A former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Imo State, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume (SAN) has condemned the killing of residents in four communities in Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State by suspected herdsmen, saying the government was “appearing helpless, inactive or unperturbed.”
According to him, if such killings could take place where there were security agencies, the government was not doing enough.
The affected communities which was turned to a battle field were Nkalaha, Egedege, Obegu and Amazu communities.
Ume said in a statement he signed in his capacity as the Rapporteur of a civil rights organisation, Victims of Persecution, regretted the incessant mass attacks on innocent citizens in the country.
He said the killings have turned indigenes to internally displaced persons in their own ancestral lands.
The statement reads, “We, of the Victims of Persecution do express our dismay, shock and casternation of the slaughtering of scores of defenseless women, children and people from Nkalaha, Obegu, Amazu Nkalagu, Umuhuali autonomous communities in Ishielu L.G.A, Ebonyi State by A-K 47 bearing foreign marauders/mercenaries and Herdsmen.
“It is shocking that Nigerian citizens including mainly the rural dwellers in their natural interior villages would always be subjected to these murderous escapades on daily basis and nothing happens to the murderers.
“The constitutional duties of the military is to ward off armed invasion of any part and territory of Nigeria while the Police and the para-militaries are to ensure that public law and order are ensured in the country. How come these foreign mercenaries are having unfettered field days in our Country?
“We, of the VsoP are asking: in the face of these armed invasions and insurrections by these foreign killers/herdsmen and occupiers, why is the government appearing helpless, inactive or unperturbed.
“The constant murdering of villagers and occupation of their father-land without decisive repulsion by the government is beginning to paint a dirty colour of condonation of the activities of these foreign marauders.
“Indigenes are now becoming the internally displaced persons in their own ancestral lands in Nigeria. On a good day no government can condone insecurity of its citizens and its territories. The ongoing ugly developments in Nigeria are therefore baffling, puzzling and appear to contain more than what the eye is seeing.
“Are they forerunners to a wider scheme? In this age, is violence and colony occupation still a way of life? Are these foreign marauders aiming at converting Nigeria territories to another country or are they disguised instruments to internal gradual hegemonic expansionism.
“Whatever is the underlying devilish ambitions behind the ongoing unleashing of these nightmares on defenseless citizens, we demand that Nigeria government need to listen to the words of Governor Darius Ishaku of Taraba State who when receiving the condolence visit of the 15 LG Chairmen on February 2021, said, ‘we cannot wait for death to come’.”