Disturbed by the alleged killing of scores of wedding guests in Imo State by Ebubeagu, a Civil Rights body, HURIWA, has urged the National Assembly’s public petitions committee to investigate the alleged massacre on their own for the public good.
The Civil Society Group, HURIWA, said the committees on the public petitions of both chambers of the National Assembly to launch an open transparent, and publicized independent investigation into the alleged killings by ebubeagu of over one dozen wedding guests in Awo-omama, Imo State.
In a press statement signed by HURIWA’S National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the group also tasked the Senator representing the people to act swiftly to stop the massacre from being swept under the carpets.
HURIWA said it is totally obscene and unconstitutional and indeed unconscionable that the Imo State governor and the DSS are both narrating a different version of the killings which the villagers have alleged were killings done in public execution-style by the Ebubeagu but both the governor and the DSS claimed that those killed by members of Eastern Security network. Going by the deep gulf between all the claims about the killings, the need has therefore arisen for the lawmakers in Abuja to act to safeguard human rights.
The civil rights body said it is shocking that days after the alleged wedding guests were allegedly murdered, the DSS is reported to have made a claim that those killed died during an exchange of fire which is contrary to the claims made by the villagers who raised the alarm in the first place.
The Rights group said it is now imperative that the nation is informed of what truly took place just as HURIWA said that Nigeria is the only country in the world whereby armed security operatives kill citizens at will and may brand the victims as bandits or just conjure up any story and there is no independent agency funded by taxpayers to forensically ascertain if the killing was justifiable.
HURIWA said that in most civilized societies the National Assembly provides such a safeguard but wonders why many incidents of suspected extramural executions of citizens by security forces are happening and there are no reassuring institutional methods of accountability.
HURIWA recalled that the Department of State Services (DSS) has made claims on the seven persons in Imo State, who were alleged to be wedding guests. In what it termed its clarification yesterday in Owerri, the Imo State capital, on what has been classified as “Awomama Killings”, the DSS said the victims were alleged members of the Eastern Security Network (ESN). The DSS insisted that the victims killed on Sunday were members of ESN and not guests coming from a wedding ceremony as against earlier reports.The agency made this known in a statement made available to newsmen when it paraded the suspect at the command in Owerri. The DSS said the victims fell during a fierce gun battle between a joint security team and the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its armed affiliate, Eastern Security Network last Sunday.
HURIWA dismissed the claims of the Imo State Governor and the DSS as unsatisfactory and one-sided and said it will on its own be sending a petition soon to the National Assembly if the public petitions’ committees wouldn’t on their own initiate a probe into this allegation of massacre of civilians, Imo citizens that has already circulated globally.
The group said since Nigeria is a constitutional democracy and not the banana republic that both the Imo State governor and the DSS’S accounts of the incident have made the Country to be, there is the need for the National Assembly to step in immediately and transparently collate claims and counterclaims on the incident and then reach a determination that will be satisfactory.
“Assuming without conceding that those killed were not wedding guests as claimed by Hope Uzodima why should Ebubeagu fire their bullets to kill persons riding on motorcycles? What is lawful would have been for the Imo State government to investigate the killing but sadly the governor even took sides before ascertaining what really happened. This is so cruel, inhumane, wicked, irrational, and insensitive that the governor can dismiss the alleged mass shooting of Imo citizens on the excuse that they were ‘bandits’ even before any sort of forensic probe is instituted”.
HURIWA quoting several media channels stated that there was considerable trepidation, and unprecedented anger in Imo State on Monday after news filtered in that gunmen suspected to be operatives of Ebubeagu Security outfit allegedly killed 7 wedding guests in Awomama, Oru West Local Government Area of the state.
