OPEN LETTER TO CAPTAIN HOSA OKUNBOR.
23rd June, 2020

My dear cousin, Cappy,

It pains me that you so utterly have no qualm in your conscience to look humbly and soberly at the crooked way in which you travelled, the gutter in which you swarm, the Benin lives and families that you ruined, the dead bodies that you buried, to amass the dirty wealth in your possession today. How can you forget all of such disgusting history? And Captain, you want to carry on as if your yesterday should not have any bearing on your tomorrow.
I am not at all happy to interact with you in any form, even as I’m writing you, but I can’t remain silent to see you create another round of havoc, this time a political atrocity on Edo youths since you destroyed so many for years during your ‘’original’’ enterprise. I thought that you will humbly and quietly face your alleged current legitimate business endeavors since you narrowly escaped decades of imprisonment here in the United States. You were equally lucky to have had two prominent Benin people intercede on your behalf to rescue you from General Bamaiyi’s NDLA Agency. I will not mention their family names but you must very well remember the father of our friend who used his friendship with the Boss of the anti –drug agency to rescue you. Then you were equally helped with funds by the well-known national motor dealer to oil the channels of your freedom.
Uncle Osas recently reminded me during our telephone conversation of how he used to bring you food daily while you were in the detention of NDLA. But you refused to offer the wife of our mutual Uncle Osas any help while she was dying of cancer at UBTH years after. Your excuse then was that Uncle Osas had misused some of your funds while you were in detention. Of course, that was a complete lie because you had no funds worth talking about when Bamaiyi arrested you. In fact, you refused to pay my family the money when I was arrested in Minnesota, though I didn’t give you up. You can keep that money but God will judge as I have put all that escapades behind me. But search your heart if you have one, my brother. Have you ever wondered why I refused to see you in Toronto when sister Pat tried to arrange a meeting? With all your dirty money, you can’t give me back the 10 long years I spent in prison for you. I did not spill the beans, I kept quiet even when a shorter sentence was offered. I kept part of the bargain but did you? Did you give the money as promised to my family? Even Kola the Agbede man said you refused to pay him too. I heard he died of frustration after what you did to his wife.
I‘m told now by friends in Nigeria that you, the cold-hearted criminal that I know intimately –that you are parading yourself as a philanthropist. I wish that the suffering mothers of the young men who were languishing in Benin while their children were wasting away in foreign jails for crimes of which you, Captain, was a major beneficiary -I wish that those mothers saw your so-called spirit of philanthropy at that time.
Some of us here in the States and Europe will not be silent knowing that you have wrecked the lives of so many Benin youths overseas, now you want to destroy more of our future generation. This is not the space to talk about how you involved a good number of Benin youths in your criminal gun-running enterprise and oil bunkering operations. It is certainly not my intention to launch a full expose of your life in this correspondence. Rather, I just want you to cast your mind back to your days at the “base” (your house) off Olowu street before you moved to Emina crescent where all the packages (consignments) were moved out to Minneapolis and Houston, before we moved to your residential location at the house at Toyin Street to spark a sense of humility in you.
‘’Captain Powder’’ as you were called then because you were sunk neck deep in the valley of the drug-trafficking world, I’m sure that you definitely remember these situations as I was dedicatedly standing by you all through these trials. You were lucky to escape the hands of justice, but the “boys’’ who ran errands for you were not so lucky; in fact, you aggravated their pains as you abandoned their families in Benin including mine when you had the means to do otherwise.
Cousin, I just want you to calm down and shut up. When people speak of leading private financiers of elections in Nigeria, your name will pale into pitiable insignificance. So, I plead with you to treat yourself from the virus of arrogance and to moderate your inclination for violence. Edo people are seeking a very peaceful election, get off from your gun-running frame of mind, don’t arm our youths to spill their own blood for your gubernatorial preference. Cappy, you still have some time to quickly act so that you can enter a place of pride among our people.
Thanks,
Frank Agbons Idehen
USA