THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE UNKNOWN GUNMEN

 

It is no longer a news or new thing to Nigerians about some group of people who identify themselves as UNKNOWN GUNMEN but the big question which remains mysterious and unanswered, is who are these people going by the pseudo-name “Unknown gunmen”, and what do they do that made them so fearful that at the hearing of their arrival, brings terror to the people there. The Unknown gunmen as the name suggest, are anonymous, not understood, recognized, identified or discovered but armed with or are experts in the use of a gun especially in an unlawful way to destroy properties and kill people.

It is good to know that there is no consensus on the exact time the Unknown gunmen came to being but what is known is that their activities became very popular after the EndSARs protest which began on Thursday 8th October, 2021, triggered by endless police brutality of the citizens. The activities of these unknown gunmen have made the peaceful geo-political zone (South-east), to suddenly become a theatre of war and undoubtedly to all, the activities of unknown gunmen have inflicted unquantifiable economic hardship on the masses. 

The activities of these unknown gunmen ranges from attacking of police stations as it is recorded already that they have attacked more than 30 police stations in the South East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, military bases, government properties and government officials and as it has reached to its apex, the attacking of common citizens, setting their houses ablaze and killing some of them.

Although it is said that the unknown gunmen are unknown, some claim that they are known. People like David Umahi, the governor of Ebonyi state, who stated that the unknown gunmen are not really unknown, adding that they are young men and women who should protect the interest of the South East as leaders of tomorrow. According to Fr Godswill Agbagwa (FrG), the Unknown gunmen, we know who they are:

They were born two to three decades ago in horrible maternity homes. Some of them lost their mothers because of poor medical care. They just learnt that someone stole the money budgeted for the building of good hospitals. We visited some of them in primary and secondary schools. They were learning under the tree. Some of them used blocks as desks. But some were lucky to learn in uncompleted and dilapidated buildings. I think that they did not learn right because someone stole the money budgeted for good schools. We saw them recently in the university.

They were living in horrible hostels. The ones I met were 12 in a room. They had no good toilets and I ran into girls showering outside. It was that day that the strike began. They could not graduate because someone stole the money budgeted for good quality university education. We know that they are broke. They’ve been jobless for some time now. Many of them are graduates that can’t find jobs after years in the university. They got tired begging for money and being called lazy youths. They just became the devil’s workshop because someone stole the money that should have been used to create jobs for them and keep them busy. We saw them on social media recently.

They’ve been complaining on Twitter and FB about police brutality. Some of them said that they were beaten by SARS just because of their hairstyles. Others said that SARS locked them up for carrying laptops. They seem really angry because they were shot at for protesting police brutality recently. They feel neglected, exploited and taken for granted by their leaders. They are the angry youths rendered jobless, poor and hungry by corrupt politicians. They said that they’ve complained enough and have decided to pull the trigger.

Therefore, going by the opinion of Fr Godswill, we see that what really brought the unknown gunmen into existence is because some people are fed-up with bad government, people in public offices embezzling the peoples fund for personal aggrandizement, no employment opportunity for our graduates, etc. The implication of this is that if the government can provide the aforementioned for the youth, the activities of the unknown gunmen will come to an end and will bring to an end also the unknown gunmen.

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