EVEN before its full take-off, the South-East Security Network, Ebubeagu, is derailing in Ebonyi, one of its five participating states. In just a few months of operation, it is departing from its intended role of complementing the federal police force in securing the region from violent crimes and serving the much-needed role of community policing. On Governor Dave Umahi’s watch, the noble initiative is reportedly visiting oppression on residents, thereby compounding the security question it was created to solve. Ebubeagu must not derail.

Its penchant for the flagrant disregard for human rights was on display with the recent torture and death of a suspect, Nnaogo Anyim, in the Ivo Local Government Area. According to reports, that incident provoked an uprising by incensed residents that led to the destruction of about 11 buildings, two petrol filling stations, vehicles and other valuables.

But that was not an isolated case. In September 2021, the operatives allegedly shot dead the daughter of a traditional ruler, Oshimiri Agwu of Onicha. The victim was said to be selling fruits when stray bullets allegedly fired by Ebubeagu officers hit her. In October 2021, the officers allegedly shot dead five youths in Amasiri in the Afikpo North LGA, ostensibly over the sealing of a Lebanese quarrying company.

During plenary penultimate week, members of the House of Representatives from the state accused the Ebubeagu personnel of allegedly killing three residents, Ele Ama, Eric Ukpai, and Phillips Nwaorogbo. Nwaorogbo’s limbs were reportedly amputated by the operatives. According to the lawmakers, the group has no rules of engagement or training despite being well armed. The lawmaker representing Afikpo North and South, Iduma Igariwey, further claimed that the men wore masks and mounted roadblocks. Alarmingly, he alleged that the agency had set up detention centres across the state. These allegations are too weighty to ignore.

What is happening in Ebonyi is disastrous in many respects. First is its implication on security. Ebubeagu, following on the precedent of Amotekun in the South-West, was established to meet popular clamour to tackle rampant Fulani herdsmen attacks, killings, rape and destruction of farms; kidnappings, armed robbery and new menace of “unknown gunmen” appearing across the South-East states. But in Ebonyi, Ebubeagu, by its modus operandi, is compounding insecurity instead. The people and the state’s economy are the worse for it.

Most depressingly, it gives undeserved ammunition to opponents of state and regional policing, whose main ground of opposition has been to play up the fear that state governors would abuse such agencies and convert them to instruments of oppression. This is the strongest reason why all stakeholders must insist that Ebubeagu in Ebonyi should be disbanded immediately and rebuilt afresh.

It rekindles memories of the petrifying days of the dreaded ‘Bakassi Boys’ formed over two decades ago to combat robbery, ritual killings and kidnappings in the South-East, particularly in Onitsha, Anambra State and in Aba, Abia State. The group became power drunk and lawless, engaging in wanton extrajudicial execution of suspects, including hacking people to death in broad daylight and setting others ablaze. Amnesty International estimated that more than 1,000 people were killed by the group, while Human Rights Watch reported that hundreds were brutally tortured into making confessions.

Ebubeagu must be stopped from re-enacting such horrors. Like Amotekun, its remit is, among others, to protect farmers who had suffered from marauding herdsmen. Umahi had while inaugurating the outfit in December stated that the law establishing it made it an appendage of the police and other security agencies to assist in maintaining law and order. He said, “So, this outfit is not alternate police, but this is an outfit that is totally under the tutelage, supervision and monitoring of the police.”

Umahi should demonstrate his impartiality by disbanding and reconstituting the agency. Already, the crucial ingredient of popular buy-in and public confidence is shaky. Of the three “critical components” it identified as indispensable for effective community policing, the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services said “the most essential is community partnership,” the others being organisational transformation and problem-solving.

Opposition figures have accused Ebubeagu of witch-hunting them. If verified, this is unfortunate. Regional and state security agencies should scrupulously steer clear of politics and political organisations. Let the regular police deal with any law enforcement related to partisan politics. Local security groups should remain steadfast in their primary objectives of ridding their forests, highways and farms of killers, kidnappers, robbers, and rapists. Primarily, they should enforce the anti-open grazing laws.

An armed security outfit under a temperamental or careless state chief executive could easily become an instrument of repression, a pitfall that a Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, warned against in January 2021, when he cautioned local security outfits never to become tools of oppression.

An agricultural state, Ebonyi is one of the leading producers of rice, yam, potatoes, maize, beans and cassava in the country. It supplies four million metric tonnes of rice per year. It is the job of the security outfit to keep the largely agrarian population safe and help the economy of the state and the country.

To accomplish this, the current arrangement must be dismantled. The security advisers and those leading the Ebubeagu have got it totally wrong; they should be removed and replaced by responsible, mature security technocrats. A new structure that makes the agency derive its power from the community and accountable to the people should be put in place. They should work in close partnership with the neighbourhood watch, community associations and local vigilantes, and federal security agencies, including the police.

Other South-East states should quickly set up their security outfits as the security of lives and property is the primary responsibility of government. Recruiting the right personnel is crucial. Thugs and criminals must be screened out. They must seek out able-bodied men and women with unblemished records. The heads of the agency should be responsible security experts, possibly retired military, and police or intelligence officers. This model appears to have worked well for the Amotekun Corps. While pressing for this ideal of state policing, abuse by Ebubeagu in Ebonyi should be nipped in the bud.

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