South East, Nigeria, the Igbo homeland, is bleeding; millions of commuters, on a daily basis, are exposed to extortion, with some young men and women victims of cold-blooded murder. Welcome to a region under the siege of the police and the military. As a result of a discriminatory state policy, the South East has arguably become the most militarized region in peace time in the world. Across a region populated by the Igbo, covering five states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, hundreds of police and military checkpoints set up and manned by soldiers and police officers are used to harass and extort money from commuters; on a daily basis, commuters are subjected to all manner of humiliation and torture amid forceful disappearances and cold-blooded murder in some extreme circumstances.
For several years, the police and military are deliberately waging a physical and psychological warfare against the people; at some of these checkpoints, the police and the military deliberately delay all vehicles in some cases for hours before extorting money from them and letting them off the hook to continue their journey. This practice is widespread, suffocating and shows no sign of abating. As a matter of fact, for the uniformed personnel, the South East has become the most lucrative posting to the extent that military and police officers try to influence their posting to the region by bribing personnel responsible for discharging this function.
Today, a syndicate of heartless extortionists in uniform hold the region in a vice-like grip; they harass the people to no end and treat them as cadaver for asset stripping, intimidation and dehumanization. The full extent of this unwholesome and pervasive practice, though in plain sight, has not been sufficiently and fully documented. The only detailed scientific report by a rights group, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), paints a grim picture of the despoilation of commuters in the region. According to the report, which covered August 2015 to October 2019, a whopping N300 billion was paid at gunpoint in a space of 50 months by commuters in Ala-Igbo to estimated 60 military and 6,300 police checkpoints in the South East and South-South regions for the period under review. The 2018 report claimed that that the security agencies made over N100 billion in the South East by extorting road users at checkpoints set up by them. The Ukwu-Oji military checkpoint along Owerri-Onitsha Road is one of the oldest and most notorious checkpoints in the South East; there, stern-looking soldiers deliberately delay commuters for hours before demanding money from them in exchange for the freedom to continue their journey. From Ukwu-Oji down to Owerri Assumpta Road, policemen man checkpoints in seven locations extorting money from commuters. This siege is replicated in hundreds of other locations in the South East in spite of the fact that the region is not a theatre of war. These checkpoints, for the avoidance of doubt, represent vestiges of systematic oppression and internal slavery, in breach of the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the United Nations Charter and the basic laws of the country. Given the proliferation of police and military checkpoints, expectations that it will lead to drop in crime and criminality in the region appear to have been misplaced. It is alleged that, in practice, the police and soldiers manning the various checkpoints are informants to kidnappers and highway robbers. This alleged unholy alliance should be thoroughly investigated by constituted authority to get to the root of this strong allegation.
The time has come for the federal government to dismantle these checkpoints as they are being used to harass and oppress law-abiding citizens. Federal presence is lacking in Igboland as a result of decades of neglect. Rather than checkpoints, the region needs infrastructure, institutions and strategic engagements that will create opportunities for jobs in the region, especially for the unemployed youth.
The continued militarization of the region is a direct consequence of the failure of the political class and the absence of the political will to demand the dismantling of these checkpoints as a fundamental right of the people. No law-abiding citizen should be shackled or constrained the way the Igbo have been treated in a country they consider their own but where they are seen as outsiders. In 2019, Chief Nnia Nwodo, the then president-general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, the apex Igbo sociocultural organisation, wrote a letter to former President Muhammadu Buhari and Mohammed Adamu, the then Inspector-General of Police, appealing to them to dismantle the checkpoints.
Unfortunately, the appeal fell on deaf ears as nothing has been done to reverse this obnoxious policy. Rather than keep quiet, this snub should galvanize the political leadership in the South East to increase the pressure on the federal government. History teaches us that the fight against oppression is long-drawn; freedom from oppression is not served a la carte. It appears to me that there is lack of appreciation by the circulating Igbo political elite of the damaging impact of the continued militarization of the region. Apart from the needless deaths of our people at the hands of trigger-happy officers manning these checkpoints, the damage to the psyche of our people is deep and incalculable. As a people, we must insist on the removal of this vestige of oppression and internal slavery. It is about time our leaders, including councillors, local government chairmen, House of Assembly and National Assembly members, political appointees and all players on the political turf, came together to forge a common front on this issue. In addition to exploring all available legal remedies, they should insist on the restoration of the basic rights of the people. This right is inalienable and should be upheld for the cohesion and peaceful co-existence of all strands that make up the Nigerian society. The Igbo are entitled to enjoy the basic rights currently being enjoyed by other sections of the country.
The continued treatment of the Igbo with scorn and disdain by the federal authorities is responsible for the festering restiveness and heightened ethnic saliency that has taken firm root in the region. I urge President Bola Tinubu to step up and bring this grave injustice to an end, in the spirit of fairness, inclusivity and justice. Mr. President, in case you have not been fully briefed, the South East, the Igbo homeland, is under a mindless and suffocating siege. The South East, Mr. President, holds the unenviable record of the most policed and militarized space in the world. The region as at today is being emasculated with a total of 98 military checkpoints alone, without prejudice to hundreds of police checkpoints. As you well know, the Igbo are avid travellers, they are in every nook and cranny of this country and have not seen this type of policing and militarization elsewhere. The Igbo deserve to live in Nigeria in dignity. I urge you to immediately direct both the police and military high commands to dismantle these oppressive checkpoints.
•Gaius Chibueze is the founder of Eastside Ventures/Voice of the East Media, the convener of the Ndi Igbo Awake Initiative, and the initiator of the #EconomicBiafraMantra