The people are furious; Aluu community where prolific writer, Elechi Amadi lives is fretting with fear; the boys at the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) are marching on the streets against those who raped "their" girls. The city of Port Harcourt is worried because the gains of the amnesty may be fast slipping away.
When news filtered into the city via the peoples' radio station, it was arguments and counter arguments on whether those who invaded the hostels of UNIPORT were militants or criminals. At the end, it seems to dawn on the people of the state that there are those who combined these two attributes - criminals and militants to emerge as 'crimitants'.
According to an army major, Ahmed Shehu, who is handling the disarmament aspect of the amnesty in Port Harcourt and who runs the ex-militants' camp at Aluu, while Bestman Worka is the civilian coordinator, those with guns have oscillated from one category to another. "What we see is that many of them began as common criminals and with guns began to rob, invade banks, and later did hostage-taking. By the Geneva convention which we are using as a model here, anyone with arms is qualified for amnesty".
Before militancy became a fad, youths in the Niger Delta especially in Rivers State were involved in cult groups - killing and maiming for collective interests. This group was more in Diobu. Others belonged to drug groups, especially at Njamanze, Abonnema Wharf and Borokiri. There were full time robbers and they were many at Ogbunabali and Elekahia, targeting the Trans-Amadi industrial zone and the banks, running into the holes at Nta-Nwogba Creek when trouble came. (When the hide-out was attacked last year, over 11 boys were killed in the water).
Those stealing oil also created gangs that provided muscle when it was needed.
When politics and election rigging became a new trade, the same boys migrated to the new lucrative vocation, hitting opponents and hijacking ballot boxes. Soon, the big boys such as Ateke Tom, George Soboma, Asari Dokubo, emerged and most of these criminals joined the militants and simply became crimitants.
In this new class, they attacked for the lords to press the point of resource control. In their spare time, however, they robbed and kidnapped to make fiscal point; cash to keep their reckless lifestyles and excessive alcohol and women going. When in trouble, they called the warlords and groups such as MEND would call them freedom fighters.
Now that militancy has been rested, the criminals seem to be trying to separate themselves from freedom fighters to common criminals. It seems difficult to continue to operate as crimitants. The state government and the JTF are saying that now is time for the over 15,000 ex-militants to decide to go with the amnesty as militants or to return to common crime as criminals. There may however be no more hiding places for those combining the two as crimitants. This seems to be the message from the violence and rape that occurred in the UNIPORT.
On that day, the crimitants scaled the walls and invaded the female hostels, openly violating female students. Some of the girls are still in shock. A radio station has appealed to psychologists to come in and immediately begin counselling because the trauma seems too much, but the gates of the university is locked to any form of "outsider".
