Franca Oneya’s gruesome murder

As a father, I was deeply saddened by the gruesome murder of Ms Franca Oneya, daughter of Brigadier-General Dominic Oneya, former Military Administrator of Kano and Benue states penultimate Friday in Warri, Delta state. According to media reports, she met her untimely death on Ovie Palace Road, Effurun, when she came under heavy gun fire from armed robbers who trailed her from a bank in the town where she had gone to make some withdrawals.
At first, the detail of her contact at the bank was sketchy until a few days later when the full story was told. The late Franca was actually at the bank to cash a cheque for N200,000 for her father. And I asked myself: “How could anyone withdraw that huge sum of money across the counter in a country operating a cashless policy?” Perhaps, it was not the money that attracted the criminals. These days, our ladies go about hanging down their shoulders, handbags that could pass for travelling bags. So, unless an insider in the bank gives you away or you are sighted by a robber lurking in the banking hall, you could walk freely out of the bank premises into your car or a cab unsuspected.
But on the fateful morning, the victim decided to use one shot to kill two birds. Franca was into marketing of clothing and she had patrons among bankers. She had lumbered out of the bank after cashing her father’s cheque with a fully loaded Ghana-Must-Go bag containing her wares. Her assailants on the prowl must have sighted a pretty looking young and stupendously rich woman heaving into her Honda SUV the hefty bag believing it contained wads of Naira. She drove off and they took off after her in a keke NAPEP. On closing in, the robbers, numbering five, opened fire on her vehicle. She panicked and attempted to escape the attack. But unfortunately for her, the SUV ran into a ditch. The robbers carried out the killing in the most barbaric manner and fled with their loot. They must have been terribly disappointed that they wasted the mother of four young kids for less than a quarter of a million and a few “worthless” clothes they had mistaken for millions of cash in the Ghana-Must-Go.
Armed robbers are worse than the bombers the Nazi warlord, Adolf Hitler, sent on a mission to flatten Paris during the Second World War. According to a war account, when the bombers sighted the city from mid-air, they were captivated by its grandeur and magnificence. Rather than drop a bomb, they swung their jets out of the French airspace, flew back to base and damned the consequences of their disobedience. But the Warri robbers were not seduced by the beauty and elegance of Franca as to let her be or at worst rob her at gunpoint and spare her life.
There is a lesson to be learnt from the tragedy that befell Franca. In our state of “cashlessness”, it is ill-advised to make withdrawals of up to N100,000 allowed via the ATM at a go. This is because many people who hang around bank premises have no business being there but to watch out for victims to rob or kill and rob. When the idea of cashless policy was first muted about a year or so ago, many people were not so enthusiastic about it ostensibly for lack of education and enlightenment to appreciate the benefits that come with it which include discouraging armed robbery and petty heist.
Before the nation went cashless, there were instances of businessmen and women falling victims of armed robbery attacks during which millions of Naira were lost… and precious lives too in some cases. A friend of my brother-in-law was robbed of N45m he cashed from a bank in Abuja sometime last year. They did not only rob him. They pummeled his massive frame black and blue, and he has permanent scars all over his body to show for the punishment after spending weeks in the hospital where he fought a survival battle.
My wife’s cousin had a nasty experience two or so years ago also in Abuja. The young man works with a multinational eatery firm as a senior accountant and had gone to one of those new generation banks to cash some money. Unknown to him, some robbers had trailed him from the bank to his flat and placed the environment under surveillance. Later in the night, they stormed the flat and demanded for the cash which even his spouse had no knowledge of. The man of the house denied having any cash in the house and his ignorant wife corroborated the claim. They shouted her down, wielding their pistols and berated the man for hiding money away from his wife. The man pleaded and insisted he was not in the habit of keeping good money in the house. The robbers had a good laugh and began to reel out statistics: the amount he withdrew and the denominations of the cash. The accountant’s lower jaw dropped and that told the whole story. It was obvious that someone in the bank was working in tandem with the robbers but he could not prove a thing. He led them to the bedroom where they cleaned him up of over N750,000 and other valuables.
The tragic fate that befell Franca Oneya, however, is a direct consequence of the worrisome state of our economy and lopsided distribution of the national cake. This in turn churns out urban guerillas masquerading as jobless folks, among them graduates of many, many years. A time shall come that there would be a massive “jail break” by these twitchy guerillas. And as I have always said in this space, when the sky is falling, there is no hiding place for anyone.