Security Agencies, Governors And Rising Insecurity In Southeast
The spate of unravelled killings across the country especially in the Southeast no becoming increasingly worrisome.
Where are those security men especially of the army who make motorists pass through harrowing experience due to serious of blockades on the people right to free movement, where are the joint teams which have converted their checkpoints to toll collection point.
Where are the intelligence units of Police and the DSS, how do these assailants perpetrate these heinous acts and escape without a chase.
Travelling from one state in Southeast to another is akin to crossing the borders of this country to another because of the imperialist presence of military in the dilapidated roads forcing motorists and motorcyclists to alight and walk across the checkpoints in guise of security checks.
Commerical vehicles and private vehicle are compelled to part with negotiated amount of money after being held down for upward of one hour.
A visit to Uli end of the Onitsha-Owerri expressway will give you the idea of what Southeastners pass through in the hands of those that are paid with tax money.
A journey from Awka to Enugu will also make you weep as you have to encounter about 10 of those checkpoints within a distance of 48 kilometers.
Yet, there is a wave of killing and arson in the region yet the presence of these security men seem to suffice for only toll collection, intimidation, humiliation and exploitation of the people.
It appears that the mere illogical or blanket linking of these carnages to IPOB/ESN seems to be enough to explain them.
How about the celebrated triumphism over the the imaginary IPOB ESN whenever boisterous youth are gunned down unprovoked.
How about the public confessions they force fall guys to make and afterwards contact their families to come and start bailing them for sumptuous amounts of money, like they say in Imo.
Having harvested MNK into their nest and killed ikonso the so-called militant arm commander, these security agencies and government should now face and combat criminality and stop sweeping their inefficiency under the carpet of the group.
Political atmosphere is charged in Anambra with high pitched despiration as never before, some people vowed not to let power slip of their hands while others vowed to wrest it with any force, both known and unknown, yet nobody is looking inward for possible answers.
It is sad the great surgeon and Agulu illustrious son, Dr Cyril Akunyili, husband of Prof Dora Akunyili, the late minister of information and director general of NAFDAC died in this wave of beastiality, it was indeed his death that roused many to reality of the time but there were deaths before now.
Beyond verbal war between the major political parties, nothing was done to interrogate the death of revered deposed traditional ruler Mkpunando and his in this state which occurred in questionable manner.
There has been other senseless killing associated with politics and communusl strife but they don’t deserve government attention.
Recently, the Navy in Anambra said they killed six *suspected* ESN members without a gun battle.
After the death of Ahmed Gulak in Owerri one morning, the Police in Imo fell seven healthy men in Owerri as members of ESN who killed the man before night fall.
This was a case of opening a case in the morning and closing it at night, an unusual swiftneas on the part of the Police
In August 2020, young men were having a meeting in Emene Enugu and DSS unprovokedly opened fire on them and left 22 young men dead on the allegation that they IPOB members planning attack.
Also at a prayer rally in a primary school filed in Aba, the military opened fire on both men and women, killing and maiming a good number all in the name of dispersing a gathering of separatists.
In all this, nobody, not even the chief security officers of the states frowned, condemned or gave account of those lost souls.
Since January this year, there has been sustained military operations in parts of imo especially, Orlu/Orsu, where people are hunted like games, some are ordered out of their houses and gunned to death in cold blood and their homes set ablaze, while others are whisked away to languish in various dungeons.
Their sins are that they are suspected IPOB ESN members.
Linking young men who died through the barrel of the guns of security people to IPOB ESN has become enough justification for unaccounted death of youths in the Southeast.
Thank God, a court has mandated the Enugu state government to set up a judicial panel of inquiry to probe the Emene assassinations.
But, are there really small deaths and big deaths, is one life worth more than the other why should people pay attention to certain deaths and ignore others ?
It is my firm believe that if small deaths received the attention they deserved, even the bug deaths will not come.
That is why, the developed world of the Whites who cherish lives interrogate causes of deaths that are not of natural causes by way of conducting autopsy or inquest, but here *man die, man go*
States set up JPI to investigate SARS killings in their domains, some states are still sitting while I have read about others admitting the SINS of SARS or Police against their people and paying them consolatory compensation which cannot actually indemnify the loss.
But what has been the import or outcome of such panels in the five Southeast states ?they fizzled out politically.
All the weighty and probable allegations against the Police were worth just the chilling confessions of the affected families.
No justice, no apology, no compensation.
It smacks of leadership failure for constitutional government to be remote controlled by unknown government, blaming any group for unceasing carnages in the polity is defeatist,
If government and it’s security agencies claim to know the enemies of the state, they confront him and if they lack the powers to win him, you make them their friends.
For the first time in my history, the Independence Day ceremony will not hold anywhere in the Southeast, no flags, no match pass, no government activities for fear of *unknown government*.
This crop of Southeast governors have indeed failed their youth, the aspirations of their people and themselves too.
This is time for introspection and not blame games or buckpassing
Udokamma writes from Orlu
