Every year as the ember months approach, they are looked forward to with so much trepidation. It is usually at this time that criminality increases, ritual killing, kidnapping become the order of the day. In the same way, accidents leading to untimely death increase. Due to all these negative occurrences, most people enter these end months fasting and praying.
The ember months signal the last quarter of the year beginning with September and ending in December. They are referred to as ember months because they all end with ember- September, October, November, December.
Apart from heightened vices, one of the things that signal ember months is skyrocketing prices of goods and services. As people try to stay safe, they have to plan how to survive the ember months.
The recent display of desperation by citizens these ember months is a thing of great concern. Although, this is not new because it is a yearly practice. People double up their struggle to meet their needs ahead of every end of year celebrations.
Here in Plateau State especially in Jos, the state capital, as the day breaks, you see people running helter-skelter looking for money to either travel home or so that they can celebrate Christmas and New Year in style with their loved ones. The desperation has seriously driven most people above board, to the point that some lose the ability to coordinate themselves logically.
Young girls engage in prostitution to get money to spend for Christmas. Just as young boys engage in dubious businesses or deals to get enough money to spend the Christmas and New Year in style.
As brief as these holidays are, it is to them more or less like a whole year because certainly, these are periods where they meet with families, friends, relations, old school mates, neighbours and so many who have been away for months or years working outside the state.
They believe that it is the only opportunity they have to meet again and share those old good days and of course, this has its way of reuniting families and redefining the bond of unity among people especially when it is celebrated peacefully.
The joy of visiting one another during that period, taking families to recreational centres like zoos, resorts, attraction sites, swimming pools or rather, attending weddings, birthday celebrations of loved ones and most importantly, family meetings, is majorly one of the things one cannot afford to miss.
However, this, to some extent, has its good, bad and the ugly to reckon with. This desperation definitely has its negative sides because of how demanding this period is to parents and guardians. People go the extra mile to look for money and or save to buy clothing, change new cars, renovate houses, change phones, shoes, hairstyles etc ahead of the celebrations. If unlucky, they get trapped in the hands of criminals.
This, mostly, is the case in our neighbourhoods these days. Some of our criminal minded youths have taken advantage of these desperate and careless people to break into their homes and get away with their valuables.
It is sad that neighbourhood theft for the time being, has become a common story. No day passes by without reports of house bugling and it is becoming quite alarming. Sadly, both the young and the elderly are neck deep in the webs of this desperation.
There is no denying the fact that the resultant effect of these negative happenings is a depraved society, where everyone seems to be at the mercy of criminals.
In the city of Jos, criminals have resorted to physical harassment and broad day robbery, snatching women’s bags who innocently board what they thought was a commercial car or tricycle. They are now a cartel and can snatch one’s phone at gunpoint and within the shortest time imaginable, it can be tracked to Bauchi or Abuja.
It may interest you to know that at the time of writing this piece, my son fell victim. His phone was snatched from him in broad daylight at around Terminus, Ahmadu Bello Way. He said narrated that, “I just came from Access Bank and was trekking down when a tricycle rider overtook me and blocked my way.
“When I stopped to ask why he blocked my way, three other persons from the back seat came out and pointed a gun at me and ordered me to submit all I have and I complied. What baffled me the most is that I was shouting: thief!!!! But nobody responded. I painfully watched these criminals go away with my phone in the heart of town like Terminus”, he narrated.
Similarly, one Mrs. Hannatu Bilma, narrated her experience with these criminals who ply our streets in the name of looking for passengers. She said, “I boarded a taxi from Terminus to Angul-Di in Jos-South LGA and dropped around Grand Cereal. While I was waiting to cross to the other lane, somebody from the taxi I boarded snatched my bag and the car zoomed off”.
The situation has been quite alarming especially when using tricycles as means of transportation. It has been revealed that when you enter a tricycle and you hear one of the passengers saying, ‘Sugar and garri’, or ‘I am around Sharp Corner” then be wary.
Or when you are with a so-called passenger that receives calls upon calls telling the caller that he or she was close by, ensure your pocket is protected because those calls are tactically made to distract your attention or make you restless so that they can carry out their plans without you noticing.
However, we want to use this medium to appeal to the Plateau State Commissioner of Police and other security agencies in the state to deploy their officers and men at strategic locations in the event of any emergency so that these criminals would not have a field day at the detriment of innocent citizens.
God bless Plateau State! God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!
