Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said the federal government will beef up security around prisons after gunmen on Monday blasted into a corrections centre in Owerri to liberate inmates.
In another incident, armed men torched the police headquarters in Owerri.
Osinbajo has been in Owerri on Tuesday to inspect the extent of damage said the attackers were cowards.
He said that the security forces will go after the attackers wherever they are in order to bring them to justice.
The vice president was conducted round the damaged facilities by the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola and Imo Governor, Hope Uzodimma.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has called for an immediate forensic investigation to unravel the mystery of the attacks.
The National Coordinator, HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko, at a news conference on Tuesday in Abuja noted that similar attacks were reported in Akwa Ibom, Delta and Cross Rivers states.
“We are particularly concerned with the pattern and methodology of these attacks and the ease with which the attackers carry out these dastardly and cowardly, criminal acts and then disappear into thin air only for the Nigerian Police Force to start their empty media propaganda,” Onwubiko said.
He lamented that the attacks in Owerri have been hurriedly described as an act of terrorism and the IGP Mohammed Adamu (now replaced) whose stay in office is a subject of intense ligation by citizens, quickly said IPOB was responsible.
“Where were the Police/Army /DSS/Civil defence when these attackers struck in Owerri and reportedly operated for three hours to an extent that even Akara sellers videoed the incidents but no one counter attack was launched?
“Is it not these police, soldiers, DSS that usually get wind of IPOB meetings and ESN camps and usually launch massive counter operation to nip their activities in the bud with many of the alleged IPOB members killed extrajudicially.
“But gunmen struck and destroyed strategic National Security assets in Owerri but rather than for IGP, DG of DSS, Army Chief and Comptroller General of Prisons to resign for dereliction of duty or to be quarried by the Commander-in-Chief, the President.
“Where are the solid evidence and when was forensic investigations by police carried out or do they work by beer parlour rumours?” Onwubiko said.
He also wondered why the haste to deploy the military to the east if there is no agenda already packaged long ago only waiting for the trigger to now launch the planned attack?
He said, “Is the government rewarding failures of all the relevant heads of security institutions who went to bed and were deep asleep or pretended to be asleep when the violent criminals hit the prisons and destroyed the entire facility belonging to the Police, yet the Military has a base somewhere only few minutes’ walk from where these gunmen attacked in Obinze?”
He therefore urged the United Nations (UN) to note that there is a plan to carry out genocide against innocent Igbo citizens in the guise of looking for IPOB and that the UN and the international community must intervene now to stop the Rwanda type genocide that he fear will happen.
