The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has asked the Federal government in conjunction with the governors of the South East of Nigeria to set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to investigate the spate of coordinated attacks of strategic national security assets and killings of security agents in the country.
The group also wants the investigation to include the recent violent attack of the Federal Correction Centre and the Police facilities in Owerri, the Imo State’s capital.
HURIWA recalled that unidentified gunmen on Monday morning attacked the Owerri Correctional Prison in the Imo State capital and freed over 1500 inmates just as the attackers also razed the Imo State Police Command headquarters in Owerri, freeing suspects in almost all the cells at the State Criminal Investigation Department of the command.
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According to the human rights group, the attackers had a free run for a long period of time between 1 am 3 am without interference or counterattacks after singing solidarity songs at the Government House Roundabout for about 30 minutes.
Reacting to the reported violence in Owerri , Imo State capital and what it called the temporary death of law enforcement, the civil rights advocacy group- want a thorough forensic and Judicial investigation of the attacks in Owerri alongside other associated violent attacks with deadly consequences targeted at mostly uniformed members of the security forces and strategic national security assets.
The Rights group said the investigation of the attacks happening in the South-East of Nigeria is aimed at ascertaining the sponsors of the dastardly and cowardly attacks believed to be choreographed and formidably coordinated by some external forces working with some internal forces who are in a frenzy to ignite and instigate the collapse of security and economic stability of the Igbo speaking region.
In a media statement by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, expressed shock that soldiers located at Obinze, the entirety of the Police and the state directorate of Department of State Services (DSS), did almost nothing to stop the attackers from succeeding in freeing the prisoners and setting ablaze the vehicles and facilities of both the Federal Correctional Centre and tge Imo State’s Command of the Nigerian Police force.
“There is more to it than meets the eyes. We think this is an unusual occurrence that must be confronted by all means necessary. This regime of the unruly gunmen sponsored by God knows who must never be allowed to blossom and take roots in the South East of Nigeria or anywhere in the South of Nigeria which has remained relatively peaceful even amidst terrorism and armed banditry in much of Northern Nigeria.
“We call on the governments of all the states in the South East and the crude oil-rich states of the Niger Delta to meet immediately and convoke a security summit to investigate the sources of these premeditated attacks”.
“We call for the formation by the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari through the Vice President and the Chief of Staff to set up a high powered judicial panel of investigators to immediately set to work to uncover the remote, immediate and possible causes and sponsors of these attacks which we believe are sponsored by some forces working towards destroying the peace of the South East of Nigeria.
“There is a plot by some persons working and embedded in government in Abuja who wants to instigate unrests in the usually quiet and peaceful Igbo land so as to deny the region of the opportunity of making a strong case to produce the President of Nigeria of South East extraction in the 2023 Presidential elections.”
(Editor: Abaje Usekwe)
