By Ikenna Asomba

Over the last six months, states in the South-West geopolitical zone, may have been thrown into unease and sorrowful moments, following tragic occurrences especially accidents, crimes and natural catastrophes which have been recorded in the region within this period.

The bitter taste these tragic events have left in the mouths of people of the region is better imagined than told. Various tragic incidents since January, have hit Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo, even that one cannot tell the state that has been worst hit.

Ekiti debacle
Relative peace may have returned to Ekiti, as the battle for the soul of the state between Governor Ayodele Fayose and former Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin has come and gone. But the fountain of knowledge state actually had its fair share of tragic incidents before the general elections, and even more recently.

In the ensuing melee between Fayose and the former APC 19 lawmakers, the state was turned into a battle ground, as hoodlums cashed in on the feud, perpetrating crimes bordering on armed robbery, kidnapping and arson.

Two major kidnapping cases which led to strike by Ekiti medical practitioners were that of former  Chief Medical Director of the Ekiti State Teaching Hospital,Dr  Patrick Adegun and his wife in the evening of Thursday, May 8 by unknown gunmen. This was barely a week when a staff nurse, Mrs Margaret Aladenika working with the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido  Ekiti was equally abducted.

Aside kidnapping which became rampant before Fayose sent a Save Our Soul call to the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, another major tragic incident which may not be forgotten so soon was the three-day free-for-all between members of the Ekiti state chapter of National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, and some traders of northern extraction in Ado Ekiti.
The resulting pandemonium crippled social and commercial activities in the town, especially in the biggest market in the town, known as Oja’ba and Atikankan where most of the Hausa reside.

Unfortunately, what started in the night of Tuesday, May 28, as an argument over who snatched the bag and molested the wife of one of the leaders of road transport workers in the Hausa line, led to the destruction of goods and properties worth millions of naira. No fewer than 10 persons from both sides were said to have sustained various degree of injuries. It however took the efforts of the governor and security operatives to calm frayed nerves in the ensuing imbroglio.

Fuel tanker fire, flood, robbers hit Lagos

Similarly, Nigeria’s commercial hub centre, Lagos, was not spared of tragic occurrences over the last six months. More recently were the reported cases of explosions by fuel-ladened tankers in parts of the state, the ravaging flood which had sacked several residents living in low-line and coastal areas of the state, as well as two separate successful robbery operations by dare-devil bandits in the Lekki and Ikorodu areas.

In what many described as a baptism of fire, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode who had barely spent four days in office, was confronted with a fuel tanker explosion which hit the Iyana-Ipaja area of the state on Tuesday, June 2. A fuel tanker conveying 33,000 litres of petrol had exploded in the area at about 1 am, injuring no fewer than 14 persons, gutting about 21 vehicles and razing 44 shops. Three days later on Friday, June 5, another midnight inferno hit the Idimu-Egbe area of the state. A petroleum tanker was said to have exploded razing down over 70 shops and 34 houses.

Also recall that during the administration of former Governor Babatunde Fashola’s tenure, on Thursday, March 12, dare-devil armed bandits invaded one of the new generation banks near Lekki/Ikoyi Link Bridge, Lekki, carting away millions of naira and killing no fewer than six persons, among them three policemen and a teenage girl hawking fish.
Some weeks later, armed gang invaded Ikorodu, successfully robbing branches of two banks in the neighbourhood, killing two people in the process. Again, barely three-weeks later, 10 armed bandits in a Gestapo-type operation successfully raided two banks in the Ogolonto area of Ikorodu on Wednesday, June 24.

Despite the heavy presence of the police and some men of the Nigerian Army and Nigerian Navy, the notorious armed robbery gang terrorised the area for about an hour, purportedly leaving six persons dead and several others injured.

Kidnappers on the prowl in Ondo
The Sunshine State, like its sobriquet, says had more recently provided the needed sunlight for dare-devil kidnappers to operate. An event which many Ondo natives would not forget in a hurry was the kidnap of Regent of Akungba Akoko in Ondo State, Princess Oluwatoyin Omosowon.

Omosowon who was though rescued on Tuesday, June 16 by a combined team of police and Department of State Services, DSS, in Edo State, was kidnapped alongside three of her aides on Tuesday, June 2, by gunmen while on their way to attend an event at the Federal University of Technology, Akure.

The frayed nerves over Omosowon’s kidnap had barely been calmed when the decomposed body of the kidnapped former Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology (FUTA), in Ondo state, Prof. Albert Ilemobade was found in an an abandoned store.

Sources however, fingered Ilemobade’s gate-man as a master-minder of his abduction and eventual murder, a tragedy Governor Olusegun Mimiko promised to work with the security operatives to get to the head.
Mimiko, who said this when he paid condolence visit to the family of the deceased at his Ijapo residence in Akure, described the late Former Vice-Chancellor of FUTA as a man who devoted his life to the service of humanity. He however decried the manner in which Ilemobade exited mother earth.

Death of OOU students throws Ogun into mourning

Amidst the uncovering of kidnappers and ritualists dens in Ogun State by security operatives over the last few months, last Friday’s tragic auto-crash along the Sagamu-Benin Expressway, which left dead some students of Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, have thrown the state into deepmourning.

No fewer than 12 persons lost their lives when a container from a truck fell on a 14-seater commercial bus they were travelling in from Ago-Iwoye to Lagos State. This incident, it was reported caused pandemonium as the families and friends of the victims had besieged the Olabisi Onabanjo Teaching Hospital, Sagamu in search of their loved ones.

This is even as aggrieved students of the university on Monday, caused an uproar by storming the premises of the company which they believed owned the truck that killed their colleagues. The irate students pounced on the workers and destroying properties.

Salary, pension fiasco expose state of Osun

Meanwhile, over the last few weeks concurrent protests and outcry have enveloped Osun State over Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s inability to pay workers their seven months salaries and pensioners their 11 months entitlements.

At a recent protest in commemoration of June 12, some human rights activists, workers and the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, CNPP, expressed displeasure over the unpaid salaries of workers, even as the governor and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the state, have been engaged in a war of words.

Aregbesola who has not hidden his regret over the overwhelming nature of the salary and pension crisis, was reported to have said the situation was beyond his powers and can only be solved by God. Worried by this development, the state chapter of the PDP joined a High Court Judge, Justice Olamide Oloyede calling on the state Assembly to initiate impeachment procedures against Governor Aregbesola over the financial crisis in the state.

In the brick-bat, the state chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC), asked Justice Oloyede to resign her position as a High Court Judge in the state’s judiciary before, “ganging up with the opposition to attempt to destroy the state government” of which she is an integral part.”

Even though the government was Tuesday, said to have paid workers arrears for November and December 2014, the true state of Osun is that the financial crisis had so deepened that workers are now reportedly begging for food. This is even as some 300 pensioners were said to have lost their lives in the ensuing crisis over the last one year.