Increasing security agents in South-East’ll exacerbate extrajudicial executions, HURIWA warns

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), a civil rights advocacy group, said on Wednesday that President Muhammadu Buhari recently approved the deployment of additional security personnel in the South-East, which will exacerbate extrajudicial killings in the region.

According to HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, the key to long-term peace and security in Imo, Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi, and Abia is real federalism, which empowers state governors to manage security agents as Chief Security Officers of their respective states.

For over a year, the South-East has been a continual killing field as non-state groups and state actors struggle. Scores of police stations have been demolished and government institutions, as well as private properties, have also been exploded by rampaging gunmen, with mounting casualty toll.

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The most recent in the chain of violence was the Saturday bombing of the Umuguma Divisional Police Headquarters in Imo State’s Owerri West Local Government Area, which killed two police officers. Prof George Obiozor’s rural residence in Awo-Omanma in the Oru East Local Government Area of Imo was also destroyed.

The President recently called Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma in response to the escalating number of deaths and attacks, in which the latter accused aggrieved politicians of orchestrating the unrest in Imo. The governor also stated that the President authorized the request for extra security troops to be deployed in the state.

HURIWA reacted by criticizing the deployment of extra security agents, claiming that similar measures had failed in the past but worsened the security crisis in Imo and other South-East states.

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “To start with, the effects of violence, killings, arsons, organised terrorism that have swept around Imo State is worrisome. The constant deployments of soldiers and other security agents in the state and others in the South-East zone have proven ineffective. It is even disturbing that soldiers whose job mainly is to defend the territorial integrity of Nigeria are deployed in Igboland.

“At this time, the deployment of more security agents is a bad decision. The move showcases the non-functionality of federalism as it should be because governors who are Chief Security Officers of their states have no control of even the police and so we see a dysfunctional democracy and federalism in which the President who heads the executive arm of government at the centre ‘summoning’ governors who ought to be the executive heads of their federation units.

“This is the strongest reason for the right constitutional amendments to confer proper executive powers to the federating units in the area of securing their people.

“Secondly, sending more troops and arms at first value is good but it won’t solve the problem because the Federal Government is not tackling the problems from the roots which is to reorganise the heads of the security agencies in the South East so they are more effective.”

“Furthermore, the collaborators of the attackers within the security agencies in the South-East must be identified and fished out and prosecuted for sabotaging the security of the South-East zone. Unless these saboteurs amongst the security agents are fished out and flushed out, there is no possibility of resolving the problems in a lasting manner since the conflict entrepreneurs who benefit from the terrorism in the South East will continue to stoke up the fire of violence.

“Let the President do the needful. Sending all the soldiers to the East won’t solve the problems but will heighten tension because more innocent Igbo youth may be killed by these armed security forces.”