By ODIMEGWU ONWUMERE

For the residents of Owerri, the Imo State capital, the name "Tiger Base" does not evoke the image of a protective predator. Instead, it conjures a chilling reputation for lawlessness, torture, and death. Officially known as the Imo State Police Command's Anti-Kidnapping Squad (AKS), this tactical unit has become the focal point of a terrifying human rights crisis, accused of operating a facility where detainees disappear, confessions are extracted by force, and survival is a matter of luck rather than law.

The latest alarm comes from an insider of sorts—a lawyer who dared to challenge the system. Chinedu Agu, a human rights activist who has represented victims of the unit, announced on Saturday, December 27, 2025, that he has been marked for elimination.

"I received credible intelligence indicating that elements associated with Tiger Base are dissatisfied with my continued advocacy and marked me for elimination," Agu stated. His crime? Speaking out against what he describes as "unchecked, barbaric, brutish savagery."

Agu’s fears are not unfounded. He was previously arrested in September 2025 following a petition by the Imo State government, which accused him of "inciting" the public after he criticized Governor Hope Uzodimma's administration and the unit's conduct.

But Agu is just one voice in a chorus of horror. A damning report released in December 2025 by the Coalition Against Police Tiger Base Impunity (CAPTI), titled "The Tigerbase File," alleges a systematic pattern of atrocities. The report documents over allegedly 200 unlawful deaths in custody within the last five years.

"These are not just numbers; they are fathers, sons, and brothers who entered the facility alive and left in body bags, or simply never left at all," the source states.

The allegations against Tiger Base are not new, but the volume and consistency of the reports have reached a breaking point.

In May 2025, Japheth Njoku, a 32-year-old security guard, was arrested and taken to Tiger Base. He allegedly never returned. His family was initially told he was alive, only to discover his body had been supposedly secretly deposited at the Federal University Teaching Hospital mortuary. A magistrate court later ordered an autopsy to determine the cause of death—a rare judicial intervention in a system designed to bury its mistakes.

Just months later, in August 2025, Sopuluchi ThankGod Emeka, a fresh graduate, was arrested by local police and transferred to Tiger Base. The next day, he was apparently dead. When his father, Emeka Ujunwa, arrived with a lawyer, he was told his son had "killed himself" using his bare hands.

"I asked how it happened and inquired about his personal effects, but they said I should not bring it up again," the grieving father told investigators.

Perhaps the most gruesome account comes from the family of Levi Opara, a businessman detained at the facility. According to a report by Sahara Reporters, Opara was not just interrogated; he was tortured and stabbed to death by officers within the unit.

"These stories paint a picture of a facility operating outside the bounds of the law, where torture is a standard investigative tool and extortion is the price of freedom," said a local chief who would not want the name in print.

The sheer scale of the allegations has led critics to label the facility a "slaughter house" and a hub for organ trafficking—claims the police vehemently deny.

In a statement issued three weeks ago, DSP Henry Okoye, the Police Public Relations Officer for Imo State, dismissed the reports as "unfounded" and part of a "smear campaign by criminal elements."

"Tiger Base is a legitimate tactical formation... mandated to combat kidnapping, armed robbery, cultism, and other violent crimes," Okoye stated. "It is not an illegal detention facility or a slaughter house."

He argued that the unit has been instrumental in dismantling notorious kidnapping syndicates and restoring peace to the state. The Commissioner of Police, CP Aboki Danjuma, has even directed the establishment of a "Human Rights Desk" within the unit to ensure transparency.

However, human rights groups argue that self-policing is a farce. Okechukwu Nwagoma, Executive Director of the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), points to a 2024 judgment by the ECOWAS Court of Justice as definitive proof of the unit's rot.

In the case of Glory Okoli v. Federal Republic of Nigeria, the regional court found that Tiger Base had been used as a lawless detention centre as far back as 2021. The court ruled that officers had abducted Glory Okoli, a student, held her incommunicado, sexually abused her, and extorted her family.

"These are not rumours. They are judicial findings," Nwagoma stressed. "A tour curated by the police cannot substitute for an independent, victim-centred investigation."

The crisis at Tiger Base has ignited a nationwide outcry. Activists like Omoyele Sowore have joined the call for the facility's immediate shutdown, using hashtags like #ShutDownTigerBaseOwerri to mobilize public opinion.

"The Imo State-based 'Tiger Base' has repeatedly perpetrated egregious human rights abuses, rivalling the severity of Nigeria’s most notorious incidents," Sowore wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

For Chinedu Agu, the lawyer now in hiding, the fight is personal and perilous. "When an institution with such a dangerous history is linked to an elimination scheme, silence becomes perilous," he wrote in his public alert. "It is only a tree that remains standing at the threat of cutting down."

He has called on the international community—from the United Nations to Amnesty International and foreign diplomatic missions—to intervene. The demand is clear: an independent inquiry, the prosecution of officers involved in extrajudicial killings, and the permanent closure of a unit that has become synonymous with terror.

As the allegations mount and the bodies pile up, the question for the Nigerian authorities is no longer whether abuses are happening at Tiger Base, but whether they have the political will to stop them. For the families of the 200 dead, and for men like Chinedu Agu, the answer is a matter of life and death.

• Onwumere is Chairman, Advocacy Network On Religious And Cultural Coexistence (ANORACC)