.Ebubeagu inspired by Caliphate to truncate ESN, others, CSO alleges
ADEKUNLE ADESUJI,Abuja
Senator representing Ebonyi Central District in the Natíonal Assembly, Obinna Ogba, has warned that no amount of instigated crises can deter the Igbos from producing the next president of the country in 2023.
Addressing newsmen after presenting a motion, “Incessant killings in Ebonyi State” on the floor of the upper legislative chamber, Ogba lamented the reoccurring invasion of the state, adding that he was aware of the plot by some disgruntled elements in the country to overrun the zone with crisis with a view to discouraging the South East from producing the next president.
He said: “Well, this war can not stop us from producing president of Igbo extraction in 2021 election. There has been similar crisis to in other parts of the country and it didn’t stop them from producing the president.
“So, this current killings in the zone can not stop us from contesting and producing a president of Igbo extraction for this country. It can not stop us. Nobody should hide under the lingering insecurity in the zone to stop the Igbos from producing the next president. It is the turn of the South East to produce the president,if they want Nigeria to remain one.”
He added, “We have never witnessed this kind of killings in the South East geopolitical zone before now. You go to bed and sleep with your two eyes closed but today you hear that somebody will be sleeping and strange elements will come to kill and raze his house down.
“Some of these crises are generated by individuals and the individuals are known yet such characters are moving about freely without anybody arresting them. So, I felt I should raise the motion so the the federal government can come to our rescue.”
Earlier in his motion, Ogba had expressed concern that, “the killing, maiming, kidnapping and wanton destruction of lives and property by herdsmen have now become the daily experience of citizens and defenseless people of Ebonyi State who are murder in their numbers almost on weekly basis.”
He informed that on March 30, 2021, over 18 indigenes of Egedege, Obehi and Amuzu communities in Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, including a priest, were gruesomely murdered in cold blood by rampaging herdsmen.
He also cited the ugly incidence of three policemen who were shot dead at a check point in Onuebonyi/Nwezenyi Road, Abakaliki and their riffles taken away on Wednesday, April 14, 2021.
Ogba, declared that there was the urgent need for intervention by the federal government to arrest the senseless killings, destruction of properties and other vices, in order to save the people from untold hardship.
The Senate therefore asked the Nigerian Police and other relevant security agencies to carry out comprehensive investigation of these attacks with a view to arresting and prosecuting the perpetrators of the dastardly act.
‘Ebubeagu’ is caliphate inspired to truncate ESN, others -CSO
PHIL OKOSE, Onitsha
A Civil Society Organization, CSO, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Intersociety, on Wednesday in Onitsha, Anambra State, hinted that Ebubeagu, the Southeast Governors’ security outfit, is a caliphate inspired counter measure to truncate or weaken non-state actor arrangement that include, Eastern Security Network, ESN, and other non-state actor vigilante operatives in the Southeast who resort to self defence.
Giving the hint, the Intersociety chairman, Nze Emeka Umeagbalasi, added that “the latest move of the Southeast Governors’ Forum is also likely geared towards using the outfit to protect and consolidate the jihadist Fulani incursion and settlement in bushes, forests and farmlands in the Southeast zone and its outposts in Benue, Kogi, Rivers, Cross Rivers, Edo and Delta states”.
“Ebubeagu is meaninglessly a camouflage especially when the Nigerian Army has used similar camouflage like Egwu-Eke and Atilogwu Udo to massacre over 700 unarmed defenceless igbo”, he stated.
He said section 258 of the Criminal Code and section 59-60 of the Penal Code provided for self defence, maintaining that “Intersociety is strongly suspicious of the panicky and hurried announcement of the Southeast governors’ security , Ebubeagu, coming when all hopes have been lost from state actor angles, forcing most citizens of the region to place their hopes, expectation and solutions on the table of non state actors”.
“We are very surprised to hear the sudden announcement. Intersociety doubts the sincerity and genuiness of the promoters of the new security outfit”.
“It is doubtful whether critical indigenous stakeholders and other interest groups were duly consulted and carried along.
Ebubeagu is most likely a baptism name given to the 2019 illegitimate and unpopular community policing arrangement by the same Southeast
Governors during which all security chiefs that attended the meeting where the decision to use community policing to checkmate menaces of
jihadist Fulani heardsmen in the zone were made up of Fulani and Hausa muslims”, Umeagbalasi revealed.
