Tuesday September 9, Nigeria’s top music icon and a United Nations Youth Ambassador for Peace Dbanj released a press release addressing the gruesome murder of the Aluu four. The victims, 19 year old Lloyd Michael, Ugonna Ubuzor, 19 year old Tekena Elkanah and Chidiaka Biringa were students at the University of Port Harcourt. The youngsters were murder after being accused of stealing mobile phones and laptop computer by the people of Aluu community in Rivers State, Nigeria.
The four students were then beaten to death and set on fire. This happened while the rest of the people stood and watch without intervention.
Five days ago, I woke up to yet another unspeakable tragedy.
Four young men, all undergraduates, brimming with great dreams, unfulfilled aspirations and a promising future were killed.
To express the depth of my pain and shock at their murder is impossible. And understanding how events could have degenerated to this level is truthfully beyond me.
Lloyd, Ugo, Tekana and Chidiaka
Four promising young men whose lives were interwoven in one way or the other with yours and mine.
I mourn deeply with the families of these young men because this OUR collective loss. They were our colleagues, our classmates, our neighbors, our brothers…our friends.
We are NOT a nation of barbarians. We CAN follow due processes and procedures. We MUST fight together as ONE NATION to ensure that Justice as whole is served, and as a PROCESS, is duly followed – ALWAYS
We can only try to make meaning of this senseless tragedy by ensuring that this WILL not happen again, by affirming that the pursuit of justice does not in any way entitle any of us to the willful elimination of other people’s lives and by ensuring that we, as youths, do not destroy the honorable mantle placed on us as the futures of our nation, by eliminating our present.
Aluu 4 and Mubi 40, Rest In Perfect Peace.
Good Bless Nigeria
Oladapo Daniel Oyebanjo
D’banj
UN Youth Ambassador for Peace