A harmattan of chaos is blowing across Nigeria`s South East region, the ancestral home of Ndigbo, and it is gradually reducing a once proud prosperous and peaceful region to a mound of uncertainty and insecurity.
It began with the activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB); a movement committed to enforcing the right of the Southeast to self-determination from the rest of Nigeria. But it has quickly morphed into something completely unrecognisable.
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The activities of the IPOB have especially picked up steam in the last one year after its leader; Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was arrested in Kenya and brought back to Nigeria to continue his trial that had been stalled when he fled the country in 2017 as the Nigerian army reportedly surrounded his country home in Abia State.
With the trial of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu having continued at the Federal High Court in Abuja amid much drama and fireworks, the IPOB has recourse to a series of measures to crank up pressure on the Federal Government. One of the more serious measures is the weekly sit-at-home observed every Monday in the South East which successfully grounds activities.
The sit-at-home order receives large-scale observation in the South East and the controversies it has always generated have only heightened with the announcement of the IPOB that it had washed its hands off the order and was no longer responsible for its enforcement.
There have also been the indiscriminate attacks on innocent people in the South East, the effect of which is the decimation of the security architecture of the region. Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the security situation of the South East has deteriorated.
The situation is alarming for a region where the haunting memories of the Nigerian Civil War are still vivid.
Even more alarming is the finger-pointing going on in the region. While many state governments in the South East blame the IPOB, the IPOB blames the attacks on unscrupulous elements sponsored by the government.
It has also been said in recent times that splinter groups have emerged within the IPOB and are now unleashing mayhem on innocent people in the South East. It also appears that criminal elements who are accountable only to themselves, have taken it upon themselves to turn the South East into a theatre of war.
On the night of Sunday, May 15 2022, suspected arsonists burnt down the Idemili North Local Government Secretariat in Ogidi, Anambra State and also a magistrate court in the area. Files and properties in the building including vehicles outside the building were all burnt to ashes.
The attack in Ogidi continued a string of burnings that have cast the South East into a darkness it is mightily struggling to escape. And there must be some form of responsibility and accountability for the insecurity currently engulfing the South East.
It is greatly disturbing that a region that used to be in the news for the giant strides of its people in different areas of life are always in the news for all the wrong reasons nowadays. Buildings continue to go up in flames every day, and people keep getting killed, yet no one is brought to book.
The last five years have shown that insecurity is at the moment Nigeria’s biggest challenge as a country. The South East used to be relatively safe. But those days appear to be finally over now and every effort must be put into fishing out those who are determined to turn the South East into a war zone.
Because they are enemies of Nigeria, they can have no justification for their iniquitous crimes against a people whose only crime till date is deep desire to live in peace.
Kene Obiezu writes from Abuja
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