Uromi In Insecurity Vice-Grip By Austin Isikhuemen Part Two…
In this second installment of his eye-opening series Uromi in the Deadly Grip of Insecurity, Austin Isikhuemen takes a sobering look at the contemporary reality of his hometown. Uromi, once a thriving hub of commerce, culture, and political significance, now finds itself ensnared in the vice grip of insecurity that has gripped much of Esanland.
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Despite its illustrious history of producing political giants, academics, and business leaders, the town is now plagued by rampant crime, from kidnappings to banditry, that threaten the livelihoods and safety of its citizens.
Isikhuemen paints a vivid picture of Uromi’s decline, not just in terms of security, but also in how this insecurity has crippled local economies, disrupted daily life, and shattered families.
With the government’s efforts falling short, he calls for a renewed sense of unity and action from both local leaders and the wider community to confront these challenges and restore a sense of peace and order.
This part of the series sheds light on the grim realities faced by Uromi and the surrounding region while urging a collective, strategic response to a growing crisis. Now enjoy the reading.
CONTEMPORARY UROMI
Politically, the town has produced giants like the two Tonys – Chief Anthony Enahoro and Chief Anthony Anenih, while the third Tony – Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, chose to work in the Lord,s vineyard like Archbishop Ebosele Ekpu.
The Cardinal was a potential Pope! Architect Mike Ononlemenmen, a townboy and now the Adolor of Uromi, was a great achiever in the Federal Minsitry of works. There are also philanthropic clergymen like Bishop Okpebholo (retired).
Big Businessmen, Academics and Spotsmen – like Professors Okpere and Mike Ibadin who were CMDs in UBTH, the late Jujuman – Nigeria’s Decathlon wonder, Coach Fanny Amu (of fumbling and wombling fame!).
Uromi has had Generals in the military services, AVM Okpere, Major Air Commodore Joe Okoiye. If we want to go Esan-wide, we have Majors Gen. Cecil Esekhaigbe, Matthias Efeovbokhan and Charles Aligbe who all have held the torch and are shaping developments including security in Esanland today.
Uromi has had an AIG Olumese. Many townsmen have been police commissioners including Chief Tony Aneni who was orderly to the first President of Nigeria.
Uromi hosts Lumen Christi International School, the National Award-inning high school that is unfazed by winning the first position in WAEC performance that they have been holding now, starting from the era of former Principal Rev. Fr. Theophilus Itaman, for almost a decade.
And then, Uromi houses the National Institute of Construction Technology and Management – a specialized polytechnic that is likely to become a University of Technology in the very near future. His Excellency Governor Okpebholo should tell the President now so we can get that done in PBAT’s first tenure!
The pioneer Rector, Professor Sunday Onohaebi, turned the sprawling forest near Amedokhian into an enviable bubbling campus, the best among its peers according to the National Board for Technical Education, in just eight years! For this he got a letter of commendation from the supervisory body.
Uromi has a chain of modern hotels, eateries, ultra-modern entertainment facilities and a massive general hospital that was opened in 1962! Uromi massive insecurity and impassable federal roads: Irrua – Uromi, Uromi – Illushi, Uromi -Ubiaja, Agbor – Uromi – Ewu Road! Many State Government roads are bad as well – Angle 80 – Amedokhian road to the Itakpe -Warri rail line, upper Afuda road, Old Agbor Road to Ubierumu etc.
Most Uromi people are farmers and those who trade in farm produce. Many take their farming activities to other Esan towns in search of fertile arable lands are still available – which is why the issue of kidnapping sometimes catch up with them even outside Uromi.
Other trade in all sorts of commodities while many more are artisans, hospitality workers and teachers. Commercial Okada riding is now a big business in the absence of taxis and the preponderance of roads that are impassable to motor vehicles.
INSANE INSECURITY BEDEVILING UROMI AND ESANLAND
Some years ago, the issue of cattle herders bringing their cattle to eat up whole farm crops that totally ruined the farmer and his family’s life.
The farmer is thrown from a great expectation of bountiful harvest to a life of hunger, want and hopelessness. The man’s dignity will not allow him beg in a place where our culture abhors begging.
In places, even outside Esan, like Odiguetue as reported by Adibe Emenyonu in Thisday newspaper of three years ago, five persons were killed with cutlasses and guns by herdsmen, and they even rammed a stick through one victim’s mouth.
They not only harvested their crops and fed them to the animals, they recorded videos of atrocity themselves, probably as a take-home trophy! Then they murdered the farmers they saw in cold blood. Odiguetue is not in Esan, but this occurrence is symptomatic of the method in this madness and plague.
In Uromi, these dastardly incidents of eating up of whole-year crop harvests and killing of farmers went on wholesale. The killings and kidnappings went on endlessly. Not even mere passers-by were spared.
A university student of a struggling parent who had gone home to Ugboha to collect life-sustaining foodstuff like garri and a little money for survival was shot and killed as a commercial motorcyclist was taking him to Uromi. He was killed by herds moving along with their cattle near the National Institute of Construction Technology and Management at Uromi.
The promise of future life of progress died on the stop. So did the hope of the parents. But what did a student on a motor bike do to deserve summary execution? Two students were later kidnaped from the campus itself. No answers till date.
When I called his father – Mr. Ojieriakhi, the agony of a lost investment and dashed hope as palpable! He and I had met at Esigie College during admission processes. I was rejected even though I made more than the 70% mark at the written examination on the grounds that I was too young and of small stature for Teacher’s Training College and advised me to go to a Grammar School instead.
Festus Ojieriakhi was admitted! We never met again till when the dead student’s name got into the press and I instantly remembered his father’s name because he was the one that consoled my small self when I burst out crying on being rejected by the then expatriate Principal, Mr. C. Smith.
I got my contacts at Ugboha to find his phone number for me and we connected, but in a situation where we would have been joyous, it was grief and hopeless and confusion that we had to share.
HAUSAS (NORTHERNERS) IN UROMI
Just as the Igbo people found Uromi welcoming with great opportunities for commerce, Northerners, who are generally called “Hausas” also settled in Uromi in large numbers and many got assimilated into Uromi culture and traditions.
Among the many Esan towns (we have five Local Government Areas now), Uromi had the largest concentration of northerners and the largest cattle market since the sixties in my own experience. I know a Fulani I first saw while in primary school in the late sixties at the abattoir near the Ujuromi’s palace on the road that leads to Idumu-Ekhuere.
He is still in Uromi today and he speaks Uromi more fluently than many Esan folks and breaks kola among the elders even at traditional marriages especially when he is the eldest around! You can only suspect he comes from the North because he has been unable to do without caftans and babanriga!
The cattle market at Uromi is very busy and since our traditional burial rites and weddings, housewarming and the like typically involve the slaughtering of cows, we all go to that market once in a while to buy cows or rams and goats.
Some, like me, have brought them home to convert the ram I had brought from them to suya through grilling. Today, they have my numbers and they phone, calling me Owanlen. The commercial bike riders at Uromi and elsewhere in Esanland are from the predominantly (about 75%) from the North.
So are many of the mai-guards that keep our houses safe. There are some well-to-do Uromi people resident in Lagos, Abuja or overseas whose palatial mansions are taken care of by such workers alone. Generally, our local folks just call all of them Hausa, even if from Nasarawa, Kano, Kebbi or Zamfara.
They welcome them all. Fulanis even herd cows now for many Esan men who reap huge profits during cow purchases for itolimhin, weddings and other events. There has therefore been no existing animosity be the locals against the “Hausas” and there could not have been an orchestrated plan to murder Hausa people in transit.
KIDNAPPING, BANDITRY AND PAUPERISATION
This criminal enterprise has taken over Esanland. From Igueben (remember the rail station kidnapping at Ekekhen?) Ubiaja, Ugboha, Ekpoma, Irrua, Emu – on the road leading to Asaba via Anwai, and several others have all had their own share of this banditry, kidnap for ransom and wanton killings.
See also Urgent Call to Action: 7-Day Open Letter, Protesting Insecurity in Esanland and Nigeria, Day 1
Uromi has been worst hit due to its commercial nature and the rather huge diaspora population. Another factor is the presence of local collaborators who want to make it quick and buy a RX 350 because his cyber-bandit friend (read yahoo yahoo) drives the same car without a visible means of livelihood.
These natives, or men from across Esanland and elsewhere but living in Uromi metropolis, arrange to catch the victim who they know as relatives who can pay or the victim himself is “viable” and hands him over to those hiding in the forests.
Hon. Sergius Ogun proposed Army FOB
They demand ransom using the victim’s telephone and at the threat of execution, families run around and mobilize resources, raise the millions typically demanded and taken to the bush-based, usually Hausa/Fulani non-natives, who collect the millions of Naira in sacks before they release the victim.
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In some instances, they kill the victim after ransom is collected, especially if the victim is likely going to be able to trace the root cause of his predicament homewards. A lot of the cases of incessant kidnappings for ransom never make it to the press even though now week p asses in Uromi and other parts of Esan, without incidents of several kidnappings and killings taking place.
It appears there are concerted efforts give a façade of “all is well”, but I ask, “in whose interest?”
A relative of this author came from overseas to Uromi with some friends for his wedding in January 2024. They decided to spend most of January before departure since some of them had not been home for almost a decade having gone through the Sahara and enduring the criminal gangs’ treachery in Libya and the tempestuous perils of the Mediterranean Sea.
Back for the first time to sleep and enjoy the house they have been sending money to build, two of them were kidnapped! They were only released after paying a ransom of twenty-two million naira that had to be mobilized through their diaspora friends. They have vowed never to return home to Uromi!
GOVERNMENT FAILURE AND ESAN ELITE
Several efforts have been made by the elite of Esanland to deal with this existential issue. People like General Cecil Esekhaigbe, Dorry Okojie, Cyprian Imobhio, Association of Esan Profesionals, AVM Anthony Okpere, Air Commodores Joe Okoiye and Victor Aikhomu, Chief Idemudia, the late Dr. Ona Ekhomu, Fred Ojeaga, Police Commissioner Ejedawe (Citadel), Alhaji Isiwele, Barr. Anselm Ojezua, Arc. Mike Ononlememen, Hon. Sergius Ogun and several other politicians, industrialists like Prince Mike Osimen and many others too numerous to mention in this piece, got to work to protect our fatherland and restore the people’s main occupation of farming. They set up Atanakpa vigilante which as very effective.
See also The Esan Ibhiaba: Finding The Extended Self For Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurs
This initiative had Maj. Gen. Cecil Esekhaigbe as its Field Marshall. Talk of doing for your people, after retirement, what you did for the nation!
The Atanakpa operatives were uniformed, armed with registered shotguns and were very professional, enabling safe commuting on roads like Ubiaja-Ewatto-Ewohimi Road, Uromi – Ugboha Road that traverses Amedokhian, Uromi – Uzea Road, Ekpoma – Ukhun – Idoa – Ewu Road, Uromi -Igueben – Ekpon Road and several others.
Maj. Gen. (rtd.) Cecil Esekhaigbe – Okanlete of Esan
Over time, inevitably, funding became a problem. The Edo Government established Security Agency, trained at the Police Training School at Ogida in Benin City could not sufficiently cover all the nooks and crannies of every local government area, not to talk of dispersed deployment required across Esanland.
Then kidnapping and banditry festered. People got scared at home, could not farm anymore and their personal economy was in ruins.
Their elite living in cities across Nigeria either stopped going home completely or when it was inevitable to come, like for burials, they hired a platoon of soldiers and a detachment of police mobile force to escort them home to Esan, guard and protect them through the duration of the event and escort them safely back to their cities when done.
See also The Esan War Machine and the Foundation of Eko Lagos, Nigeria (Agba: The Esan God Of War, 3)
There was a case of more than a hundred-car convoy (celebrants and invitees) with more than fifteen security vehicles that escorted them to a burial ceremony at Esan due to the rampant kidnappings and killings at Ehor in Uhumwode Local Government at the time.
A friend of mine (Tabugbo Motors Chairman) later escaped by whiskers on his way home to Uromi, his car came under a fusillade of bullets. His survival was nothing short of a miracle miracle!
THE UNFORTUNATE UROMI 16 EPISODE
The killings of those sixteen men, our fellow citizens, can only be condemned as an unfortunate event in which the suffering masses of Nigeria got the wrong end of the stick from fellow victims of Nigeria’s dysfunctional state.
It should never have happened at all. In a country endowed like ours, it is unthinkable that a man would leave Kano, cross several states of Kaduna, Niger, FCT, Kogi, Edo, Delta, and Bayelsa just to go and hunt in the soot-infested, polluted riverine mangrove swamps of Part Harcourt in Rivers State!
Those our brothers are economic refugees. If Kano was conducive for them and they had something better to do, they would not have left the games of the savanna to a place where there is more fish than wild animals! They are victims of our nation’s inequality and political iniquities.
This is not a justification for the fate that was meted out to them. Far from it. The mistaken identity, the presence of hidden guns, the stabbing of a vigilante member and the rumoured discovery of sacks of money running into millions (no one has shown proof of this nor talked about it on any of the TV shows) may have angered those who chose to take the laws into their hands in such a dastardly manner.
See also The British Colonial Invasion Of Uromi in 1901 (Agba: The Esan God Of War, 4)
It is in the grapevine that the Dangote truck driver had told the police he was made to convey the “travelers” under duress. Really? I was not there, so this is in the realm of speculation. Handing over to the police should have been the most lawful thing to do. It does not matter if you or your relative had been kidnapped before.
Yes, you have a right to be angry and to make a citizen arrest which the law permits. But summary execution and burning of human beings? No sir! Have people burnt the local collaborators who sometimes kickstart the kidnapping process in the city? Only those herdsmen who catch farmers on their farms probably work independently.
I join hands with the Edo State Governor to offer unreserved apologies to the families of the victims and Kano State and its people among whom I have several friends who are like brothers to me.
I made several new friends when I went there with Austin Omokhuale and Rogers Nwoke to teach Business Continuity Planning to Microfinance Bankers in the North in January 2021.
This fast response from government was excellent. It should however no be one-sided. The Governor must also visit and sympathize with his own people who are being killed and maimed by kidnappers on weekly basis. Go and speak Esan to them too, give some palliative assistance, that would be very soothing indeed.
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