Weekly Blog: No hiding Place
By Efe Omordia – What if you watched a movie in which a horrible creature was about to break into an apartment filled with the exact number of people in your own place of abode? And at the point of entry, you hear a bang on your own door. The nightmare doesn’t end because as you open your own door, a creature is there poised to pounce.
Sounds highly unlikely doesn’t it? But residents of Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, the hitherto safest city are becoming jittery and are experiencing sleepless nights worrying about what appeared impossible mere months before becoming a reality.
In the past, dangerous stuff happened in other parts, in parts where the masses lived.
Security issues have always plagued the nation but in times past it was usually in shanties where the poor live, where the marginalized were forced to inhabit so nobody gave a hoot. The High and Mighty were safe and snug in their holed up mansions but now things are changing because dissident groups like the Niger Delta Militants and the Boko Harem who claim to be in existence to help the marginalized have learnt that to make their presence felt they have to move closer and closer to the corridors of power.
The Independence Day Bomb blast at the Eagle Square in Abuja which is relatively close to the Presidential Villa was ascribed to a group MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) and now the latest right at the heart of the government, the headquarters of the Nigerian Police Force. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the blast but tongues are wagging, accusing fingers are being pointed to the Islamic Extremist Group, Boko Haram. This group has long terrorized the people of the North but little or nothing was done to curb the excesses or to address the issue of poverty and inequality that the group is strongly against but now that things are getting quite close to home, maybe the government would sit up.
