Yesterday, the 11th of November, 2021, one of the ladies of a popular breakfast show on TVC, Tope Mark-Odigie, documented a short video narrating her robbery experience on her way home.
She narrated:
“I just finished an event at Eko hotel this evening and I was driving back home. On the bridge- the Ketu bridge from 3rd mainland, the bridge that takes you towards 7up- I got robbed. They damaged my car.
“Some two guys were hitting on the car that I should wind down. And as they were hitting, they broke the side mirror; it caused a little bit of injury on my hand. I was just very shaken. I said I should just first drive to TVC, let me come and calm down in TVC and then I’ll go back home but ur..m, I reported this thing on Wednesday. I reported that somebody got robbed in that same place on Wednesday. I said it on the show, I said we need to have more security presence there. There were police people there but they were by the van. The robbery took place after the van and they were young boys, came to the side of the car
I know that it was God. I was able to just swerve left and right. I’m going to head back home, try and dust off all the glass from my body but we can’t afford to do this. Everywhere there is traffic, there is a risk to our lives. “Government needs to do much more than this. I’m grateful to God but it feels very weird. I’m just wondering ‘hey, what is it? Is it you alone, Tope? Last year, they burnt your car. This year, you’re getting robbed. But I’m grateful to God… I just wanted to document this.”
She posted this video on her Instagram page and was flooded with the usual religious comments in the comment section: “Just thank God you are alive”; “you have God’s grace over you”; and the likes.
While it is important and necessary to always be deeply thankful to God or a divine source for delivering us or another from a terrible experience, we must also remember that there are people (religious and morally upright) who have lost their lives in similar situations. This implies that we must use the opportunity of a survivor’s experience to point out the slackened security in view and demand maximum security even though we thank God for the live(s) of the survivor(s).
Instead of breeding any negetive mentality, it is better to speak up as a form of responsibility on our part.
The same way we announce “when your neighbour succeeds, do not be envious; instead, celebrate with them because it means favour is in your neighborhood”, that same way, we must understand that when a neighbour falls victim or experiences any form of insecurity in a hood, we must be alert and demand strongly, security measures because it means insecurity is in that hood, too. There might be some apathetic talks like “would the government give a listening ear?” Instead of breeding such mentality, it is better to speak up as a form of responsibility on our part.
When there is no survivor, we do not have the chance to tell the dead to be grateful they are alive, therefore, when we do have one, it should be an opportunity to voice the need for security, not just the need for the survivor to be grateful, knowing that surviving insecurity is not always a certainty for the people at large.
Being grateful, yet calling a spade a spade is necessary and could go a long way in subjecting appropriate authorities to do the work they have been endorsed to do, thereby securing the lives of the people.
♦ Favour Chiagozie Ebubechukwu is an Editorial Staff Writer and columnist with the WAP
- Anambra 2025 Governorship Election Might Be an Open Contest - April 24, 2024
- Anambra Assembly Passes Bill To Prohibit Secret Cults - April 24, 2024
- 2024 Aguata NBA Law Week: AG, Prof. Ifemeje Touts Landmarks and Expectations - April 19, 2024
