Ibadan was recently jolted by the news of the death of Moshood Ekugbemi, one of the most dreaded men in the ancient city. Ekugbemi’s violent end was reportedly facilitated by one Biola Ebila.
Interestingly, the men being referred to are both under the age of 35 but they head the most dreaded gangs the city has ever heard of.
Just before the 2019 general elections, a friend was driving through a popular industrial estate in Ibadan. He looked through the rearview mirror and noticed that the convoy of a politician was behind him. He maintained his speed even as the vehicle behind him hooted and the man on the passenger seat in front gave a hand signal for him to pull over so they could pass.
“We are the ones that will vote for you so you cannot drive us away from the road”, my friend thought to himself.
What happened the next minute made him have a rethink; a peep in the rearview mirror and he saw that the man in the vehicle behind him was no longer giving a hand signal; instead, he was brandishing a double-barreled pump action rifle. For a couple of minutes after the convoy had gone, he sat motionless in the car thinking about the future of Nigeria.
In Ibadan, it is a normal thing to hear that the average Nigerian politician has lots of ‘eru iku’ (slaves of death) under his or her control. It has become another term for political thugs. They do the dirty jobs of killing and maiming opponents of their sponsors while they snatch ballot boxes if need be. My friend didn’t need to attend a political rally before he saw the “eru ikus” at a very close range.
Though first-time voters saw the violence that occurred in some areas as significant political experience, those who have been around for some time know that it has become an essential part of the polls in Nigeria.
How do these things come to be? Youths with tremendous energy are hired by politicians as political thugs and are provided with tools of violence; drugs, cutlasses, arms and ammunition as part of their contract. And usually, those weapons never get mopped up after the polls. Losers are usually too busy massaging their losses to remember to collect the weapons back while the thugs are usually seen as being extraordinarily useless by winners until the next electioneering campaigns start.
It may therefore not be wrong to infer that the thugs funded by the political class, when abandoned, usually turn to face the ordinary citizens. That was the beginning of the journey for most of the groups that have turned deadly, the One Million Boys of Ibadan, the Awawa Boys of Lagos and others.
While politicians continue with their chicanery, the purchasing power of citizens continues to dwindle and they are thus left at the mercy of the ruling class. That explains the sense of entitlement of the hoodlums who know they cannot coerce their former paymasters into “dropping” money. They approach defenseless citizens with every sense of authority and demand funds at any slight excuse.
In some places, if you are building your house, you have to “drop” at every significant stage of the project; before you lay the foundation while casting the decking and even the roofing stage. Failure to yield to their demands could lead to violence, destruction of property or even loss of lives.
The lockdown order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has further exposed the fact that the lower class has been left to be dealt with by the monsters created by the ruling class. People in Agege, Igando and Ikotun areas of Lagos are having sleepless nights while those in highbrow areas like Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki are safe. In Ibadan, boys around Beere, Oja’ba, and Oke-Ado have to stay up at night. The bonfires they set up do not only pose health hazards, but they also end up damaging the asphalt on the roads in the long run. While the elected can sleep with two eyes closed, the electorates are groaning under the yoke of the tormentors-in-chief appointed indirectly by the ruling class.
Is there a way out? Maybe not anytime soon because as long as the amount of money shared determines who wins elections without recourse to competence and character, the present state of political hopelessness will persist. Politicians too will continue to keep the populace under since their positions were bought in the first place and they will continue to have eru iku to bear their messages of death.
Wole Adejumo writes from Ibadan, Oyo state capital.
