A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has challenged governors of the South East of Nigeria to articulate and publicise a workable security template for the Igbo-speaking geopolity to stem the rapidly expanding frontiers of terror attacks and other criminal manifestations in the region.

“South East of Nigeria has, for over three years, become a notable flashpoint for all kinds of security challenges, including but not limited to the coordinated attacks targeting strategic national security assets, killings of many innocent Igbo people by suspected armed Fulani terrorists and even armed security services whilst carrying out internal security operations against perceived members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and unfortunately, both the federal government and the states in the South East have abandoned the good people of Igboland to face cruel fate in the hands of some armed terrorists seeking to enforce the illegal Monday’s sit-at-home order ordered allegedly by someone residing in Finland.

“Again, many important reports on these security issues and their implications, point towards a coordinated plan by some forces to deny Igbo people of their democratic rights to vote and be voted for in the elections that would come up barely a month and half away. This is therefore a clarion call for the South East political leaders, both elected and appointed, to articulate and publish and indeed start implementing a thoroughly articulate security blueprint and template for the South East of Nigeria,” HURIWA said in a statement on Monday, January 9, 2023.

HURIWA also said the rationale for the South East governors and political leaders to work out security template for the region and enforce such immediately was because the over reliance on the intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari has failed to stave off terrorists attacks all over Nigeria, thereby demonstrating the necessity for such sub-national and regional approach to fighting insecurity such as the South West Governors have achieved with Amotekun security network in the Southwest region.

HURIWA reminded South East governors that despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to the Nigerian Armed Forces and other security formations to end insecurity and restore order and stability in the country by the end of December 2022, terrorism in the form of insurgency, banditry and killings by alleged separatists have continued to claim lives.

HURIWA claim the deadline elapsed, four policemen were killed on January 2, 2022 when gunmen bombed the convoy of the former Governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim, in Ehime Mbano Local Government Area of the state.

However, President Buhari had, in his New Year message, said the year 2023 would be a time his administration would use to work to solidify on delivering key strategic priorities under its Security, Economy and Anti-Corruption (SEA) agenda.

The President had said the fight against banditry, kidnapping and other crimes in the North West and other regions was gaining momentum and showing clear results, citing the resumption of train service along the Kaduna to Abuja corridor.

But HURIWA in the statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, tasked the political, religious, cultural and civil society leaders of South East to immediately articulate a robust security template for South East to take back the control of the region's ungoverned spaces from armed non-state actors that have largely been tolerated by the federal government whose deadline for ending insecurity has come and gone without compliance by the armed security agencies.

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