Alhaja, Hassan, Angola, and Major have just watched the Bar beach show where their leader was killed , It leaves the other three, including the leader’s wife, in a quandary. While Angola and Hassan are bent on avenging the leader’s death, Major, the pragmatic one, asks his mates for caution because indeed, they are all living dead anyway, having lost so much in their dark crusade against the state. While trying to rally their spirit, they chance upon an aafa, an arbiter of dark desire. He offers the four robbers a charm of a song that turns potential victims into singing and dancing, but they must only use it thrice and be done and by which time they would amassed so much wealth as to warrant their turning a new leaf from the life robbery. After the second robbery in a market that saw soldiers sent to protect the market falling to the lulling charm of their song, Major sets upon the other three, and takes the loot away to seek another life. But he is eventually caught just before taking away his loot. At his execution, the other three steps forward and owned up. To this end the story teller stop to ask the audience the question “ Is it the armed robbers that should be killed for inflicting mayhem on society or the soldiers who uphold the unjust laws of the state created by the corrupt ‘big’ men who run the affairs of state to ruin?

As would be expected, opinion was divided among audience members. Some wanted the soldiers to die and the robbers to go free! At the end, the robbers got the just deserts for taking arms against society. Ironically, the robbers, as always, are a creation of society, a society that fails to take care of its own, a society that has become callous to the weak, that fails to provide for all its members, that creates a divisions, one for the rich one for the poor. It’s a society that breeds malcontent, a society that spits insolence on the faces of many. For those who cannot take it, like Angola , Major , Hassan, and Alhaja they take to robbing the rich, as the self-enforcers of the social justice abysmally society fails to provide its citizens.

Similarly to the story of chukwudi Dumeme AKA Evans the notorious kidnapper who is a professional in his job to the point of getting so much media attention at the point of arrest, he was too good that he was tagged the billionaire kidnapper with many assets at home and abroad , it was also uhuru for the Nigerian police because in recent history its shows the height of professionalism owing to many years of trial and error.

Like my story , one get to understand that just like many that have been killed (Jungle Justice) in many poor communities for stealing “Garri” while the once that robbed the state are celebrated on pages of newspapers and television. It seems there are two types of kidnappers those who try to take from the rich by taking a member of the family hostage demanding for money and the one who collectively stole the peoples mandate and loot their present and future. What happened to those who loot the paris club funds? Where are those who kidnapped the peoples mandate at elections by inciting violence to rig the election? What happen to the kidnappers who side fund the ecological funds meant for a state? What happen to the case of the kidnappers who falsify the assets as required by every public office holder? What happens to the kidnapped budget? The question cannot be easy to answer, while the victorious Nigerian police and our gorgeously dressed black and white lawyers understand those culprits they can’t do otherwise because, they are all in business to make profit.

Evans the kidnapper has many houses in Ghana so is the other political kidnapper, Evans the kidnapper is tired of the economic class he found himself so he ventured into the act, the political kidnapper ventured into politics to improve his economic status not service, Evans children schooled abroad like the children of the politician kidnapper . The account of these desperate days of the trial of Evans the kidnapper once again reminds us of the state we found ourselves, Evans may be given a state pardoned because he has kidnapped so well that earn him a status in our society. Even if he is sentenced to prison or death by hanging it still does not change the fact that he is just one among many who are occupying The Red champers, The Green chambers and other Governments houses in our dear country who like a beautiful lady, had many suitors who only want to kidnapped her of her resources without genuine love.

DAKWOM MAKPRING LONGGUL

SOCIAL CRITIC /PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR

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Once upon two kidnappers:The Nigerian political satire -By Dakwom Longgul