to give me a few minutes to park so as to check the metre where I asked him to wait for me. When I couldn’t see my wife, I asked, where is Mummy? he replied, 'Mummy is in the house.'
Wilcox said he went into the house but noticed everywhere was dark and the generator Abba claimed he put on wasn't supplying light to the house.
He told the publication: "I went in, dropped the birthday gifts I bought for my wife and my Automated Teller Machine, ATM cards and rushed out with my phone."
At this point, he said he never knew Abba had killed and wrapped his wife in a nylon bag. He said he discovered later that Abba put on the generator to muzzle the sound of his wife’s cries when he was killing her.
Not too sure of what was playing out, Wilcox said he called one Alhaji to come and check out what was wrong with his light but the number did not go. As he faced the metre to find out what the problem was, he heard "the sound of an axe on his head."
He continued: "He started hitting me and hitting until I collapsed, I fell on the floor and felt thick blood over my head. By then I was weak and when he thought he had killed me, he went inside the house to look for the key of my newly bought Jeep in the house."
He said while Abba was busy looking for the car key, he regained consciousness and crawled close to his bedroom and started banging on the window in an attempt to get his wife's attention.
Unaware that his wife was dead, he said: "Mummy, mummy come out, we are under attack, Abba is attacking us."
According to him, "It was God Almighty that raised me after I collapsed again and battled to draw attention in the pool of my blood."
He said that after his wife didn't answer, he gained little strength and crawled again to the gate to seek help, noting that if Abba had started the car then; he would have run over him, and locked the gate.
He said: "If he had succeeded, my corpse and that of my wife’s would be here decomposing and nobody would even know, maybe after few days would start smelling before people will realise that we were dead.
"But God foiled his plan, woke me and gave me the strength to manage to open the small gate because he (Abba) forgot to lock the pedestrian gate as he was locking the main gate.
"That was how I escaped to the road, where I met someone coming with a jeep who saw me and reversed to call security men."
When the security men arrived, he was already unconscious. The person in the jeep went to get help and when he arrived with other sympathisers, they found Abba, who didn't know that his boss had regained consciousness and had crawled out for help.
Abba pretended he knew nothing and the concerned sympathisers put the injured widower in the car and asked Abba to drive him to National Hospital. All the while, Abba, while serving his master, had pretended he never knew how to drive.
Abba drove his injured boss and some sympathisers to the hospital. On the way, Wilcox regained consciousness multiple times but was still disoriented. He told Abba on their way to the hospital to call mummy’s phone and inform her that he was under attack.
He said: "It was like I was in a trance. I remember vomiting and dying. The last thing I said was 'branch to police station and tell them...' until I found myself in the hospital."
Wilcox continued: "While in the hospital undergoing blood transfusion in preparation for brain surgery, the news went round the estate and people started coming to visit in the hospital and immediately the first set arrived the hospital, Abba had reversed the vehicle to escape. But when the people saw him they blocked him, and started interrogating him."
When asked what happened, he claimed they were attacked by armed robbers until he was taken home by 2 am, where the lifeless body of the madam was found under a tree. It was then they suspected Abba had killed his madam.
When subjected to further interrogation, Abba admitted that he killed her.
On why he killed her, he initially lied that they were not paying his salaries as and when due. He later said she was bringing Christian sacramentals to her shop for him, a Muslim, to sell, which he said offended him.
When asked again, why he didn’t resign within the 11 months he was working in his madam's shop, he said he wanted to kill the couple and sell their car, house and other valuables.
Justifying his wife’s sacramental business, Wilcox said she was selling sacramental because she was a strong Catholic and wondered why Abba would kill his wife for living her faith.
When asked about the whereabouts of Abba, he said he is currently with the police, the State CID, and noted that he had written a petition to the Force Headquarters to inform the Police IGP through the Minister of Information and Culture, who signed it and copied the IGP.
According to him, Abba’s father had reported to the police and was made to visit his son in the cell, while they were still waiting for the Alhaji (Agent) that brought him on a contract basis.
On how the boy was hired, he said, "it was the agent that brought him to us and we signed and paid. But our mistake as people are saying was that we did not go to the police to crosscheck."
Speaking on Abba’s role in the house, Wilcox said "Abba stayed with us for 11 months. He was Madam’s shop keeper; he wasn’t coming into the house. We had other boys in the house. That week that he committed this crime, he caused quarrel between him and other boys and because of the way my wife took side with him, the other boys got angry and left because of Abba. We did not know he had a plan."
Wilcox said he noticed a change in Abba's behaviour weeks before the attack and he mentioned to his wife that "Abba was changing" but his late wife said she trusted him so Wilcox said he allowed Abba to stay because he didn't want to offend his wife.
He added that his wife was nice to Abba and gave him new clothes and also a gift of 10,000 Naira last Sallah break to give to his parents. He added that Abba's quarters was well furnished with an air conditioner on his late wife's demand.
Wilcox wondered what his wife did wrong for Abba to choose to repay his kindness with evil.
Vanguard reports that during interrogation it was revealed that Abba had concluded plans to use the shovel available in the house to dig a grave under a tree in the compound and bury the couple after he must have killed them. He would then take his time to sell all their properties including houses and if anybody asked about them, he would say they travelled abroad.
Though he has taken the situation in good faith, Wilcox said he is not pleased with the slow pace at which the Nigerian police are handling the case and he pleaded with them to give him justice in order to step up plans to bury his wife.
A study by Italian scientists has found that people can transmit the coronavirus SARS-COV-2 to cats and dogs.
The study tested 540 dogs and 277 cats living in households in northern Italy, particularly in Lombardy, where someone was infected with the virus or in areas where there were many cases.
The study, which has not been peer-reviewed yet, found coronavirus antibodies in 3.4 per cent of dogs and 3.9 per cent of cats, indicating they were infected with the virus.
Swab tests for active virus infections were negative in all animals, as the virus shedding period ended after two weeks.
The tests were conducted between March and May of this year.
Thomas Mettenleiter, leader of the German Federal Research Institute for Animal Health (FLI), said the results showed that the virus could be transmitted between humans and animals.
“This confirms what we already know,” Mr Mettenleiter said, adding that the large scale of the study was unprecedented as it was difficult to get samples.
According to Mr Mettenleiter, most animals in the study came from households affected by the coronavirus, indicating that infection is generally transmitted from humans to animals.
He added that this confirmed the FLI’s assumption that cats and dogs don’t play a significant role in the spread of COVID-19, and that healthy people needed not limit their contact with their pets.
People, who are infected with the virus, however, should limit their contact with their pets, although there are no indications so far that animals can die of the coronavirus, according to Mr Mettenleiter.
(dpa/NAN)
