The Uromi killings

By NICK DAZANGSixteen hunters, on their way from Port Harcourt to Kano, for the Eid-el-Fitr celebration, were intercepted at Uromi, Edo State, and were cruelly lynched.Naturally, the lynching occasioned a national outrage. Rarely have Nigerians, across strata and spectra, been so unanimous and clarion in their indignation.

This lynching was not only barbaric, it visited diminishment and devaluation to our common humanity and our image as Nigerians.Following this widespread outpouring of anger, the Governor of Edo State, Monday Okpebholo, paid a condolence visit on Monday, March 31 to Torankawa village in Bunkure Local Government Area of Kano State. Most of those killed are said to hail from this village.



He also paid a condolence visit on the Deputy Senate President, Senator Jibrin Barau, who hails from Kano State.By these condolence visits, Governor Okpebholo has demonstrated responsible leadership. These condolences and other expressions of heartfelt remorse by the Governor should assuage the pain of the relatives of the deceased.

They should also mitigate the outrage expressed by Nigerians on the killings.While we share in the grief of the relatives of those who were killed, and while we stand shoulder to shoulder with them in this moment of anguish, one wishes that the same unanimity and outrage were always expressed when such ugly incidents occur in any part of our country.Instead, and most unfortunately, what we see is a selective expression of outrage or denunciation.

In most cases when terrorists and bandits mow down Nigerians, in their numbers, no anger is expressed against them. Neither is solidarity extended or shown to the traumatised relatives of their victims.Our leaders, particularly the political ones, cherrypick before they express their anger.

They do so only when it suits their self-serving calibrations for power or if they gauge that such anger would resonate with their ethnic or religious bases. This propensity is exemplified by the selective and skewed expression of anger that visited the lynching of Deborah in Sokoto and the extra-judicial beheading of Akaluka, whose severed head was put on a spike and was held aloft by an irate crowd in Kano.This writer stands to be corrected, but if the same concerted effort was, ab initio, put in apprehending those who incessantly kill, abduct and maim thousands of people across our communities in Edo, Ondo, Benue, Plateau, Zamfara, Sokoto, Borno, etc.

, perhaps the unfortunate lynching that occurred at Uromi would have been averted. In fact, there would have been absolutely no reason to put in place a vigilante group in the first instance.This is because for months, armed men, alleged to be herders, had laid siege to Edo and Ondo states, killing and abducting farmers and doing so with abandon.

It was because the security agencies could not be on top of their game, by stopping these reckless killings, or apprehending their perpetrators, that the people resorted to vigilantes.It is common knowledge that a recourse to self-help by embattled citizens is always as a consequence of the failure of the state to secure them or its failure to govern in a just and equitable manner. What obtains in our clime is a classical case of state failure and a justice administration system that has gone haywire.

The state, which by law, ought to secure its citizens, as part of its statutory duty and obligation, has abdicated its responsibilities. Similarly, the justice system is a huge and a macabre joke. Witness the recent ridiculous Supreme Court judgement involving a farmer and a herder in Adamawa State.

That judgement offends logic. It is also bereft of common sense.Compounding matters is the cynical manner the security agencies operate.

Consider the alacrity with which they arrested the alleged perpetrators of the Uromi killings. Why couldn’t they exhibit similar or equal zeal in apprehending the herders who had earlier held the state to ransom? Often, it is when frustrated citizens spew out their bottled anger on their fellow citizens, in the aftermath of being killed or abducted, that the security agents appear on the scene. The same pattern of reprehensible behaviour has repeated itself in various theaters of mayhem in Zamfara, Benue, Kaduna, Kebbi and Plateau states: The security agents arrive late at the scene of the massacre.

If they don’t plead lack of logistics or challenging terrains, they inexplicably descend on the grieving relatives of the dead.This lack of proactivity and cynical behaviour are not only being demonstrated in the aforesaid states alone. On account of incessant killings and abductions, students recently protested in Ondo State.

And coming hot on the heels of the protests in Ondo State, youths on Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Otukpo, protested over unceasing killings and abductions in Benue State. There have been outcries in other states, even though not as loud. In spite of these protests, the security agents seem not to be up to the task.

Or if they were, they are not forthcoming.If the state has failed woefully in its duty to secure its citizens, some of our leaders, including those who vehemently condemned the Uromi killings, deserve the sternest rebuke, if not the most savage indictment. One of them was a Governor of Kano State.

If he had conferred the requisite skills sets on these youths, would they have traversed the country hunting for game? Would they not have pre-occupied themselves with something more dignifying and less hazardous? Would they, given skills sets and jobs, have embarked on some amphibious misadventure such as hunting in the creeks?Pray, were these young men true and genuine hunters? Which games/animals roam or frolic in the rivers of Port Harcourt to be hunted by these intrepid youngsters? Why couldn’t they do so in their backyards or areas proximate their homes? Why the preference for a far-flung Rivers State at the brink of the Atlantic Ocean? Additionally, when you apprehend young men with weapons in a tense community laid siege to by bandits and terrorists, what readily comes to your mind as a vigilante?It is right that we were vociferous in our outrage over the Uromi killings. It is right that we stood as one person in condemning it. But our outrage must be moderated by the failure of the state to secure its citizens.

It must be informed by the fact that the state has failed our youths in conferring them with skills and in empowering them.Above all, our angst must be moderated by the fact that Esanland boasts of some of the finest and most refined people in this country. After all, Uromi, in spite of the smear brought about by these killings, is the home of the Enahoro Brothers:Tony, Peter, Mike.

..They have blessed this country with their talents and with their uncommon show of patriotism.

Dazang, a public affairs commentator, wrote from Abuja The post The Uromi killings appeared first on Vanguard News..