Editorial
Today makes it the tenth day that 24 hours curfew was declared in Oyigbo by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike over the riot which was a resultant fallout of the #EndSARS protest. Three police stations were burnt during the riot while four police officers and five soldiers were allegedly killed by hoodlums. Agitated by the arson, Wike blamed the killings and arson on the members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, whose leader, Nnamdi Kanu, a fugitive in London had claimed responsibility.
While the legitimacy of Kanu’s claims will be contested as he had made similar claims over the arson and looting that took place in Lagos, urging security agents to fish out IPOB members by Wike has led to the killings and human rights abuses that have been recorded in the area since the onslaught began, and the subsequent humanitarian crises due to the exodus of the thousands of people running for their lives from the LGA into surrounding LGAs and Port Harcourt. It makes even much sense that the police, last week, claimed to have arrested 21 persons responsible for the arson and the killings during the rioting. What are soldiers still doing in Oyigbo?
It has been argued that state governors do not have control over the military which then invalidates claims that Wike ordered the military action in Oyigbo. But the proponents of these ideas are not being truthful to themselves. Governors can largely provide an enabling ground for soldiers to mow down civilians without the consent of Abuja whom they, the governors feel, are recalcitrant. It happened with the Lekki shooting of #EndSARS protesters where the state government imposed a curfew and invited the army to enforce it. The same pattern was used in Oyigbo where the governor imposed a 24 hours curfew and urged security agents to fish out IPOB members. But IPOB is not written on anyone’s forehead. Security agents could have deployed intelligence to capture those responsible for the killings instead of the crimes against humanity being committed in Oyigbo.
Nnamdi Kanu, by his utterances and actions of his followers, is no longer fighting a just cause but a personal egoistic battle. Kanu has become a threat not to the government but to those who look just like him, but the state government should not use his group as a ploy to punish hundreds of thousands of other Oyigbo residents.
The grievances that made Oyigbo residents to embrace IPOB ideologies are in the public domain. The government should as a matter of urgency begin to address those grievances including allegations of marginalization meted out on the LGA.
Also, the curfew in Oyigbo must be called off and soldiers withdrawn while police use intelligence gathering to arrest perpetrators of the crime.
