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From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has called on governors of South-East zone to publicly condemn the armed Herdsmen and their atrocities in zone.
The group also charged South-East Governors to publicly condemn military and police roadblock extortions and brutalities on the roads in the zone.
The Chairman of Intersociety Mr. Emeka Umeagbalasi in a statement said that for successful development in the South-East region, those behind killings and burnings outside the law must be uprooted.
He said that the outcome of the November 11, 2023 Imo Governorship Election is a litmus test for addressing South-East insecurity, stressing that South-East Govs must insist on making inputs in the posting of senior policy, spy police and military chiefs to the zone.
Umeagbalasi also said that United Nations (UN) must investigate and make referrals to International Criminal Court (ICC) to track down and prosecute state and non state actors involved in the insecurity in South-East.
According to the statement, “Several research and investigative reports by Intersociety on insecurity and other unsafe conditions and those fanning them in the South-East have clearly indicated that nothing meaningful is most likely to come out of the South-East Governors’ “Security and Economic Summit” fixed for September 28, 2023 in Owerri, Imo State. The choice of Owerri and the Chief Host of the “Summit” is also integrity and morally questionable.
“Like that of 2021 that culminated to launching of the “Ebubeagu Security Arrangement” in April 202 which turned to be “friendly to the South-East enemies” and “unfriendly to the defenseless citizens and properties of the Region”; the outcome of the “2023 South-East Governors’ Security and Economic Summit” will most likely end up being a mere ‘talk-show’ or ‘grammar blowing arena’ or ‘an effort in futility and another wasting of public funds.
“Apart from the fact that no meaningful economic growth and development will take place under an atmosphere of grisly and egregious insecurity and other unsafe conditions as in the case of the present South-East particularly Imo State; there are no semblances of accountable governance. The fundamental essences of limited Government (services to the people) in the Region have been disappeared.
“As a matter of fact, the Region is inches away from collapsing into ‘the Hobbesian State of Nature’ “where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (See the ‘Leviathan 1660’). That is to say that in the South-East, all the fundamental essences of Limited Governance have been uprooted and services meant to be rendered to the original owners of the civil limited government and governance bastardized and pushed back to them. The South-East peoples’ self-development ingenuities have also been bastardized and uprooted by those in charge of their public governances.
“Apart from public governances having been reduced to squander-mania, sycophancy, propaganda, falsehood, corruption and brigandage at individual State level; there are no iotas of ‘collective or joint regional development plans or policies and actions by the South-East Governors’. Such ambitious regional development would have seen the construction of the likes of the “South-East Mega Expressway” with capacity of linking all the five South-East States and exits and entrances into and out of the Region connected thereto. It is saddening and mocking that the Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen know the shortest routes connecting the five South-East States than the five South-East Governors since 2015.
“The Fulani Herdsmen have for long remotely identified shortest bush and footpath routes through which they abduct, hold captive and move their South-East non Muslim captives around the five South-East States in less than four days and return their captives to the South-East Triangle where Enugu, Abia, Imo and Anambra meet from where they are killed or raped alive or raped to death (if non menopausal women); or extorted and left alive with bruises or in a state of half dead.
“The elusive joint South-East mega projects include shortening and reducing the distance between traveling from Awka to Enugu’s Ninth Mile/Capital City to less 20 kilometers with a new dual carriageway between Amansea/Ebenebe and Olo/Eke (Nigerian Breweries/Ninth Mile); or shortening the route between South-East State of Anambra and Rivers Wharf (less than 2 hours journey) through a Bridge and dualization of Atani-Ogwuikpere Road to link Ogbaru and Ndoni in Rivers State; or shortening the route between the South-East State of Anambra and Kogi/FCT with a dualized Road Anam River Bridge and Kogi/FCT; or a railway project linking the five South-East States with a major terminal at the South-East Triangle; or a “South-East Unity International Airport” to be cited or located around the South-East Triangle where Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Abia and Ebonyi meet.
“The old order and primitive approaches by South-East Governors to insecurity and other unsafe conditions have been responsible for escalation and worsening of security situations in the Region. The present South-East Governors have also been found to be so fearful that it looks as if they collectively or individually have skeletons in their cupboards or collective hidden agenda against their people. They are so afraid to publicly condemn the jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and their atrocities in the Region that it looks as if they are collectively or individually a party to the so called “MACABAN/Fulani Loyalty Agreement” as possible preconditions for them to become Governors of their States.
“The Governors are also vicariously responsible for grisly rights abuses and violations by the drafted security agents and their chiefs in the Region. These, they have been doing by refusing to openly condemn the killings and burnings outside the law and by allocating public funds to security chiefs in aid of such atrocious acts.
“It is deeply saddening to note that while serious minded elected and appointed public executives in economically and democratically advancing national and sub-national entities have long moved away from ‘gun-culture’ driven physical security to “human security and its seven key dimensions” of economic security, health security, food security, environmental security, community security, personal security and physical security”; the South-East Governors have remained stuck in “cork-and-shoot” security; squandering billions of funds belonging to taxpayers with little or nothing to show for it,” Umeagbalasi stated.
