By Emeka Alex Duru
As I write, many young men and women of my Orlu Local Government Area and adjoining Councils in Imo State, are inside holes and bushes. They are hunted and rattled. The otherwise, tranquil environment of the city had its peace shattered, on Monday, January 25, 2021, following bloody clashes between security agents and suspected militants. Many were reported dead and/or wounded in the fracas.
In a move to check the situation, the governor, Hope Uzodimma, in a broadcast, imposed a dusk to dawn curfew (6 pm to 6 am) in the following Local Government Areas of Orlu zone; namely; Orlu, Orsu, Oru East, Oru West, Ideato North, Ideato South, Njaba, Isu, Nwangele and Nkwerre. The curfew which took immediate effect, saw indigenes and travelers to the affected communities, stranded.
The Monday episode is the latest in the series of crises that had rocked Orlu, lately, the first being in the wake of the #EndSars# protests that saw government buildings and properties vandalized by hoodlums that hijacked the exercise.
There has not been a precise account on what triggered the mayhem. Various sources however claimed that the shoot-out was a carry-over of an existing face-off between some unidentified militants and security agents in the city. Even the curfew imposed by the governor, has not brought the needed peace. Tension is still high, with the army and police still patrolling the area. Footages of Orlu metropolis sell a picture of a war zone and a city under attack. They evoke memories of the military invasion of Odi, Bayelsa State and Zaki-Biam, Benue State in the heady days of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration. The situation is really piteous.
Now, one is not taking sides with any of the combatants. The immediate agenda is finding a solution to the already bad situation. Orlu does not desire its current stress. It already has enough to contend with in areas of neglect and poor governance. The zone has advantage of immediate name recognition. But in an irony of sort, it has refused to grow or has been denied growth by successive administrations in the land. As an ancestral community, local government area or senatorial district, Orlu has remained rustic and in dire need of infrastructure uplift. Notwithstanding its reputation as the second largest city in Imo after Owerri, there is hardly much to put fingers on in Orlu in terms of industries, government presence and infrastructure.
Orlu has produced three governors of the state in the present dispensation – Achike Udenwa (1999 -2007), Rochas Okorocha (2011 -2019) and currently, Hope Uzodimma. If Uzodimma goes for a second term, the zone would have been in control of Imo politics for 24 years. This is aside such other citizens of the area as Senator Arthur Nzeribe, Osita Izunaso, Jerry Alagbaoso (House of Representatives) and the late Kingsley Ozumba (KO) Mbadiwe of the Second Republic, who had held significant positions at state or federal levels at various times. Yet, Orlu remains a glorified village.
Few government departments and offices largely manned by marginal officers confer it with township status. Aside these, the residents and indigenes are largely petty traders, artisans and subsistence farmers, who depend on their daily efforts for living. It is these people who have been displaced from their daily activities, denied of their income, uprooted from their homes and reduced to the status of monkeys living on tree trunks on account of the ferocious tendencies of the soldiers, that matter most in the confusing situation.
In a situation as this, elders and political leaders would naturally be expected to speak up. But in this case, not much has been heard from the political elite of the state and entire Igbo land in finding a way out of the serious crisis in Orlu. Neither Alagbaoso (House of Representatives), nor Okorocha who represents the zone in the senate has spoken up forcefully on disturbing trends. The South East Governors Forum is yet to comment on the situation. The apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze, merely skirted around the issue in a belated release, in which it agonized over the loss of lives and destruction of properties occasioned by the disturbances. Even the federal government has kept mute on fragile security situation. It is that bad!
It is the likes of the uncertain developments in Orlu and government’s attention to them that provoke questions of citizenship and patriotism in a people. Governance is about the welfare and security of the people. Government provides security for the people as its side of the bargain, while demanding loyalty from them. But on this cardinal principle, both the state and federal governments have failed in Orlu. This is the type of failure that creates vacuum which deviants who ordinarily would not have mattered, seize to prance about as champions of the people’s rights and freedom.
The areas affected by the latest crisis are already down and should not remain so, perpetually. The city has had enough. The buildings and offices torched by hoodlums in the #EndSars# protests, last year, are yet to be rebuilt. With the latest round of destructions, it is quite a handful for Orlu and its people.
Going forward, the residents must be encouraged to creep out of the holes and crevices where they have been forced to hibernate. The crisis in the area is a civil matter that could have been handled by the police. The continued presence of soldiers in the towns and villages around the city, throws up the ugly images of the last days of the 1967 -1970 Civil War, when Orlu fell to the federal forces whose murderous marches into the area left in their trail, blood, tears and sorrow. Such sordid reminders are better kept away from the people.
The blanket tag of criminality on every man and woman in Orlu as it currently seems, is not the way to achieve peace. The average Orlu indigene is peaceful and hard working. He desires a conducive atmosphere to carry out his daily activities and not the siege unleashed to him by security agents.
*Duru is the Editor of TheNiche Newspapers, Lagos (08054103327, nwaukpala@yahoo.com)