Insecurity: Ndigbo women Council bemoans high insecurity, other crisis in South-East

.Gives FG 60 days to demilitarize South East Region

The Igbo women elders council an affiliate of Ohaneze NDIGBO, has bemoaned the deteriorated security crisis in the country, particularly in the South East region of the country.

This is even as the Council called on the federal government to immediately as a remedial measure before the situation gets out of hand, without further delay, demilitarize the South East Region and its key outposts, including its named gateway neighbours by ending the current military and police siege in the region.
Speeaking at the World Press Conference organized by the Ndigbo women, in Abuja on Tuesday, the group lamented the high insecurity in the region, which they said has gotten to the climax in recent time and that they can no longer afford to stand astride and look while the security situation in Nigeria and the region deteriorate due to complicity and obvious compromise by security forces in the country.

According to the council, the South East people have been killed, raped by the killer herdsmen, and the federal government need to do something about it because the insecurity in our land is unbelievable anymore.

“Since 2015, there have been systematic attacks on the peace and tranquility that have over the years existed in the South East region with attendant economic hardships on the citizens. However the security and safety of the Igbos and their properties, including lands and boundaries at high risk and danger and made herders, mostly foreigners residing in the region’s forests and farmlands.

On its observation, the group said: “Due to incessant organised terrorist activities in the south-east spearheaded by armed herders, the negative impact on the economy in the eastern region has become very evident. In recent report on poverty level in Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the South-East states performed very badly and extremely expectation. In the South East, Ebonyi State was the poorest with 80% described as poor.

“Enugu took the second position with 60% of its citizens on the poverty level and Abia State is with about 31%, Imo State 29%, and Anambra State 15%. This is the glaring economic reality in five South-East states. So, beyond the visible marginalization of the South East region from the Federal government in appointments and federal projects, the organised attacks on the economy of Igbo speaking communities in Nigeria is getting to the crescendo as farmers are now abandoning their farmlands to armed herdsmen in the region.

“At the moment, there is glaring state actor structural violence in the South East. This structural violence, promoted and sustained by the present Federal government of Nigeria has taken roots in the South East region and its outposts, especially since 2015. This can clearly be seen in the appointment of heads of top security formations in the Region and its outposts or gateway neighbours, especially the heads of Army and Police formations and systematic exclusion of the citizens of the region from such choice security positions.

These skewed and grossly lopsided securitization arrangements have put the security and safety of the Igbos and their properties, including lands and boundaries at high risk and danger and made herders, mostly foreigners residing in the region’s forests and farmlands to be more secured and protected than the indigenous citizens of the Igbo land.”
The Councils stated that in a recent study conducted by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), the following findings were made that the South East Gateway States: in Benue State, a major gateway into the Southeast, the Commander of Operation Whirl Stroke is Major Gen Yekini Adeyemi (Southwest Muslim), the Commander of 401 Special Forces Brigade, Makurdi is Brigadier Gen Samai’la Mohammed Uba (Fulani-Hausa Muslim), the Commanding Officer of 72 Special Forces Battalion, Makurdi is Lt Col A.D. Alhassan (Fulani-Hausa Muslim) and the State Commissioner of Police is Audu Madaki. In Edo State, another major gateway into the Southeast, the Brigade Commander of 4 Brigade, Benin is Brigadier Gen MA Sadiq (Fulani-Hausa Muslim) and the State Commissioner of Police is Aliyu Ogbadu. In Delta State, the State of origin of large outpost Igbo population, the Brigade Commander of 63 Brigade; Asaba is Brigadier Gen A Idris (Fulani-Hausa Muslim) and the State Commissioner of Police is Ari Mohammed Alli (Fulani-Hausa Muslim).

Also, in Rivers State, a major gateway into the Southeast, the GOC, 6 Division, Port-Harcourt is Major Gen Sambo G Mohammed (Fulani-Hausa Muslim). In Cross River State, a major Southeast neighbour, the State Commissioner of Police is Sikiru Akande (Southwest Muslim) and in Akwa Ibom State, another Southeast gateway, the Brigade Commander of 2 Brigade, Uyo is Brigadier Gen Faruk Mijinyawa (Fulani-Hausa Muslim).
The Police Zonal Commands in Calabar and Benin are also as at weeks back headed by Fulani-Hausa Muslims (AIG Zaki Ahmed incumbent AIG for Zone 6 and another is for Zone 5). In neighboring Bayelsa State, Air Vice Marshall Aliyu Bello (Fulani-Hausa Muslim) is the Air Officer Commanding Nigerian Air Force Base in Yenagoa.
South East Region: Major Gen Toareed Lagbaja, GOC, 82 Division, Enugu (Southwest Muslim), Brig Gen GS Mohammed (Fulani-Hausa Muslim) and Commander, 82 Division Finance Corps, Brigadier Gen Ibrahim Tukura (Fulani-Hausa Muslim) and Brigade Commander, 34 Brigade, Obinze, Brig Gen M. Ibrahim (Fulani-Hausa Muslim) and Brigade Commander, 14 Brigade, Ohafia), Col Abdulsalam Abubakar Sambo (Fulani-Hausa Muslim) and Cantonment Commandant of the 302 Artillery Regiment, Onitsha, Lt Col O. Sadiq (Muslim) and Commanding Officer, 24 Army Support Engineering, Navy Commodore Suleiman Haruna Abdullahi, Commandant, Navy School of Finance & Logistics, Owerrinta, Abia State, Abakiliki, Nasiru Mohammed, Commissioner of Police, Imo State (Fulani-Hausa Muslim), Aliyu Garba, Commissioner of Police, Ebonyi State (Fulani Hausa Muslim), Mohammed Aliyu, Commissioner of Police, Enugu State Command (Fulani-Hausa Muslim.
The rest are: Monday Bella Kuryas, Commissioner of Police, Anambra State (Hausa Christian) and Janet Agbede, Commissioner of Police, Abia State. Police Zones 9 (Umuahia) and 13 (Ukpo-Anambra) are also in the hands of same Fulani-Hausa Muslims and as at weeks ago, were headed by AIGs Zana Mohammed Ibrahim and Hafiz Mohammed. In all these, the only Igbo found among top security headship in the Region is the newly posted Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Air Force Ground Training Command, Enugu, Air Vice Marshall Frank Oparah who took over from Air Vice Marshall Idi Amin (Fulani-Hausa Muslim).
“We have observed, just like the Intersociety noted recently and as known to most South Easterners, that the state actor insecurity in South-East Nigeria can clearly be understood within the context of structural violence, physical violence and cultural violence. Through Government policy of structural violence, the South East Region, especially since 2015 has been a victim of sustained exclusion and segregation in the appointment of top security and judicial officers. The Region is also facing chronic exclusion in top federal ministerial, agency and department appointments.
“These are to the extent that no officer of the Southeast is presently among the 25 serving Assistant Inspectors General of Police or Army’s General Officers’ Commanding. No officer of the Region is also among the head of the country’s 17 Police Zonal Commands headed by AIG. The number of Igbos or South East citizens in the country’s Armed Forces and police high command positions is shrinking day in day out. As part of the present Federal Government’s policy of exclusion and segregation, little or zero efforts have been made to redress the gross imbalances. The situation is worsened by the conspiracy or lukewarm attitude or deaf silence of the present Governors of the South East. Specifically, the number of Igbos in the ranks of Police CPs, DCPs, ACPs and CSPs is going down chronically so also their counterparts or equivalents in internal and external spy policing and paramilitaries. As it stands, the number of South East Police CPs with upward of two years to retire is not more than five, out of over 110 serving Commissioners of Police in Nigeria.
“The Intersociety also recently observed that in top duty postings across the country done by Nigerian Army back in January 2021, involving 47 Major Generals, 163 Brig Generals, 450 Colonels, 309 Majors, 251 Captains and 322 Lieutenants, totalling 1,546 Army officers; it was shocking to note that out of the 47 Major Generals, North took 32 including 27 Muslims and South took 15 involving Southwest seven including Muslims, South-south five and Southeast only three. In the list of 163 Big Generals posted or deployed across the country, North took 110 including 84 Muslims and South took 53 involving Southwest 23 including Muslims, South-south 20 and Southeast only 10. A further peep into the remaining postings involving 450 Colonels, 309 Majors, 251 Captains and 322 Lieutenants also indicated same gross Northern Muslim domination and control and shrinking of the Southeast slots”, it stated.
These glaring imbalances or exclusions are contrary to and grave violation of Section 14 (3) or regional and ethnic balancing, Section 10 or prohibition of adoption of a particular religion as a state religion, Section 217 (3) or reflection of regional or ethnic or religious balancing in the appointment of the officer corps of the Armed Forces and Section 42 or prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, religion, gender, creed or class; all provided in the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 as amended.  The Southeast Region has also been gravely victimized by the atrocious state actors, especially the Nigerian Army and its appointing and supervising authorities, leading to massacre of no fewer than 700 unarmed and defenseless citizens of the region between August 2015 and November 2020 and maiming of not less than 800 others. Hundreds were also abducted and dozens disappeared to date. The Army abductees included 550 citizens of Abia, Imo, Ebonyi, Anambra and Enugu who resided in Obigbo and environs in Rivers State, who were abducted between October and November 2020 and held secretly without trial in Northern Nigeria for over four months. While 283 of them were located and freed by courts, over 270 are still held secretly to date. Many of the 60 women among the female abductees, between the ages 20 and 39 were sexually assaulted and abused during over four months of their captivity in Army and DSS facilities.
We cannot forget the killings and maiming by soldiers, police and other security agencies of the Federal Government in South East region.
We recall that on the August 30, 2015, 40 defenseless citizens of Judeo-Christian faith were brutally massacred during their peaceful self-determination protests in Onitsha, Enugu, Yenagoa, Uyo, Port Harcourt and Asaba.
On December 2, and 17, 2015 another 30 defenseless citizens of the same faith were massacred in Onitsha, in the same on 18th and 29th of January 2016, 20 of same defenseless citizens of Judeo-Christian faith were killed during same peaceful protests in Aba. On the 9th of February 2016, those massacred were 30 unarmed protesters in the same Aba just as on 29th and 30th of May 2016, other 140 defenceless citizens of the same Judeo-Christian faith were also killed during the world Igbo Heroes Day in Onitsha and Nkpor, (where 110 deaths occurred in Onitsha and Nkpor, and 30 deaths Asaba) and on 20th of January 2017, 20 unarmed protesters were killed at a pro-Trump rally in Port Harcourt.
Also, on 11th to 14th September 2017 massacre of over 180 unarmed and defenceless citizens of Judeo-Christians faith in Ogwe, Aba, Isiala-Ngwa and Umuahia, all in Abia State, just as on 23rd of August 2020, the Army massacred no fewer than 30 Judeo-Christian worshippers and sports activists in Emene, Enugu State. As it that is not enough, in October 2020 the Army/Police killed over 50 civilians in the South East, and between October and November 202, the Army equally massacred not less than 102 defenseless Igbo citizens in Obigbo, Rivers State. In January this year, the Nigerian Army in Orlu, Imo State, killed 10 defenseless residents, including six rural farmers.
To date, despite all these killings, it is on record that no single perpetrator of these heinous atrocities against the people have been held to account or brought to justice while the victims have neither been adequately compensated nor taken good care of. Scores have also died as a result of abandonment or hunger or lack of adequate medical treatments and many of their children dropped out of school.
Since 2015, Igbos have suffered escalated ethnic hatred and have also consistently faced persecution for being Igbos.
Armed herders have been invading and violently seizing and occupying ancestral bushes, farmlands and forests belonging to the Indigenous People of the Southeast Region and its outposts in Kogi, Benue, Delta, Edo, Rivers and Cross River States.
The Intersociety in its recent research has revealed that not less than 700 farmlands, bushes and forests have been occupied or attacked by the Jihadist Herdsmen in the Region and no fewer than 400 rural Igbo Christians hacked to death by the same jihadists who masquerade as “cattle herders”. Scores have also been bribed or abducted and forced or hypnotized into becoming Muslims against their will.
The Government aided jihadist Fulani Herdsmen attacks and killings in the Southeast Region and its outposts are the first in recent times and occurred first in April 2016 at Nimbo-Uzouwani in Enugu State where no fewer than 48 Igbo rural Christians were hacked to death. Another major killing of rural Southeast Christians took place in March in Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State and Eha-Amufu in Enugu State where more than 30 rural Christians were hacked to death.
“There was yet another report in this April (2021) in some communities in Ohaukwu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State where not less than 13 rural Igbo Christians were killed by jihadist Fulani Herdsmen. Weeks ago in the Kibiya district of, Kano State, nine Igbo Christians were tracked, abducted, hacked to death and secretly buried by suspected jihadist Fulani Herdsmen assailants. Cases of other killings, abductions and sexual violence by the same jihadists have also been reported particularly since 2016 in different parts of the Region and its outposts especially in Kogi, Benue, Delta, Rivers, Cross River and the Edo States.”
On its demands, the group said: “These are just but a few observable anomalies bedevilling Ndigbo and have led to the untimely death of our sons and grandsons, who are being killed extra-judicially by federal government security forces.
As an immediate remedial measure before the situation gets out of hand, the Federal Government must, without further delay, demilitarize the South East Region and its key outposts, including its named gateway neighbours by ending the current military and police siege in the region. We, therefore, demand immediate withdrawal of all the deployed military and police personnel on our roads, boundaries and other strategic locations in the South East.
• We call on the federal government to immediately end the policy of flooding our land and its outposts with compromised Muslim military and police commanders. This must be reversed and all the top officers we have identified above must be transferred out of the South East States and its boundaries. To ensure effective policing in any region, the percentage of non-indigenous Military and Policing officers, including senior officers, must be drastically reduced to 30% to allow indigenous officers to fill 70% of the total slots or positions and give the indigenous citizens of the Region a true sense of security and safety.
• All killer Herdsmen, clandestinely aided and protected by federal security forces who have now permanently settled in farmlands, bushes and forests in our land and our key neighbouring states must be moved out and relocated back to wherever they were brought from. Most of them are foreigners, which President Muhammadu Buhari once admitted that they are not Nigerians. We demand that the federal government immediately begin repatriating these non-Nigerians to enable our farmers to go back to their farms.
• The Federal Government must discontinue its clandestine policy of turning Southern and Middle Belt Nigeria into Sharia or Caliphate colony and respect the country’s secular status as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution. All armed forces must therefore vacate their security cordons in all parts of Igbo land. The cordons by security agencies are part of the clandestine oppressive strategy to keep Igbo land occupied to ease penetration by some Jihadists elements to permanently occupy the land.

• The Feral government must ensure that the constitutional rights of citizens to freedom of residency and movement and ownership of property in any part of the country is no longer misconstrued and misinterpreted as the guaranteed rights are practicable in strict conformity with the country’s Criminal laws and procedures and the Chapter Four of its 1999 Constitution and the ratified and domesticated African Charter on Human and People’s Rights Act of 2004 including rights of citizens of the country to peacefully and nonviolently reside in urban residential areas anywhere in Nigeria and own moveable and immoveable properties. The Constitution does not guarantee any citizen right to live violently another’s farmland or bush or forest and settle in same with small arms and light weapons and engage in terrorism and gang rapping of the residents.
• The Nigerian Government must immediately begin reversal of the top security appointment imbalances and return to Constitutional Sections 10, 14 (3), 42 and 217 (3) in balancing the appointments and postings.
• We call on South-East Governors to immediately begin consultations with critical indigenous stakeholders to draft anti-open grazing and odd hours grazing prohibition bills and get them passed into law by the Houses of Assembly of the South East Region.
• The South-East states must institute a special probe panel to criminally investigate countless massacres in Igbo communities to fish out the perpetrators and bring them to book or hand them over to International Criminal Court for international prosecution and victims of their atrocious activities and adequately compensated.
• The Federal Government immediately end the ongoing crackdowns on our sons and other innocent citizens who are being deliberately labelled as IPOB members and killed by security forces whereas the insecurities in Nigeria are creations of Nigeria’s 1999 constitution, which has continued to be a lie unto itself when it says “We the People….”. Nigeria is ripe for a people’s constitution.

• We demand the immediate release of all Igbos in secret detention since 2020 and hundreds of citizens of Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi and the Enugu States who are residents of Obigbo in Rivers State, including Citizen Elvis Chigbu and 109 others detained without charges since six months ago and presently held at the Nigerian Army Commando Base in faraway Bida, Niger State.
• South-East Governors must genuinely enter into credible negotiations with Igbo youths to avert a major calamity waiting to happen in the South East if the current security situation is not handled with care. The governors of the eastern region must convene a regional security dialogue with IPOB and all youth groups. If governors and Islamic clerics are meeting and dialoguing with bands in the north, why is our governors not holding talks with unarmed citizens in the region to find lasting peace in the South East?
The group, therefore, concluded that the federal government and south-east governments should stop the ongoing raping of women in the south-east by killer herdsmen. While this is going on, security agencies are killing our sons, brothers and husbands.
“We call on the federal government to meet our demands within 60 days while south governors are given 90 days to meet their own part of the demands, including the passage and signing into law the anti-open grazing bill.
“If our demands were not met, Igbo women has their own way of tackling such crisis Nigeria but we hope and pray that the federal and the concerned state governments do not push the South East women further to the wall.
“We hereby appreciate British government for the recent asylum offer to the Igbo speaking people of Nigeria but Igbo women have unanimously rejected asylum by the United Kingdom in its entirety. The asylum offer was meant to remove the remaining Igbo men and open up our land for herdsmen to further occupy.”
According to the Ndigbo women, how come that Britain held a referendum and exited the European Union (EU) but refuses to support the self-determination agitation by Igbos?
“Our demand from the British government is to support a self-determination referendum for South East. Alternatively, we demand Igbo Presidency, where in 2023 all political parties must field an Igbo presidential candidate.
“A minister in the President Buhari’s government admitted that he was a fundamentalist at his younger adult age but today, he is still a serving minister of the government, therefore Nnamdi Kanu is our son, we cannot disown him. We all might not endorse his style but no Igbo can fault his demand for justice in the South East.
“It must be understood that the unrest in the southeast region in the aftermath of several of marginalization and injustices against the region”, the group explained.