The impunity that pervades the Southeast zone should not be allowed to continue.

Following disturbing reports about the Lokpanta Cattle Market and environs in Abia State, Governor Alex Otti sent a security outfit for discreet investigations. Discoveries were chilling: dozens of decomposing and headless bodies of men, women, children, and many skeletons were found in the immediate vicinity and around the forests surrounding the market. “We have installed electronic equipment that tells us what is happening in every part of the state,” the governor explained. “A few weeks ago, we found that a lot of ransom that was paid for kidnapping ended up somewhere around Umunneochi, and we decided to raid the place.” But the northern community in Umunneochi has challenged the governor to authenticate his claims. Spokesman for the traders’ community, Buba Abdullahi, views the allegations as a ploy to chase them out of the state.

We hope the governor will allay the fears of the traders even as we endorse his efforts to rid the state of criminals. The cattle market, situated in Umunneochi local council, off the Enugu – Port Harcourt Expressway, occupies a sprawling 80 hectares of land. Donated to the traders in 2005 by the Orji Kalu’s administration, the market is a community of its own with about 150,000 inhabitants, predominantly of northern stock. It serves as an important centre of commerce, a place where people from surrounding states and beyond buy cows and foodstuff. But the area has also been marked down as a breeding ground for criminals.The governor had stressed that the ongoing campaign against insecurity in the state, particularly in the Umunneochi/Isuikwuato axis, include sanitising and securing the seedy cattle market, heaving with brothels, and squatter settlements. Otti has vowed to eject residents out of the market and make it like any other market that closes in the evening, a position the northern communities claim is inimical to their business.

While we endorse the idea of restoring law and order, the governor should reach out so that his intention would not be misconstrued. But the gruesome killing of innocent people, including children in the vicinity of the cattle market reflects the insecurity across the nation. The level of cruelty and barbarism being reported around the market is unimaginable. That it is not an isolated problem is why Otti should be supported. In 2013, for instance, dozens of corpses floated to the surface of the Ezu River in Amansea, a border town linking Anambra and Enugu States. The police confirmed the bodies and said they were carrying out investigations to confirm their identities and their cause of death. A decade after, there are not yet answers to confirm who they are and what killed them.

In the past few years, hoodlums masquerading as ‘unknown gunmen’ in the Southeast have killed hundreds of people, including personnel of the army, police civil defence and civilians. Dozens of these innocent victims were summarily executed on the street. Thousands of Nigerians have also disappeared in misty circumstances. The southeast has for long been a theatre of violence, battered by a combination of kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery, and sheer criminality. Individuals and groups with criminal motives cash in on the apparent air of lawlessness. But the state of impunity that pervades the zone cannot be allowed to continue. It is incumbent on the authorities to demonstrate the capacity to secure the lives and property of Nigerians.

To do that, authorities in Abuja and the 36 states must assume a larger premise of sovereign responsibility. They should protect the people from each other and from bad people. The overriding doctrine ought to be that the nation is unsafe for as long any inch of the nation space is unsafe or any one citizen is unsafe.

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