Home, sweet home as Chief Mike
Ozekhome, arrived his Lagos residence amidst jubilation from families and friends yesterday
12 September 2013,upon his release at 1am by his abductors after spending 21
days in their den.
Chief Ozekhome , while recounting his
ordeals in the hands of his abductors, said’’ the kidnappers asked them to lie
down inside the car as policemen were passing and there was an exchange of gun
fire before his abductors took them away.’’
He added ‘’ that when the kidnappers
requested for communication with members of his family over the ransom, two of
his children who came to negotiate the ransom were also abducted in the
process!!!’’However, they were all released together early yesterday morning.
His words: “They asked me who I was,
and I replied saying that I am a lawyer. They asked me again for how long I
have been practicing, I told them 32 years. The experience was horrific because
we were psychologically tortured. It was the nearest thing to death on earth. We
were about thirteen in all that were kidnapped. There was even a woman with two
of her sons and a daughter as well as her driver. The danger knows no status,
religion, occupation etc. The Federal Government should do certain things as a
matter of urgency.’’
“The kidnappers vowed to make the
country ungovernable in 2015 because they said they will show their true
colours and that they are ready for the politicians. They told me that
because of what they read about me, I should go and not stop in the fight for
the masses. On two occasions I took ill while in captivity and on those
occasions doctors who wore hoods were brought in to treat me and I was given
injections at some point”
He, therefore, called on the Federal
Government to grant amnesty to all kidnappers in the country, saying that “they
(kidnappers) said if they are assured of their freedom they will drop their
guns.”
He said: “We must begin to have a
police system like we have in the United States. Sections 214 and 215 of the
nation’s constitution are now moribund and antagonistic. We need each state to
control its police force. The Federal Government should call for a national
conference for Nigerians to sit down on a round table and engineer a new
constitution. Nigeria is not united. Nobody says I am a Nigerian but I am Edo,
Yoruba or Ibo person because Nigeria is not a unified country.”
“What describes Nigeria is a
geographical expression, we never agreed to come together as one country. There
is a devolution of power in a true Federalism, but in Nigeria power flows from
the top to below. How many times have we seen President Obama inviting the
governors of the states to a meeting. We must tame corruption before it kills
us as a people. Corruption is the richest state in Nigeria. We must confront it
frontally”.
Deducing from Mike Ozekhome account
of his ordeal, people will agree with me that we are all sitting on the kegs of
gun powder which can explodes at any time. One of the problem we have in Nigeria
is a SECURITY problem. All the people we elected into position are just sitting
down in their Abuja mansions with high fences , one Mallam at the gate and they
are felling cool.
Good, what i will like to ask them is
that what about their people back home in their village?’’ In a country that
has a high percentage of unemployment among the teaming youth, insecurity will
be the order of the day.’’
Ozekhome, as humane as he is, also
urged the Federal Government and the Inspector-General of Police to institute a
foundation that will cater for the education of the children of the policemen
who lost their lives in an effort to rescue him and his driver.
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