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By Okechukwu Nwanguma
How can human beings with blood flowing through their veins enter another person’s home, seize a husband, wife, son or daughter and make that person disappear?
How can security agents – fathers, mothers, husbands, wives and members of communities – subject fellow citizens to torture, starvation, prolonged isolation and detention in places hidden from their families? What happens to the human conscience when an officer can look into the eyes of a desperate wife or ageing mother, deny holding her relative and return to a cell where that same person may be suffering?
These are not abstract questions. They arise from testimonies presented at the joint press conference convened in Enugu on 17 October 2026 by the Southeast Human Rights Bureau, the Oganihu Igbo Development Foundation and the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law.
The testimonies described people taken from their homes, workplaces and places of worship; relatives arrested in place of persons being sought; detainees moved across several states without notification; families searching police stations, DSS facilities, military formations, correctional centres, courts, hospitals and mortuaries; and people detained for years without access to independent lawyers.
Some survivors alleged that they were beaten with cables, wood and iron objects, starved, bound, denied medical treatment and held in overcrowded or underground cells. Others spoke of detainees who died in custody or disappeared after arrest. Families reported receiving information from released detainees that their missing relatives had been seen at Tiger Base in Owerri or Wawa Military Barracks in Niger State, while the authorities offered no reliable account of their whereabouts.
These allegations require independent investigation. But their number, consistency and similarity make it impossible to dismiss them as isolated grievances or inventions by aggrieved families.
From Arrest to Disappearance
When State agents arrest a person, that person does not cease to exist before the law. Arrest creates a heightened duty of care. The State must record the person’s identity, the reason for the arrest, the arresting officers, the place of detention and every subsequent transfer. The detainee must have access to family members, an independent lawyer, medical care and a court.
Yet the testimonies describe a disturbing system in which arrest becomes disappearance.
Mrs Chinyere Blessing Nwachukwu said police officers took her husband from their Port Harcourt home in 2021. Former detainees allegedly contacted her on three occasions to say they had seen him at Tiger Base in Owerri. The facility reportedly denied holding him. Years later, his family still does not know whether he is alive.
Ifeanyi Thomas Arinze was reportedly taken from his Owerri home in November 2021 by persons identified by his family as DSS operatives. Survivors released from Wawa Barracks have reportedly said they saw him there during 2026. His family has received no reliable official information about his present location or legal status.
Okechukwu Paul was reportedly taken from Owerri in October 2021. His wife has neither seen nor heard from him since. Former detainees also reportedly claimed to have seen him at Wawa Barracks this year.
These accounts raise a simple question: if the State did not arrest or detain these men, will it investigate who did? If they were arrested by State agents, why can the responsible agencies not account for them?
Silence is not an answer. Denial unsupported by transparent custody records is not accountability.
What Stuff Are the Perpetrators Made Of?
What stuff are officers who perpetrate torture and disappearance made of? How do people entrusted with weapons and public authority become so stripped of empathy that the suffering of another human being means nothing?
We must resist the temptation to explain cruelty simply by describing individual officers as monsters. That explanation is emotionally satisfying but institutionally inadequate. The deeper problem is a security system that can normalise cruelty, conceal wrongdoing and reward silence.
An officer may torture because he believes violence is an acceptable investigative method. Another may deny holding a detainee because registers are weak, transfers are undocumented and commanders demand results without questioning how they are obtained. Others participate because they have seen colleagues commit similar acts without consequences.
Over time, impunity becomes training. Silence becomes an operational procedure. Cruelty becomes routine.
This does not excuse individual responsibility. Every officer who tortures, unlawfully detains, conceals a detainee or destroys evidence must be identified and held accountable. But responsibility must also reach those who command, supervise and protect them.
A junior officer does not establish a secret detention system alone. He does not independently transfer detainees across several states, hold civilians for years in a military facility, conceal deaths, resist family access and frustrate court orders without institutional cooperation or failure.
The question is therefore not only who carried out the torture. It is also who authorised the operation, who received the reports, who controlled the detention facility, who signed the transfer documents, who failed to inspect the cells and who protected the perpetrators afterwards.
Plead Guilty and Go Home
Among the most disturbing allegations is that prolonged and exhausted detainees are sometimes pressured to plead guilty in the belief that doing so will end their ordeal and secure their freedom. Instead, some reportedly receive long prison sentences or life imprisonment.
Imagine a person held for years, cut off from family, deprived of independent legal advice and uncertain whether anyone knows where he is. Place that person before a court and present a guilty plea as the only route out of indefinite detention. Can such a plea genuinely be described as voluntary?
A valid guilty plea must be informed, unequivocal and freely made. A plea produced by torture, threats, exhaustion, deception or a false promise of release is not justice. It is the transformation of earlier abuse into a judicial outcome.
Abel Onyedikachi Ugwuoke reportedly disappeared on 8 December 2024 after leaving his family compound on his motorcycle. His family later learned from unofficial sources that he was in Kuje Custodial Centre. He was reportedly tried without effective legal representation and sentenced to life imprisonment. People who saw him described a severe deterioration in his mental condition.
Esther Okwudili Egbom was reportedly taken from a prayer ministry in Aba when security operatives could not find the man they were seeking. Her family searched for her without success. She later appeared before the Federal High Court in Abuja, was reportedly tried without legal representation, sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and transferred to Suleja Custodial Centre.
Ezugwu Paul Ejike was reportedly taken by unidentified persons in December 2024 and subsequently sentenced to 40 years’ imprisonment, allegedly without effective legal representation.
These convictions must be independently examined. That is not a declaration that every convicted person is innocent. It is a demand that Nigeria establish whether the defendants had competent and independent lawyers, understood the charges and consequences of their pleas, and acted without coercion or inducement.
Counterterrorism is not strengthened by convictions of doubtful integrity. Such convictions may imprison innocent people, conceal investigative incompetence and leave actual perpetrators free.
Why Are Civilians Held in Military Barracks?
The use of Wawa Military Barracks to detain civilians raises further questions.
Why should civilians arrested without arms and accused mainly of association, past membership or suspected sympathy with a proscribed separatist organisation be held for years inside a military facility?
Military barracks must not become opaque substitutes for police stations, correctional centres and courts. Persons accused of criminal offences should be processed through the civilian criminal-justice system, with proper records, legal representation, medical care, family access and judicial supervision.
If the detention of every civilian at Wawa is lawful, the authorities should have no difficulty publishing the legal basis, judicial orders and custody status of each person. They should account for everyone presently or previously held there, including those who were transferred, released, prosecuted or died.
The reported case of Calista Ifedi demands particular urgency. She and her husband, Sunday, were reportedly arrested by the DSS in Enugu in 2021 and transferred to Wawa. Sunday was eventually released after more than four years. Calista reportedly died in custody and was buried in a shallow grave.
If this report is accurate, where is her grave? What caused her death? Was her family notified? Was an autopsy conducted? Who authorised her burial?
A Nigerian citizen cannot die in State custody and be secretly buried as though she had no name, family or human dignity.
The Silence of Those Mandated to Act
Perhaps as disturbing as the alleged atrocities is the silence of those constitutionally and statutorily required to prevent them.
Where are the heads of the security agencies under whose commands these operations were conducted?
Where are the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Attorneys-General of the affected states? They are not merely government lawyers expected to defend every action of the State. They are custodians of the law and public interest.
Where are the National Human Rights Commission, the Police Service Commission and the internal disciplinary and complaints mechanisms of the security agencies?
Where are the National Assembly and state legislatures, with their powers of oversight and investigation?
Where are the governors, who regularly attend security meetings and receive security briefings but often claim helplessness when citizens disappear?
Institutional silence is not neutral. When officials who have the power and duty to act look away, their inaction enables repetition. It tells perpetrators that nobody will ask questions. It tells victims that citizenship offers them no protection. It teaches communities to distrust the very institutions established to protect them.
Officials cannot claim ignorance indefinitely. Families have written petitions. Survivors have spoken publicly. Courts have delivered judgments. Civil society organisations have published reports. The evidence may require verification, but the duty to investigate has long arisen.
A Judgment Without Enforcement Is an Unfinished Victory
Ngozi Gladys Agboje’s case demonstrates that courts can affirm the rights of victims.
In October 2023, the Federal High Court in Abuja found that her arrest and detention from 28 June to 15 September 2021 violated her fundamental rights. The Court upheld her complaints of torture, degrading treatment and unlawful interference with her property. It awarded her ₦30 million in damages and ordered the police to tender an unreserved public apology.
More than three years later, critical questions remain: Has the compensation been paid? Has the apology been issued? Have her belongings been returned? Were the officers implicated in her torture investigated? Has an appeal or stay of execution prevented enforcement?
A judgment that is ignored is an unfinished victory. It may vindicate the survivor on paper while leaving the institutions and perpetrators unchanged.
The true measure of accountability is not merely whether a victim can obtain a favourable judgment. It is whether the judgment is obeyed, whether the survivor receives redress, whether perpetrators face consequences and whether institutional practices change.
Security Without Humanity Is Insecurity
The atrocities committed by armed separatist elements and criminal gangs must also be condemned without qualification. Civilians have been murdered, security officers ambushed, traditional rulers attacked, people abducted and public facilities destroyed.
Those crimes must be investigated and their perpetrators prosecuted through fair and lawful proceedings.
But crimes committed by non-state actors cannot become a licence for State lawlessness. The distinguishing quality of the State is not merely that it possesses superior force. It is that its power is regulated by law.
When security agents arrest without records, torture suspects, conceal detainees, procure questionable pleas and disregard court judgments, they weaken rather than defend national security. They deepen resentment, destroy public trust and deny law-enforcement agencies the community cooperation and intelligence required to combat genuine threats.
A security system denuded of humanism ultimately becomes another source of insecurity.
The Time for Silence Has Passed
The Federal Government must order an independent audit of civilian detention at Wawa Barracks and other facilities linked to these allegations. Every detainee must be identified and accounted for. Custody and transfer records must be preserved and disclosed to competent investigators.
The reported convictions obtained without effective legal representation or through allegedly coerced pleas must be reviewed. Detainees with serious medical or mental-health conditions, including Abel Ugwuoke, require urgent independent assessment and treatment.
Allegations involving Tiger Base, the Intelligence Response Team and other formations must be investigated. Unidentified bodies in Imo State must be preserved and subjected to independent forensic examination. Families must be allowed to participate in a protected DNA identification process.
Most importantly, security commanders, attorneys-general, oversight agencies and legislative bodies must break their silence. They must act before more records disappear, more bodies are disposed of, more witnesses die and more families lose hope.
This is not a defence of IPOB, ESN or any other organisation. It is not opposition to legitimate security operations. It is a demand that Nigerian law protect every person, including those accused of serious crimes.
Where evidence exists, prosecute promptly and fairly.
Where there is no lawful basis for detention, release the person.
Where someone is transferred, record it and notify the family.
Where a person dies in custody, investigate and account to the family.
Where a court delivers judgment, obey it.
Where a security agent commits a crime, prosecute that agent.
No uniform should extinguish the human conscience. No barracks should operate beyond the reach of the law. No allegation should erase a citizen’s humanity.
And no Nigerian should simply disappear.
Okechukwu Nwanguma is the Executive Director of the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC).
