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One of the most positive effects that the President Olusegun Obasanjo government had on Nigeria’s political life was the setting up of the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission, more popular as Oputa Panel. The commission was chaired by Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, now of blessed memory. Its mandate was to investigate “human rights violations through recollections provided by the victims; bringing to light the identity of those who were involved in committing these crimes, and gaining a better understanding as to why these crimes were committed in the first place.”
The period of investigation was from 1984 to 1999. Specifically, the commission was to investigate human right violations during Nigeria’s long military rule. Many Nigerians who were victims of injustice and right violations demanded that the commission be empowered to begin its inquiry from 1960. Obasanjo said no.
The commission had about 10,000 recollections of human rights violations but could hear out about 150. It submitted its report to Obasanjo in 2002. Officially, the report has not been published. It has been forgotten on some shelf in the Presidency. Unofficially, it was published in 2005. However, that’s not my interest. My interest here relates to the facts of the exposition of the modus operandi of military governments in creating and spreading insecurity and fear and also in destabilizing communities with orchestrated and synchronized terror.
As a reporter that covered the commission’s sitting in Lagos, I would say that one of its biggest achievements was letting Nigerians know, through confessional statements of operatives from state security apparatchik, how officials of state planted explosives in public places, used them to terrorize citizens and then blamed NADECO (National Democratic Coalition) for it. Yes, government operatives made statements before the panel that linked them to bombs planted in some places in Lagos and framed NADECO, which at the time was the main opposition voice against the military junta of Gen. Sani Abacha.
Many unsuspecting Nigerians actually did believe that NADECO was responsible for the bomb blasts that occurred during the Abacha regime basically because the government then, using its spokesmen, said so and consistently blamed NADECO.
For those who are too young to recollect, NADECO had gone underground after the military government descended on its members seeking to silence them for daring to seek a ratification of the June 12, 1993, presidential election result and the declaration of Moshood Abiola as Nigeria’s democratically elected President. However, it took the opportunity and liberty provided by the Oputa Panel for Nigerians, including state actors, to openly confess their crimes against Nigeria and Nigerians. It was from the confessionals that many conscious Nigerians knew that the government was actually behind the bombs attributed to NADECO. That is now history.
But is that history about to repeat itself? Are we taking a tour back into the past? Is the past being recreated in the southeast of Nigeria with IPOB/ESN as the fall guy?
I ask this question mindful of the ease and speed with which every security breach in the region is blamed on IPOB. While I do not in any way make excuses for the seeming excesses of members of the groups, especially its claims of weapon capabilities and warfare expertise when they are clearly novices and toddlers in the art of war, I, however, question some developments that are directly linked to the group.
For instance, an alarm was recently raised about a plot by IPOB to attack Lagos State. Many doubted it. Many believed it principally because of the source of the information. The alarm emanated from what was said to be an ‘intel’ from top security quarters.
The Lagos State government acted based on this intel. But it turned out, upon further question, that the intel was manufactured by security operatives to create an anti-Igbo narrative. With such ‘intel’ and narrative, it would be easy to profile and label Igbo youths in the state and hit them hard. The reality of profiling and prevention of Igbo people from voting in parts of Lagos State during the 2019 election evoke some fear when put side by side the actual intendment of the false intel. So, was the false intel geared towards a political action in 2023? Was there a plan to cause social disaffection between the Igbo and their Yoruba friends as 2023 comes into focus?
This is why the quick retort by the police to blame IPOB for every security breach in the South-East is disturbing. Like I said, IPOB may have created problems for itself by its claims but are those claims enough reason to quickly blame the group for every security breach? We have seen the ‘disagreement’ between the police and the Imo State government over the IPOB narrative. While the police blame IPOB, the state government blames other actors that are not IPOB.
The state government ought to speak to intelligence report given to it by the police. But as it is, it seems that the police submits a different report from the state government and feeds the pubic a different narrative. If this is the reality, what could the intention be?
Meanwhile, I believe that the narrative on IPOB is the direct consequence of the failure of governors of the region to be more proactive in resolving security challenges in their domain. We will recall that the South-East governors had on April 11 named Ebubeagu as the indigenous security outfit for the region. The action was in response to the demand by people of the region for an outfit that would complement the work of the Nigeria Police in securing life and property in the region. The expectation of all people of the region was that their governors would move from their meeting in Owerri, where they agreed on the formation of Ebubeagu, to get the various state Assemblies to give legal backing to the formation of the group.
Further expectation was that the governors would move swiftly to develop the outfit by setting up the necessary structures, legislation, uniforms, recruitment, and equipment, to make them effective. This has not been done. So far, only Ebonyi State is known to have even taken a step further to give life to this collective decision. Others have delayed and are still delayng.
The consequence of this is that youths who ought to have been recruited into this formation and made to serve a more useful purpose as guards and placed on monthly stipends are left at the mercy of an army that hunts them down on suspicion of belonging to IPOB/ESN. In this guise, even the ones operating Okada and Keke, just to make a living, are not spared, no matter how innocent they are.
I believe that Ebubeagu can easily mop up jobless youths who see IPOB as a vehicle to achieve a better life in the future. As it is, many of these youths who call themselves freedom fighters live out their frustrations struggling to feed. Many do not have means of livelihood and are easily attracted by the promise of jobs, if, and when IPOB achieves Biafra.
The alternative would be to win them back through meaningful, purposeful and rewarding engagement into the Ebubeagu security outfit, where they are better trained and organized to become positive influences on society. It is clear that the governors’ failure to do this has left these youths at the mercy of a society that easily profiles them as criminals and, thus, marks them for elimination on the argument that they have become terrorists. For me, these youths are killed recklessly on the failings of their governors.
