–Blank NEWS Online (NIGERIA) –By Austen AKHAGBEME:
THE escalating security situation in South Eastern Nigeria is getting to a fearsome crescendo.
And from the way things are going, the mystery of the “unknown gunmen” need to be quickly unravelled and permanently addressed.
It is obvious that those who wants to cause mayhem that will engulf the nation in a cyclical but geographical distribution are taking it too fast.
There are those who think that the late Ahmed Gulak was a victim of political vendetta by those he ‘denied’ the crisis ridden APC’s Governorship primaries’ ticket in Imo state sometimes back.
And that the former Political adviser should have been mindful of that instead of opting to walk through a “minefield” ignorantly. This angle is the same perspective IPOB is brandishing, too. They have irritantly asked that the embattled Governor Hope Uzodima of Imo state should look inward within his political family than to point accusing fingers at anywhere else.
The late Ahmed Gulak is not a Fulani nor an Hausa man; he’s of a minority tribe in Adamawa state, North Eastern Nigeria. But this is one gruesome murder too painful and capable of eliciting inter-ethnic aggression and hate if not handled with care and tact. Those who are accusing IPOB are too sure as they seems to match their modus operandi with the gestapo move that saw to the demise of Ahmed Gulak in the early hours of Sunday.
It has become so, such that IPOB has become the prime suspect in anything untoward within the South East in recent times; this owed partly to their avowed knack for notoriety and their naturally susceptible demeanor to violence.
President Buhari, through his Spokesman expressed displeasure over the incident while some youth group in the North has given an ultimatum to Governor Uzodima to fish out Gulak’s killers or expect a reprisal attack. This is the reason why tempers must not rise beyond reason and tact in handling this potentially combustible issue.
It was the late Dele Giwa who said that one life taken in a cold blood is as gruesome as many lost in a pogrom. Ahmed Gulak’s life was taken in a cold blood; let the authorities do everything to unravel this painful puzzle and serve the late politician some justice.
- Austen AKHAGBEME is a Columnist with Blank NEWS Online
