From Uchenna Ezeadigwe
Awka
The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, a research and investigative rights group, has reported that no fewer than 2,000 citizens in south eastern Nigeria have since January 2021, been abducted, killed or maimed by various security operatives in Nigeria.
Among the security outfits fingered by the group are the Nigerian Army and operatives of the Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Navy, Department of State Service (DSS) and others.
The allegations were contained in a statement signed by the group’s Principal Officers, Nze Emeka Umeagbalasi, Barr Chinwe Umeche, Barr Obianuju Igboeli, and Barr Chidimma Udegbunam.
According to the group, out of the over 2,000 victims, nothing less than 500 have disappeared and feared killed in secret custody of the Army, while others “have been made victims of unlawful executions and will never return alive.”
“The abduction involved the victims being secretly arrested at ungodly hours, falsely and criminally labeled without conclusive investigations; the victims were held secretly amidst torture and other degrading treatments or punishments; and treated ‘extra jus’ detention without fair court trial and access to the victims by their families, physicians and lawyers.
“The military and police killings involved not less than 40 killed in Imo, 30 in Akwa Ibom, 20 in Abia, 15 in Rivers, 13 in Anambra, 10 in Ebonyi, 8 in Cross River, 5 in Enugu and none in Delta.
All the states mentioned are collectively the victims of the ongoing military abductions and disappearances.
“In the area of inter-agency responsibility as regards to the abductions, killings, and disappearances, among others, soldiers of the Nigerian Army are the most crude, brutish and unprofessional; accounting for many of the killings and most of the disappearances.
“Soldiers, police and DSS shared responsibility for abducting no fewer than 2,000 south easterners since January 2021.
This, they jointly did through late night house raids, house-to-house search, stop-and-search and other forms of operational patrols.”
The group further reported that, “while police personnel abducted and kept most of the abductees alive amidst torture and other inhuman treatments including detention without trial; soldiers and DSS are notoriously known to be abducting and taking the abductees to unkempt places where access to their families, physicians and lawyers is totally blocked and denied.”
“We have made recent discovery of secret transfer of between 300 and 350 abducted south eastern citizens to Makurdi Prisons (Correctional Facility), in Benue State.
They were among those abducted in Imo, Abia, Anambra and Ebonyi, among others and held in secrecy for months before secretly transferred to the named prison facilities, the statement reads.
