Pascal Arogorn Ibe
The Archbishop of Owerri Catholic Archdiocese, Most Rev. Anthony J.V Obinna, has urged Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State to as a matter of urgency, convoke a ceasefire meeting with Imo stakeholders as a measure to stop the killings in the state.
In a statement issued in Owerri on Friday, the head of the Catholics in the state equally charged those he called users and abusers of gun and deadly weapons to renounce violence and denounce the show of pride in killing their fellow human beings.
He said that the stakeholders during the meeting, irrespective of their disposition and leaning, would offer a concerted approach towards quenching the bloody fire already ravaging and destroying Imo people.
“I charge the governor as a Chief security officer for Imo people to step up and stop the killings by whoever is responsible for them,” the clergyman pleaded.
Archbishop Obinna expressed pains over the number of corpses he saw at the Federal Medical Centre, FMC, Owerri when he personally visited the mortuary section of the hospital.
According to him, the 35 corpses he saw were dumped stark naked on the bare floor by either the runaway killers, the military, the police or the unknown gunmen with no identity on them.
He said: “I thought of many others who have been kidnapped, taken to unknown locations, killed and even butchered as we continue to hear Imo is bleeding.”
He equally recalled that he also personally had earlier paid a visit to the Federal Correctional Centre, Owerri to see the 106 young men arrested from various locations accused and charged to court for treasonable felony, yet had not been released.
The Archbishop condemned in strong terms, the indiscriminate arrest and killings without clear reasons as a show of what he described as “alleged retaliation”.
He said: “Now our very lives are at stake as killings of Imo people are taking place in broad daylight and at night by both officially and unofficially armed men.”
Obinna pointed out that about this time last year, he had charged the governor and Igbo leaders to protect their people and defend their land but his charge provoked threats and acts of invasion on the farmland by the Fulani herdsmen.
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