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Prominent pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy group: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has bemoaned the persistent inaction of the governors of the South East of Nigeria to contain the gripping insecurity in the region.
It also faulted the governors and elected political leaders for failures to jointly set up a regional wide security outfit in the mould of the AMOTEKUN of the South-West in order to combat the unprecedented insecurity in Igboland.
Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the National Coordinator of HURIWA, in a statement issued in Abuja, accused the governors of apparently becoming wealthier living off the security votes since they sit by and do nothing and allow for the continuous expansion of ungoverned spaces in the South-East which are now territories under the control of different ragtag armed non-state actors wielding unimaginable deadly weapons and threatening the lives and property of citizens of those Igbo region.
HURIWA asserts that it bears repeating that the southeast geopolitical zone of Nigeria has been uncontrollably overwhelmed by continuous and disturbing insecurity, made complicated by the Indigenous People of Biafra’s (IPOB) “sit-at-home” orders, which have crippled economic activity and normal life.
HURIWA accuses the federal government of compromise due to its clear inability or unwillingness to tackle the root causes of the insurgency in the region such as the continuous and unjust detention of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the systematic exclusion of Igbos from core appointments and infrastructures even as the Rights group said the accusations against the central government by the people of the South-East region of government's complicity and compromise can be justified since it is factually accurate that President Bola Tinubu has failed to concretely confront the unprecedented insecurity in the Igbo region.
"It is no secret that the government abdicates its security responsibility, citizens are left to suffer, and the economy is suffocating even as the systematic dimension of blame-shifting and inaction only escalates suspicions of powerful sponsors behind the protracted instability which invariably has political connotations.
HURIWA agrees with a recent expert opinion that "the abdication of security responsibility is evident. During the first two years of the “sit-at-home”, security agencies that should reassure the public instead vanish from towns and highways across the southeast. It is still partially so in some states. Markets, banks, schools transport services— vital symbols of civil life — are shuttered in fear, while citizens, left to fend for themselves, opt to remain indoors. It is not simply the threat of violence that keeps them at home; it is the visible withdrawal of the state."
"HURIWA acknowledges the truth established by a security expert that "today, the theory of culpability is gaining ground. When citizens have no banks to transact with, no schools to send their children to, and no markets to trade in — even when they would prefer to ignore sit-at-home orders — the economy suffocates and normal life collapses. How does one defy sit-at-home when the government itself has abandoned the streets? allowing sit-at-home to persist for nearly four years is tantamount to conceding control to non-state actors. Worse, it mirrors the FG’s disturbing tendency to blame victims of insecurity rather than confront its own failures — much like it did during the massacres in the Middle Belt, where farmers were blamed for not cooperating with security forces".
HURIWA therefore advocate for a South-East regional efficient, non-partisan and citizens' powered security outfit to assist the regular security forces in the Igbo states to root out the dark forces that are making lives unbearable and difficult for the people just as the Rights group asked the Service Chiefs to re-strategize their security measures, end the persistent highway extortion by security agents and introduce foolproof and proactive security measures to regain control of the extensive ungoverned spaces in the South-East as a matter of extreme urgency.