The dark days of bullion van robberies in commercial banks in Aba, the commercial town of Abia state, Nigeria have returned after short period of relief by the bankers.(Photo right shows the governor of the state, Chief Theodore Orji)KlinReports learnt that over fifty armed robbers, very recently, ambushed a CBN bullion van transferring cash from Aba to Owerri at Aro-Ngwa Junction in Umuimo along Port-Harcourt–Enugu highway.
The gang of armed robbers rained bullets on the billion van, deflecting its tyres. With the aid of a gas-wedding machine, the hoodlums gained access to the cash and made away with unspecified amount. The amount involved, of course, runs into several millions of naira.
The operation which lasted for hours turned out bloody, as the police escort vehicle accompanying the bullion van was set ablaze. An eyewitness told KlinReports that some police escort roasted alongside the bullion van. To worsen the already exacerbated situation, an armored personnel carrier (APC), mobilized to the scene for a rescue operation, was demobilized by the dare-devil robbers with an explosive. While police sources put the death toll to two (a policeman and the driver of the bullion van), eye witnesses say about ten persons lost their lives in the bloody armed robbery operation.
According to Okechukwu Ali, the state’s Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), the robbers who were later traced to a hide out in a community in Obingwa council area of the state where they were sharing their loot. Ali accused members of the community of aiding the robbers in setting ablaze four police patrol vans conveying a combined team of police and soldiers and members of the Abia State Vigilante Services (AVS). The police image maker said investigations had commenced into the incident.
It would be recalled that between 2006 and 2008, Aba and environs were characterized by incessant bullion van robberies along the highways especially the Ikot-Ekpene Road axis of the commercial town. Human losses within this time range, it was learnt, amounted to over 100 police personnel and civilians, while losses in cash and other materials were over N100 billion.
But the trend abated from mid 2008 when banks in the state devised a strategy of airlifting cash through helicopters. The football pitch of Abia State Polytechnic and a mini-pitch at the Central Police Station at Aba were used as landing points. Also, incessant kidnap of bank staff and bank bullion van robberies forced banks in Abia State to go on strike for two days last year, grounding economic activities in the state for the period.
Several theories have been propounded as the cause of this ugly trend. Barrister Olusegun Bamgbose, the founder and president of Millennium Advancement Project (MAP), an organization charged with the responsibility of youth’s enlightenment and re-orientation blames the trend on the rate of unemployment in the country.
“Other measures outside devising means of improving the employment rate in the country as a means of fighting crime may seem half-bake. There is a common saying that a hungry man is the devil’s workshop. The government should seriously do something about unemployment if they are not paying lip service to the problem of crime in the society” Bamgbose asserts.
But Uche Wisdom Durueke (Esq), National Vice President of Civil Liberties organization (CLO) and Executive Director of Center for Development, Constitutionalism, Peace and Advocacy (CD-COPA) in a round-table held by the latter organization in the Southeast geo-political zone, blames the rate of crime in the zone, especially armed banditry and robbery, on mass circulation of light weapons and small arms.
According to Durueke, the situation escalated as a result of the 2003 re-election bids of public office holders then that stopped at nothing to actualize this by even equipping miscreants with arms.
“What we are suffering is a by-product of selfish and over-ambitious politicians who thought then that politics is a do or die affairs. They equipped hoodlums with arms which they couldn’t recover. It is a case of offering a glass of water to monkey but the inability to recover the glass”, Barrsiter Durueke posits.
Emeka Ogbonna of the Popular Participation Front blames the incidence on some insiders in the banks who allegedly relay information to those bandits for economic rewards.
“To me, I don’t think those operations could succeed without insiders’ information. How do these boys know when cash is moving and so on? The banks, security agents and government should seriously look towards this direction”, Ogbonna submits.
Among the theories, the most valid seems to be that of Wisdom Durueke. Between late 2002 and early 2003, a vehicle allegedly belonging to the Rivers State Government was arrested with some arms at Opobo Junction, Ogbor-Hill, Aba. Few days after the arrest, the driver of the vehicle died in the detention under suspicious circumstances.
Also, reports indicate that there are mass importation and exportation of arms, especially, in some communities in Abia South zone of Abia State. Accusing fingers are pointing in the direction of a community around the area, noted for manufacturing sophisticated weapons.
Can the Nigerian government intervene to save the city of Aba and its dwellers?
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