A leading civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Associatiom of Nigeria (HURIWA), has condemned what it described as "the conspiratorial silence" and the apparent non-challant attitudes of President Muhammadu Buhari, and the Service Chiefs of the Armed Forces of Nigeria to the constant attacks and killings of State and non-state actors by unidentified armed non-state actors in Imo State.

HURIWA singled out the Nigerian Police Force, the Department of State Services and the Nigerian Army for abandoning the people of Imo State to be killed crudely by terrorists of all hues and affiliations.

The group is therefore querying the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, and the Director-Genera of Director of State Security (DSS) Yusuf Magaji Bichi, if they were waiting for a full-blown rebellion to start in Imo State before these heads of the federally-controlled security agencies could put measures backed up by qualitative and actionable intelligence in place to appropriately apprehend the real sponsors and perpetrators of these provocative killings in Imo State.

HURIWA is expressing worry over the failure of the heads of security agencies in Imo State to change their branch heads in the state who have shown lack of capacities and alleged compromise with armed non-alstate actors and were allowing for unprecedented successful attacks in the state which in the recent times have become predictable and choreographed.

HURIWA said in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emma Onwubiko,: "It looks like the Federal Government wants Imo State people to take up arms to defend their fundamental right to life which can't be redressed or recovered if destroyed by the armed non-state actors that the Imo State and Federal Government administrators have allowed to continue to kill off the people without provocation. The fact is that policing in Imo State has failed and the condition of insecurity has become like a hydra-headed monster that needs to be curtailed before the entire population is consumed."

The group, therefore, demanded comprehensive measures by the Federal Government to bring to an end, the massive scale of coordinated killings.

It also lamented the killing on Thursday of a customary court judge in the state, Nnaemeka Ugboma, who until his gruesome killing, presided over an Imo Magistrate Court in Ejemekwuru, Oguta local government area.

"HURIWA is saddened that people are being killed and the police Chief in Imo State knows next-to-nothing on what to do to bring the terrorists and killers to justice. How can a state government be happy and be conducting mundane affairs unaffected by the suffering and torment being unleashed on the ordinary people who are the taxpayers but whose taxes are misused to pay for the selfish protection of just a few of the governor's appointees whereas the rest of the Imo State people are left to the devices of all sorts of private, State-sponsored armed killers?” the group queried.

"HURIWA expressed consternation that the Imo State Command of the Nigeria Police has gone totally incompetent, inefficient, ineffective, moribund and comprehensively compromised and failed but the most annoying thing is that just like the Police, all the Imo State's heads of the federally-controlled security agencies have abdicated their duties and functions and have allowed armed hoodlums to continue to have field day whilst the police rushes to the Press intermittently with empty propaganda that it is going after the terrorists and this daily claim by the Police is never backed up by any empirical data of what these police operatives in Imo State have done to bring the real killers to justice or are these killers licenced by the Federal government to continue to kill Imo State people?" the statement added.

"Why is the Imo State government doing practically nothing to check these killings and what is the Imo State government doing to convince the people that the killer squads currently running riots all over the State are not hired armed goons of some State Government officials as alleged widely in many circles? The truth is that the killings going on unabated in Imo State will have adverse long-term economic implications in such a way that more businesses will close shops because no sane investor will run their businesses in a war zone in which even the apparatus of government is compromised and suspected to be funding killer squads.

"HURIWA condemns the beheading of the Ideato North's LG administrator, the attack on the residence of Ikenga Ugochinyere of the Coalition of Political Parties, the killings of chieftains of both the Labour Party and the All Progressives Congress but we stoutly condemn the heads of security agencies who have clearly shown their lack of interest to carry out their duties to protect the lives and property of the citizens and this leads us once more to call on the Service chiefs, the IGP, DG OF DSS and Chief of Army Staff to post Igbo- born commanders to the South East of Nigeria." the statement added.

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