By Henry Umahi

Emotions ran high on October 28 as the remains of 20-year-old Miss Chioma Chikaodili Mbionwu were committed to mother earth in her hometown, Awgbu, in Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State. She was shot dead by unidentified gunmen a short distance from the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) campus gate at Nnewi on October 3. She was a medical student.

A few days earlier, on September 28 to be precise, Dr Chike Akunyili, the widower of ex-Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug administration (NAFDAC), late Prof. Dora Akunyili, was gruesomely murdered. Chike and his driver met their bitter end at Afor Nkpor, near Onitsha, Anambra State while returning from the memorial lecture of his late wife, Dora.

For Ichie Felix Obodoechi, Enyioha of Orsuihiteukwa, in Orsu Local Government Area of Imo State, death came slowly and painfully. He was dehumanized and humiliated in a very callous manner.

Obodoechi’s penis was cut off and displayed in a flat plate while he was tied to a stake. Flies feasted on whatever was left of his organ as his messed up body was filmed and posted on the internet. And the man died. 

But if the killers of Chioma, Chike and Obodoechi were unknown, those who killed 25-year-old daughter of a traditional ruler, Elizabeth Agwu, on September 7, 2021, in Enuagu village, in Onicha-Igboeze community, Onicha Local Government Area of Ebonyi State were identified as policemen. It was alleged that stray bullets hit the mother of two in the abdomen when policemen went to the area to harass the residents, as they usually did.

Although the police public relations officer in the state, Mrs Loveth Odah, promised that the incident would be investigated and the culprits brought to book, she was merely blowing hot air. Elizabeth was buried on November 2 while her killers are walking free.   

Blood across the Niger

Indeed, in the last couple of months, the South East has been buffeted by violence motivated by political, economic and social grievances. Soldiers, policemen and operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS) have been killing civilians indiscriminately. Similarly, non-state actors, popularly referred to as unknown gunmen and herdsmen have been wasting lives and destroying property with reckless abandon across the five South East states.    

Although the death tolls are imprecise and accounts of incidents vary, various sources have been releasing various figures of the victims.

The global watchdog, Amnesty International (AI), in August, disclosed that at least 115 persons were extra-judiciary killed between March and June 2021 by security forces in the South East with no apparent justification while 21 police officers were assassinated within the same period.

A statement by the Nigerian office of Amnesty International said the killings were perpetrated in four months, adding that more than 500 persons were arrested and experienced torture during police and military raids.

The Amnesty International’s statement signed by its Nigeria’s Country Director, Osai Ojigho, said: “Nigerian security forces have committed a catalogue of human rights violations and crimes under international law in their response to spiraling violence in South East Nigeria, carrying out a repressive campaign since January, which has included sweeping mass arrests, excessive and unlawful force, and torture and other ill-treatment.

“The evidence gathered by Amnesty International paints a damning picture of ruthless excessive force by Nigerian security forces in Imo, Anambra and Abia states.

“Nigeria’s government has responded with a heavy hand to killings and violence widely attributed to the armed group calling itself Eastern Security Network (ESN), the armed wing of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a pro-Biafra movement.

“According to government officials, the ESN killed dozens of security operatives and attacked at least 10 public buildings, including prisons and police stations, from January to June. In response, security forces comprising military, police, and Department of State Services (DSS) have killed dozens of gunmen, as well as civilians, where attacks have been committed.

“Eyewitnesses told Amnesty International that the security forces have engaged in excessive use of force, physical abuse, secret detentions, extortion, burning of houses, theft and extrajudicial executions of suspects.

“Human rights groups estimated that the death toll of violence between January and June 2021 in Anambra, Imo, Abia, and Ebonyi states might run into the hundreds. The police said ESN fighters killed 21 of its personnel in Imo State alone.

“Amnesty International carried out an extensive investigation to document the human rights violations and crimes under international law in Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi and Abia States from January 2021. The organisation documented 52 incidents of unlawful killings and 62 cases of arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment and torture.

“Media reports, video and audio recordings reviewed show that the Nigerian security forces also employed excessive force and other unlawful means to address the rising violence.

“From January 2021, gunmen suspected to be ESN militants launched a series of attacks on government infrastructure, including prisons and public buildings, killing several police officers. Amnesty International condemned these attacks and called on authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.

“Nigerian security forces launched security operations in June, primarily targeting ESN militants or those perceived as such to decimate the group. Amnesty International documented at least 115 persons killed by security forces between March and June 2021.

“Many relatives of the victims told Amnesty International that they were not part of the militants that were attacking security agents. Many of the victims were deposited at government hospitals in Imo and Abia states. According to several hospital sources, all the victims deposited by the police had bullet injuries.

“For instance, in two of the cases documented by Amnesty International, the victims were targeted with no apparent justification: Uguchi Unachukwu, a Germany-based businessman was killed by soldiers on 31 May at a checkpoint near Owerri airport on his way out of the country. The police are yet to investigate the crime.

“Mathew Opara, a 45-year-old businessman, was shot by soldiers on May 25, 2021 in Orji, near Owerri, the capital of Imo State. Witnesses told Amnesty International that he was returning from work when he ran into a team of soldiers in an armoured vehicle and Hilux vans shooting at residents. He was shot in the chest and could not receive immediate medical help because of the violence. His family said the military acknowledged the killing but did not launch an investigation or offer any apology.”

However, the International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law, otherwise known as Intersociety, in August 2021, said the Nigerian security forces, especially personnel of the Nigeria Police Force and soldiers posted or deployed to Eastern Nigerian states of Abia, Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi, Rivers, Enugu, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Delta have killed or supervised the mass killing of not less than 470 untried and uninvestigated citizens of Eastern Nigeria.

According to Intersociety, “the killings had taken place in the past 220 days or 1st January to 10th August 2021, a period of seven months and 10 days. Most of the victims are Igbo Judeo-Christian citizens. The patterns and trends of the killings are also unknown to municipal and international human rights and humanitarian laws, including the international rules of engagement guiding peacetime or conflict situation policing operations. The killings had increased to 350 as at June 2021 and recorded further increase of more 50 deaths following intensification of same, especially in Imo, Abia and Ebonyi states. Fresh 80 captivity deaths were shockingly discovered few days ago and was said to have occurred secretly at the Nigeria Police Force former FSARS Headquarters (Abattoir), Abuja. The slain citizens, who were uninvestigated and untried, were controversially accused of being members of IPOB/ESN leading to their secret executions around June and early July 2021. Fifty-seven of the 80 captivity deaths were reported to have been perpetrated in a single night by the IRT squad.

“The 470 fatalities or victims of the security forces massacre in eastern Nigeria since January 2021 did not include 110 deaths arising from the Obigbo massacre of October/November 2020 and if included, it would be correct to say that not less than 580 civilians were killed by security forces, especially by soldiers of the Nigerian Army in Eastern Nigeria between 21st October 2020 and 10th August 2021, a period of nine months and 20 days. Among the latest causalities of the Obigbo Army massacre are five of the 110 residents of the area secretly abducted by soldiers and held in perpetual captivity at the Army’s Alpha Military Commando Base in Suleja, Niger State. They are: Citizens Thomas Ekwueme, Pius Onochie, Obinna Akapuru, Monday Ifeanyi and Tobechukwu Udoka. Citizen Tobechukwu Udoka died in the morning of 30th July 2021 at the Mogadishu (Abacha) Army Barracks in Abuja where he was rushed to after vomiting blood. The breakdown of the total of 580 deaths in Eastern Nigeria since Oct/Nov 2020 showed that Imo took the lead with at least 160 deaths, Rivers at least 150 deaths, including 110 dead victims of the Obigbo Army massacre, Abia at least 90 deaths and at least 80 Abattoir captivity deaths; totaling 480 deaths. The remainder, numbering over 100 deaths is spread across Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Cross River and Enugu states. It must also be remembered that over 90% of the killings by the security forces are defenseless and unarmed citizens, randomly accused, falsely labeled and stigmatized on account of their Igbo tribe and Judeo-Christian faith or religion. Over 60% of the ESN operatives killed which constitutes less than 10% of the total killings, are also found to have been killed outside the law, having been arrested unarmed and killed instantly or killed while in detention or captivity.”

Intersociety alleged that part of the problem was that the security architecture of the country was formed to favour a certain religion. According to the group, “bandits are roundly protected by the state to commit or perpetrate mass atrocities on religious grounds.

“It saddens our heart, therefore that instead of the Nigerian government rethinking and reversing its path of religious infamy and religion and perdition, it still resorted to diminishing the genocidal and covering same up and blackmailing the respected world leaders as ‘international IPOB lobbyists.”   

Intersociety added that a former commissioner of police in Imo State was “closely monitored by powerful rights groups for months and found to be ‘ESN/IPOB Phobia CP’ as over 90% of information accompanying his indiscriminate arrest and parading of dozens of unarmed and defenseless Igbo citizens, including Christian and traditional religious leaders and their centers and symbols of worship contained lies of unpardonable, shocking and provoking proportions. The CP is so hateful of the Igbo tribe and her citizens that every arrest made in Imo must be linked to IPOB/ESN. Even in simple offenses of affray or traffic or intra or inter personal quarrelling, land grabbing or criminal trespass, they are magnified and over-bloated to suit being labeled ‘IPOB/ESN terrorism’ case. The CP is also widely seen as the most lying CP in present Eastern Nigeria and has earned himself the infamous title of ‘False Accuser-in-Chief.’ His reckless and indiscriminate false labeling and stigmatization of defenseless citizens, without proper investigations, have also gravely led to killing of uninvestigated and untried citizens in Imo State.” 

Investigations also revealed that scores of people have disappearance without a trace. In most cases, they rarely return alive to their families. Some are tortured to death or shot and killed in custody while their bodies are ingeniously concealed to erase traces.

Many of the slain civilians are also falsely labeled and criminally stigmatized.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Robert Clarke, said what is happening in the South East is degenerating to a civil war, not banditry.

According to him, “many things are happening and I swear by my father’s grave, if care is not taken Nigeria will collapse in six months time.”

While extra-judicial killings appear to be the official method employed by the state to tackle separatists groups, some groups are also responding with violence.

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Since February 2021, hoodlums have been attacking Federal Government facilities, including a correctional centre, police stations, INEC offices, courts and security vehicles.

Sometimes, after killing security operatives, their arms and ammunition are carted away for further attacks on other facilities. For instance, while responding to the attack on police division at Unwana in Afikpo North LGA of Ebonyi State, the police said that the two AK-rifles recovered from the unknown gunmen were earlier stolen from another police station.

Deaths everywhere, everyday

Politicians, traditional rulers, clerics and ordinary people are being killed almost every day.  Some of the victims were gruesomely beheaded.    

Also, kidnappers are having a field day. They snatch fully loaded buses and collect ransom from families of the victims. Woe betide you if you are captured by the marauders and your family delays in paying ransom. Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, Umuahia – Bende Road, Enugu – Onitsha – Owerri Expressway, Enugu- Nsukka Road and Okigwe – Afikpo Highway are some of the dangerous routes in the South East. 

Indeed, the security architecture of the South East could be said to have collapsed completely. However, some people believe that the security distractions are manufactured. While many are accusing members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) / Eastern Security Network (ESN) of perpetrating the killings and destruction, they however denied it.  It is the thinking in some quarters that fifth columnists are in action. Some armed men from outside the zone have been nabbed at various locations.

The senate minority leader, Mr Enyinnaya Abaribe, said: “There are more than 30 different separatist organizations, apart from IPOB. The single most dangerous part is the influx of non-Nigerians with military-grade weapons sweeping across our country, going into the countryside and committing mayhem, but no effort is made to profile them, no effort is made to ensure that there is a counter surge against them. All that has been happening is the attempt to reach agreement. How do you reach agreement with a terrorist who is coming from outside the country trying to take over?”   

Before the advent of the unknown gunmen, the South East was cool. It was regarded as the safest zone in the country. But all that belong to the dustbin of history as it is now turning to another North East.

Suspected AK-47 wielding Fulani herders are pursuing their deadly enterprise without let. They have been attacking communities, killing, maiming and raping women in the South East, almost at will. 

One of the victims, Mr. Ihemelandu Ogbonna, popularly known as Kankom, a native of Ahaba Ehuma, in Isuikwuato Local Government Area of Abia State, is wallowing in pain following an attack on his farm by herdsmen from the pit of hell.   Although he was lucky to survive the encounter, he was left disabled for life.

When Daily Sun traced Kankom to his abode in Isuikwuato, he narrated how he managed to escape with a dangling arm. His offence was that he had the temerity to challenge herdsmen grazing their cattle on his farm.   

But Mr Joseph Oko, a graduate farmer, and his wife, were not lucky. They were gruesomely murdered in their farm at Amata Ozizza community in Afikpo North Local Government Area of Ebonyi State. This particular case and many others, prompted the people of Afikpo to ban the sale and consumption of cow meat in the area. 

Turning point

Following the inability of the South East governors to float a security outfit like their South West counterparts, who formed Amotekun, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) formed the Eastern Security Network (ESN) in December last year. IPOB, in a statement by its media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful, said: “We, the global family of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, under the command and leadership of our great leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, wish to announce with delight, that IPOB has floated a special security network to guard and protect the whole of Biafraland from rampaging killer herdsmen terrorists activities and other criminal groups in our land.

“The sole aim and objective of this newly formed security outfit known as Eastern Security Network, ESN, is to halt every criminal activity and terrorist attack in Biafraland.

“This outfit, which is a vigilance group like the Amotekun in the South West and the Miyetti Allah security outfit in the North will ensure the safety of our homes, forests and farmlands which terrorist have converted into slaughter grounds and raping fields.

“Since the South East and South South governors have failed to float a regional security outfit unlike their counterparts in the South West despite the worsening insecurity in the country, we have decided not to wait endlessly while our mothers and sisters are continually raped and slaughtered like fowls by terrorists in our land.”

The statement added that the ESN would release special numbers for people to call whenever there is any case of criminality, including kidnapping and robbery activities in the whole of Biafraland.    

Hitherto, the South East governors were playing Russian roulette with the lives of their citizens. They had been clay footed, undecided and lacking the will to show leadership when it mattered most.    

For over two years, the South East governors moved back and forth on the issue of joint security for the zone. 

The matter lingered without any action while killings, kidnapping and raping of women, especially in their farms, persisted in the region until February 20, 2020, when Imeobi Ohanaeze in its resolution at Nike Lake, Enugu, decided that enough was enough, demanding that the region must secure its people with a security outfit. At a meeting with the governors later on that Sunday at the Lion Building, Enugu Government House, they promised to set up a joint security outfit. While the people welcomed the cheering news with great expectations, they were shocked when the governors made a U-turn instead of unveiling the outfit. In collaboration with the then Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, they organised a security summit where they announced that they had embraced the IGP’s community policing model in place of the much anticipated security outfit for the zone.

The governors, however, got more than they bargained as the people roundly condemned the move and expressed their disappointment. Archbishop of Enugu Ecclesiastical Province and Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Emmanuel Chukwuma, led the traditional rulers to stage a walkout from the community policing event in Enugu.

However, security breaches in the region, particularly the burning of INEC offices and several police formations in all the states in the zone, the massacre in Ishielu LGA of Ebonyi State, killing of Nigerian Correctional Services personnel in Anambra State as well as the simultaneous attacks at the correctional centre and the state command’s headquarters of the police in Owerri, Imo State, may have greatly jolted the South East governors into action. So, they hurriedly convened a security summit in Owerri, where they announced the formation of the region’s security outfit codenamed Ebubeagu. Presenting their communiqué, the chairman of the South East Governors Forum and Governor of Ebonyi State, Engr Dave Umahi, disclosed that Ebubeagu would work with security agencies and other security outfits in the states to fight crime in the region. While many people hailed that decision and saw the new security outfit as very necessary and a timely response to the worsening security situation in the South East, there were others, who were, however, skeptical. They insisted that the setting up of the security outfit was belated, and for that reason, would not serve any useful purpose. They also envisioned a possible conflict arising from the establishment of the security outfit with the IPOB’s ESN, which they believe was already filling the gap.

From the foregoing, it was clear that crisis was brewing in the region.

The crises seem to have worsened with the re-arrest and repatriation of the leader of IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in June 2021 to face treasonable felony charges at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

Kanu had fled Nigeria in September 2017 after the military invaded his home in Afara-Ukwu, near Umuahia, Abia State. Some of his supporters were reportedly killed during the invasion. On September 20, 2017, the Federal Government obtained a court order to designate IPOB a terrorist group and to proscribe it.

With the re-arrest of Kanu, IPOB began to protest by issuing sit-at-home orders, especially on Kanu’s days in court. The sit-at-home order has adversely affected businesses and academic calendar in the South East. Some persons have died for not sitting at home.

“Government tells us not to obey the sit-at-home order but on sit-at-home days, even security agents sit at home; you won’t see anybody on the road.  In fact, the so-called unknown gunmen should be properly addressed as unknown government because people obey them even more than the known government,” said Kris, a taxi driver.

But Umahi argued that the reason people in the South East still adhere to the sit-at-home order by IPOB despite its suspension is fear.

He said: “It is a question of fear. You know, the easiest thing to do is to carry a weapon and kill somebody, and that’s what happened in the past.

“And that’s why, you know, some people in the South East are afraid of coming out. So, it’s not a question of compliance. It’s a question of fear.

“You’ll find out that no South East man wants to miss a day of work. They like to work, they are into trade, commerce, and they want to earn their daily living.

“But it’s the worst thing to happen to the South East because it will destroy the economy of the South East.”

Mr Pita Okike, a political affairs analyst, said the problem in the South East has gone beyond Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB.  “Just like the #EndSARS protest, the agitation in the South East has been hijacked. Some enemies of the South East have taken advantage of the agitation in the zone to kill people, destroy property and paralyze the economy. Some of the people causing the mayhem are not from the South East.

“However, there are criminal elements capitalising on the situation to steal and destroy,” he said. 

According to Professor Igwe, some people “used all manner of pretexts to send war and destruction to Igbo society in part revenge for the drugs- related destructions they brought on their own youths emulating the elders largely manufacturing ‘unknown gunmen’ to legitimize the extra-judicial killings of Igbo youths – and turning round to blame the Igbo when almost all practical evidence points to stage-managing and extrapolating all this against a certain ‘Igbo Presidency’ etc.