That Ogene singer, Okezie Chikezie Nwamba (popularly known as Igbo Jah) was killed by ail of police bullets in Enugu is no longer news. What is news is that he was killed on the premises of a police formation where, according to the latest information, he was invited to entertain the leadership.
When news of the ugly incident broke, the initial police bulletin from the Police Public Relations Officer of the Enugu State Police Command, Daniel Ndukwe read that Igbo Jah was at the state anti-cult police formation “for a friendly chat”, a phrase which effectively hid the mission of the slain folk singer to the notorious place where policemen arrest and detain people, mostly on trumped-up charges.
The world is just learning that Igbo Jah was not at the anti-cult police for any friendly chat. Contrary to what the police said, he was on the invitation to entertain the top echelon of the formation. News reports mentioned the commander of the Enugu State Anti-Cult as the chief host of the slain Ogene singer, and videos of him and his crew performing at the venue minutes before he was fatally shot by an officer identified as an Inspector of police have also surfaced.
Before now, Nigerians did not know that police stations and formations have become entertainment arenas where musicians and those who provide entertainment are routinely invited to delight our very busy officers.
Located along the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway, in Golf Estate, Enugu, the anticult formation looks like a fortress to passersby. The road passing in front of the notorious premises is barricaded, guarded round the clock by stern-looking, well-armed officers usually in mufti. A few steps down the road, further into the estate are women selling all sorts of drinks from beer to bitters of all shades and it is here that many of the officers and men of the formation “relax and unwind” in the course of their work to rid the state of cultism.
What many did not know was that behind the heavily guarded fortress of his police special squad, the officers find the time to invite musicians for live shows, and who knows what other sort of entertainment they provide for themselves behind those impregnable walls.
What sort of police invites musicians for live shows in the workplace? Only in Nigeria would you find this happening routinely with no consequences.
The police station should ordinarily be a quiet public place with the men and women of the force busy attending to their jobs. Such places demand absolute adherence to silence to ensure that signals of criminal activity are detected promptly from anywhere around the state. Musical devices are forbidden items, how much less, live performances.
It is taken for granted that the presence of these devices and the hosting of such shows create distractions for individuals and in most cases, are inappropriate in a working environment. In terms of cost, it is not clear whether the police have the sort of entertainment budget that provides for the invitation of musicians to the workplace.
So, where did the commander of the Enugu anticult get the money and the approval to invite a musician to the premises for entertainment?
I know that every effort would be made to hang the entire blame on the trigger-happy officer who fired the fatal shots at Igbo Jah, but it is important to look beyond that and situate the blame on the senior officers who turned the workplace into a playground., and a musical playground for that matter.
Ogene music is a special kind of music and it effuses its spirits. Those who understand it are moved by its compelling rhythm into strange acts. Men have been known to empty their pockets when moved beyond commonsense by ogene music. This almost always means that wherever it is played, alcohol must be in the mix. So, when reports began to creep in that the officer who fired the shot may have been drunk, nobody was surprised; people who ordinarily are high even while on duty should be stone-drunk, inspired by the sounds of ogene and the folk songs that expertise singers like Igbo Jah are capable of producing.
It was the Nigerian police who prosecuted and sent Bobrisky to jail for six months earlier this year, but I saw officers, including one with a rifle hanging on his shoulder, dropping crisp currency notes on the floor right inside the premises of the police formation. One of them at a point took over from Igbo Jah, singing the folk songs while others danced.
Who will arrest these officers and prosecute them for their crime against our falling Naira? That they did these things right inside the premises of a police formation should recommend all of them for dismissal.
I know that the Nigerian police are quite well-remunerated. But even then, it needs to be explained where they got the money they were throwing at the musician.
I have crossed paths with officers who work in the Enugu Anticult, and it was not funny. Those guys operate on a code different from other policemen in the country.
On 25 August 2023, I had travelled to the east for the burial and funeral ceremonies of my younger brother’s father-in-law when a person that I eventually identified as Sunday Idoko accosted me, orally identifying himself as a staff of the Enugu Anticult.
Idoko, without establishing who he was, wanted me to follow him to Enugu on the pretext that a petition was written against me that demanded my presence. Idoko refused to preset his identity card. Neither did he let me know who had written the petition against me. And when I refused, he, along with six others who arrived with him tried to forcefully abduct me to Enugu.
Only God knows what these guys had taken to embark on that assignment. Only God knows what they could have done to me on or before getting to Enugu. I was to see this officer months later at a burial ceremony in my community, and he was looking as dirty as he was on the day I first saw him.
The Enugu State Anticult operates on a different code. Much like the SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) of those days, this special formation has operated outside the rules of decent engagement. People routinely clamp others in detention here for perceived offenses ranging from debt to land matters. Once you have the clout to go to Anticult and make a report, officers are dispatched to inflict maximum punishment on behalf of the complainant.
Is it any wonder the offices have a lot of time on their hands that they invite musicians to perform right inside their offices? The Anticult posting is seen as a “good posting” in Enugu police circles. And when you hear some of them bragging that “there is money in police,” activities like these inspire such statements.
While Nigeria is still far from making the bend to redemption, I guess the Police have much to do with how we are. How do you explain the killing of a man invited by the police to entertain its officers? How do you explain the fact that it was a policeman who fired the shots that took the man’s life?
In all the years Nigeria has had countless incidents of extrajudicial killings, the murder of Igbo Jah is the most bizarre. He was entertaining the officer who took his life, and to make the bizarre even quite ridiculous, the police tried to dilute the reason why he was present at the place where he met his sudden, painful, and untimely death – “he came…for a friendly discussion…”
It is such a crying shame!
