Igbo Group Blames Insecurity on Injustice, Bad Governance

By Onyebuchi Ezigbo

Nzuko Umuna, an Igbo think-tank, has stated that Nigeria is witnessing worsening insecurity due to injustice, inequalities and lack of good governance.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja, the Chairman of the legal committee of the Igbo think- tank, Mr. Sam Amadi, said unfair and unequal treatment of citizens have helped to compound the already compounded insecurity crisis in the country.

Amadi lamented that the South-east region, which used to be the “safest region in Nigeria,” has now become “a theatre of organised criminality.

“Nzuko Umuna recognises that Nigeria has descended into a depth of insecurity partly because of the failure of governance across the country and particularly because of inequities and injustices of political leadership in Nigeria.

“We acknowledge that the perception of unfair and unequal treatment of the citizens has compounded the insecurity crisis,” the former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) said.

Amadi further said the reported order by the Inspector-General of Police (IG), Alkali Usman Baba, to police officers to ignore human rights while dealing with insecurity in the South-east region would only escalate the crisis in the region.

According to him, “We consider this statement horrifying, frightening and unutterable in a democracy with entrenched constitutional rights to life and due process.

“We are more surprised that the head of the Nigerian Police would make such an outrageous statement authorising state violence in a region that for long has been seething with anger at police brutality and extortion; a region whose youths have been extra-judicially killed by security agents in large numbers.”

Amadi said statements like those of the IG have further deepened the sense of victimisation by the state and therefore escalates the crisis.

The group leader added: “We stand with the South-east governors, the Ohaneze Ndigbo, and other civic organisations in Igbo land to demand proper forensic audit of the hitherto unheard ‘unknown gunmen’ syndrome, as it is strange to the customs and norms of people of the region.

“We know from data available in public domain that there has been escalation of killing of police officers across the country before the current wave of attacks in the Southeast.

“This suggests that the ‘unknown gunmen’ phenomenon may relate to a more complex crisis of insecurity in Nigeria. With open borders, increasing poverty and frustration of youths, corruption in the most hallowed centres of law enforcement, herdsmen violence and banditry, and political brigandage in Nigeria, a simplistic and unscientific explanation of the ‘unknown gunmen’ phenomenon does not suffice.”