Featured, Security
The recent move at addressing insecurity in the South East may after all provide the needed results than the usual resort to militarization of the zone and the extra judicial killings perpetuated in the zone. Perhaps the federal government should set up a roving peace committee to reconcile the other troubled zones of the country.
By Goddy Ikeh
RECENT developments in the South East have further demonstrated the fact that the militarization of the South East will never bring about peace in the region. Before the recent upsurge in violence in the region, the zone was regarded as one of the most peaceful zones in the country despite the heavy deployment of the military and police personnel against all entreaties from the leaders of the zone.
It was an irony that the presence of these security personnel could not stop the wave of killings and burning of police stations and other institutions of government by the so called unknown gunmen. Unfortunately, the presence of these security men could not stop the killings allegedly perpetuated by killer herdsmen, who the authorities have proudly said that they were non Nigerians.
While the blame game continued on the reasons for the sudden rise in violence in a zone known for its peaceful disposition except for the pockets of agitators calling for good governance, restructuring of the country and abandonment of skewed ethnic preferences, which have unfortunately been elevated to the level of separatist agitations. Incidentally some other zones of the country have recently joined the separatist dance when their shouts of suffocation caused by widespread poverty, rising inflation, unemployment and worsening insecurity across the country were not addressed.
Fortunately, the recent peace moves by a delegation of the federal government led by the minister of defence, Major General Bashir Magashi, rtd, appear to have doused the tension in the zone after series of threats to the people to abandon their agitation for a separate country of their own, while some northern groups accused the leaders of the zone of supporting the agitations by the youths in the zone for a sovereign state of Biafra.
However, the resolutions from the June 11, 2021, meeting with the Presidential team have proved otherwise. According to the resolutions, the Igbos leaders reaffirmed their commitment to one united Nigeria under a “platform of justice, equality of rights, fairness, love and respect for one another”;
“We have noted threats by some groups against our people of South East, while we firmly promise to protect everyone either from other regions or ours, we plead with the leaders of other regions to protect our people living in their regions.
“We condemn the killing of security agencies, burning of strategic infrastructure and killing of civilians in South East and other regions. We request our security agencies to please discharge their duties within the rules of engagement and the law;
“We request our National Assembly from the South East to support State Police creation in the ongoing constitutional amendment;
“We condemn in totality, the activities of violent secessionist groups in South East and elsewhere, we firmly proclaim that we do not support them, they do not speak for South East. The impression that South East leaders are silent over some of our youths’ agitation for secession is not correct.
“South East Governors, Ohanaeze President, National Assembly members, notable leader had come out publicly many times in the past to speak against such agitations. In order not to mismanage the unfortunate situation, South East leaders have set up a committee to engage such youths to stop and allow elders speak to address such fears;
According to the resolutions, the meeting directed “the governors and Ohanaeze Ndigbo to liaise with indigenes from northern part of Nigeria and indigenes of other regions to assure that the nation Nigeria and their people of their safety in South East”.
The meeting also endorsed the South East joint security outfit – Ebubeagu and asked them to work with security agencies “and to respect the rights and privileges of all those living in South East and our visitors”;
And above all, the meeting agreed to set up committees under Ohanaeze to articulate and address the positions of Igbo leaders on all burning issues “to further meet among ourselves and thereafter meet with the presidential team”.
Perhaps these resolutions from the leaders of the South East should be able to close the huge trust deficits between the authorities in Abuja and the people of the zone. And more importantly, these resolutions may drive home the position of many Igbo elites that the zone is not eager to let go all their investments in various parts of the country, especially in Abuja for the agitation of a new fantasy state.
These resolutions may have also informed the new stance of the Senate when they recently condemned the shooting incident by a Police Inspector in Enugu, which led to the death of five persons with several other people sustaining injuries last Sunday. In the same vein, the Senate also flayed the alleged killing of a Germany-based Nigerian, Oguchi Unachukwu, near Owerri Airport in Imo State.
The resolution was sequel to a motion on the “Need to Investigate Fatal Shootings by Security Agents in Enugu and Imo State,” moved by former Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu.
Ekweremadu in the motion noted with sadness the shooting incident in Enugu in which an Inspector of Police attached to Special Protection Unit, SPU, Base 9, Umuahia, Abia State, opened fire on the people on sight, shooting five persons dead and injuring several others on Sunday, June 20, 2021. The Senate was also informed of the fatal shooting of a Germany-based Nigerian, Oguchi Unachukwu, allegedly by personnel of the Nigeria Air Force around the tollgate of the Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport on May 31, 2021.
While condemning the killings, the senators directed the Inspector-General of Police, Service Chiefs and heads of other armed security agencies to “immediately commence regular assessment of the state of mind of their personnel as well as training them on relations with the civilian populations”.
Unfortunately, the Senate failed to link the recent killings with the the subsisting order to “Shoot at Sight” to any person or persons found with guns and engaged in any criminal activities as part of the security measures adopted to restore peace and sanity in the South East and South South zones. It will be recalled that on Tuesday, May 18, 2021 in Enugu, the acting Inspector General of Police, Alkali Usman Baba told the Police Mobile Force and Special Tactical Squad of the Force in Enugu shortly after he launched Operation Restore Peace in the region not to adhere to the rules of engagement while dealing with Biafra secessionist groups and that his job was to protect them.
“Don’t mind the media shout; do the job I command you. If anyone accuses you of human rights violation, the report will come to my table and you know what I will do. So, take the battle to them wherever they are and kill them all. Don’t wait for an order. What another order are you waiting for when Mr. President had ordered you to shoot anybody carrying AK-47 rifle? Quote me, even a dead policeman can be tried and dismissed from the force and his family will not get his benefits. So, don’t seat and wait for them to come; take attack to them and don’t lose your arms to criminals,” local media reports quoted the acting IGP as saying.
This directive of the acting IGP wasm however, condemned by a coalition of 44 rights civil society organisation, CSOs, and intellectuals from the South East and called on Nigerians not to allow the acting IGP to turn Eastern Nigeria into a society of beasts and barbarians.
The CSOs observed with deep shock, sadness and dismay the frightening moves by the IGP and the authorities of the Nigerian Army and other branches of the Armed Forces to turn Eastern Nigeria (South East and South South Regions) into society of beasts and barbarians.
A statement by the group made available to newsmen on Tuesday, May 25, 2021, said that the recent public utterances of the attorney general of the federation and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami, are also clear and additional indication that the present Government of Nigeria has designated the two regions as “hatefully and religiously a must crush”. “In other words, it appears to us that the two regions are hated and targeted on religious ground and marked for violent conquest and subjugation. The coalition therefore makes bold to say that it will not allow the acting IGP and the country’s armed forces to turn Eastern Nigeria into society of beasts and barbarians,” it said.
Stating that Nigeria has been governed as ‘Islamic Republic’ since 2015, members of the coalition noted the challenges to public security in the country and its six geopolitical zones as well as approaches to same adopted by the present federal government are deeply shocked and dismayed at how things have played out.
Part of the statement read: “The best way to understand the Government of Nigeria’s responses to insecurity is by taking a critical look at the ethnic and religious composition of the country’s 40 top security, defense, policing and justice executive positions and chairmen of their legislative oversights. A look at the 40 top posts clearly shows that 85%, if not 90% of same are Muslim controlled.
In an evaluation of several studies relating to the above, done by the Coalition, it was found that Nigeria has since mid-2015 been governed as “Islamic Republic” and government’s responses to security and safety of lives and properties are toeing the same line, including imbalanced composition of the officer corps and other ranks of the country’s Armed Forces (i.e. Captain to Major General in the Army and their equivalents in other branches of the Armed Forces as well as SP to AIG in the Police and their equivalents in paramilitaries and Intelligence Services). The same goes with their promotions and postings.
“Generally speaking, the country’s present security forces are 80% Muslim controlled and in responses to security of lives and properties, Muslims and their regions are given more attention, while the rest receive acutely less attention. Same thing goes with office appointments and contract awards as well as citizens’ treatment and recognition before the law and enforcement of same. It has become a common knowledge and order of the day for citizens of non Muslim faith such as Christians of Eastern Nigeria to be routinely made to undergo ethnic profiling and cleansing by the country’s Muslim dominated security forces. This is to the extent that in the Muslim held areas of the North, citizens including criminals are regularly treated as sacred cows whereas in the Christian held South and Northern parts, citizens are hatefully degraded and falsely or criminally labeled. This is worsened by deliberate flooding and takeover of key military and other security formations in Southeast and South-south by senior Muslim security officers.
“Going by the above, therefore, the Coalition is not surprised at the recent uncultured, frightening and genocidal comments and incitement by the Acting Inspector General of Police, Alkali Baba Usman at the flag off of the so called “Operation Restore Peace” held in Enugu (on 18th May 2021) and Port Harcourt (on 19th May 2021). Going by unprintable things said by the Acting IGP, including open threat and authorization of genocide against Christians of Eastern Nigeria, the Coalition wishes to conclude that such morally disreputable and savagely comments are literally jihad and ethnic cleansing enabler and therefore must not be taken for granted.
Surely, this strategy is at variance with what the same authorities had adopted to tackle the daily killings across the country, especially in the northern states of the country.
However, the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof. George Obiozor, has explained that the rising violence in the South East was due to the attention Igbo quest for the 2023 presidency has generated. Speaking recently to the British Deputy High Commissioner, Peter Thomas, Prof. Obiozor expressed sadness over the killings and burning of police stations and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, offices and stated that the people of the South East were not known for violence but believed in hard work. He told Thomas, who visited the Ohanaeze Secretariat in Enugu that the crisis notwithstanding, Ndigbo were united in the quest for a president of Igbo extraction in 2023.
Lamenting how insecurity was ravaging the region, he said that the Igbo were the most exemplary in peace and security as well as the most organised with a vigorous grassroots economic activity until most recently, adding that the Igbo “are a unique set of people in terms of hard work, ingenuity, perseverance and inventiveness”. Explaining that the people of the zone struggle to get whatever they were denied by themselves, he lamented that the recent violence in the zone was giving the Igbo a bad name.
Although he agreed that the nucleus of agitations in the country was in the South East region, he, however, stressed the need for restructuring of Nigeria to reflect true federalism. Local media reports quoted Prof, Obiozor as saying that Nigeria owes equity and justice to the South East and that the Igbos are the most federating group of people in Nigeria and commended the British government for the cordial relationship between it and the country. According to the reports, the deputy High Commissioner had earlier said that the essence of his visit was to find out from the Igbo Leader why the South East had suddenly become violent.
In addition, Ohanaeze had in April this year called on the federal government to commence an inquest into the rising violence in the South East, with a view to arresting and prosecuting those behind the killings and attacks on valuable assets.
The group, in a statement by Prof. Obiozor and its Secretary-General, Okey Emuchay, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, said that the attacks did not bear the usual marks of local perpetrators.
It decried the violent attacks on some institutions in the South East, including the one on the correctional centre, police headquarters and the country home of the Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma.
“These attacks were clinically conducted by the perpetrators and to this extent do not bear the usual and known signature of local operators.
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide condemns in strong terms the killings that took place at Igbariam, Anambra State. Such dastardly acts are not in Igbo character. Ohanaeze urges the security agencies to trace the perpetrators of this heinous crime and bring them to book,” the group said.
Ohanaeze stated that it has reviewed the incidence of criminalities in the region in the recent past and concluded that going by the sophistication and capacity of the likely perpetrators, some powerful elements or groups could be deliberately orchestrating violence to justify pre-planned and predetermined invasion of the South East.
The organisation, therefore, requested the federal government to investigate the nature and the sophistication of the crimes that were taking place in the South East in the interest of all.
“Ohanaeze requests the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to thoroughly investigate this new wave of criminalities and violence in South East of Nigeria,” it said.
Despite these recent killings in the South East and the condemnation by the Senate, the Shoot At Sight Order is still operational, while the Senate looks on and awaits another shooting so that the usual condemnation will follow.
– June 27, 2021 @ 20:30 GMT|
A.I
Tags: Major General Bashir Magashi Ohanaeze Ndigbo Violence in South East: Nigeria needs to adopt new approach in tackling insecurity
