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NEWS EXPRESS is Nigeria’s leading online newspaper. Published by Africa’s international award-winning journalist, Mr. Isaac Umunna, NEWS EXPRESS is Nigeria’s first truly professional online daily newspaper. It is published from Lagos, Nigeria’s economic and media hub, and has a provision for occasional special print editions. Thanks to our vast network of sources and dedicated team of professional journalists and contributors spread across Nigeria and overseas, NEWS EXPRESS has become synonymous with newsbreaks and exclusive stories from around the world.
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(Enugu-Nigeria, Sunday August 9, 2026): Joint International Report By Nigeria’s Intersociety And United States-Based Ekwenche Research Institute On Political And Armed State Actor And Armed Non-State Actor Ethno-Religious Persecution Of Defenseless Igbo Land South-East Judeo-Christians And Wanton Attacks On Their Territories And Properties Using Structural, Cultural And Physical Violence
Title:
Under Political And Armed State Actors In South-East: Igbo Land Judeo-Christian Parents Found To Have Shunned Military Enlistment Of Their Children Because More Than 6000 Families Still Looking For Their Beloved Sons And Daughters Gone Missing Under Nigerian Military Since Jan 2021-July 2026-As Thousands Of Others Remain Untraced And Un-Accounted For Between August 2015 And Dec 2019-To The Extent That No Fewer Than 400 Remained Abducted, Controversially Labelled And Un-Accounted For In Seven Months Of Jan-July 2026: A Special Case-Study Of Widespread Abductions, Disappearances, Shootings At Close Range Outside Circumstantial Evidence, Extrajudicial And Other Unlawful Killings-Using False Labelling, Discriminatory Law Enforcements, Mass Criminalization And Class Stigmatization, Ethno-Religious Profiling And Flawed Trials At ‘WAWA’ Military Cantonment And Other Life-Threatening Secret Custodial Facilities In Northern Nigeria
Under Armed Non-State Actor And Political And Armed State Actor Conspiracy: Igbo Land South-East Found To Be Bleeding Under Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen-Led Secret And Open Terror Attacks In Conspiracy With And Inaction Of South-East Governments And The Region’s Military, Police And Intelligence Formations-Using False Denials, Cover-Ups, Apportionment Of Blames On Wrong Parties And Suppression Of Facts-To Deny Responsibility Since 2015-With Estimated 7000 Judeo-Christian Lives Lost Since April 2016 And 200 Others Estimated To Have Been Ambushed, Abducted And Killed On Roadways And Forests In Seven Months Of January-July 2026: A Case-Study Of Ezeagu And Eha-Amufu Communities’ Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen Mayhem And Circumstantial Complicity Of Enugu Government, EnuguState Police Command And Soldiers Of 82 Division Of The Nigerian Army-Enugu
Under Armed Non-State Actor Religious Genocide: Islamic Jihadists Killed 299 Defenceless And Peaceful Christians And Abducted 213 Others Across Nigeria In July 2026 Alone; Killed 150 Mostly Indigenous Hausa Muslims, Attacked And Sacked Four Churches, Abducted Two Catholic Seminarians, Killed A Catholic Reverend Father And Killed Or Abducted Four Pentecostal Pastors
(1) Fundamental Findings:
Criminality Of Religious Persecution Under United Nations: Religious persecution is the systematic oppression and suppression of an individual or a group of individuals on the grounds of their religion or beliefs or affiliations; using systematic application of state actor or non-state actor (or both) violence of international criminal law gravity, defined and recognized as ‘Heinous Crimes or Conduct-Atrocities’ within the frameworks of the United Nations’ Charter of 1945 and the International Court Criminal Statute of 1998, both of which were inviolably ratified by Nigeria on October 7, 1960 and September 27, 2001.
Such violence warranting state actor or non-state actor Religious Persecution must be those clearly defined and recognized as amounting to ‘Crimes against Humanity’, ‘War Crimes’ and ‘Crimes of Genocide’ contained in the International Criminal Court Statute of 1998 and the Genocide Convention of 1948; both of which were inviolably ratified by Nigeria on September 27, 2001 and July 27, 2009. In Nigeria, there are at least 22 International Heinous Crimes involved in the state actor and non-state actor Religious Persecution Heinous Crimes tearing Nigeria apart and frightening, uprooting and unsettling the country’s estimated 113m Judeo-Christians
Nigeria’s Obligations Under International Religious Freedoms In Gross Breach: The Nigerian State or Government of Nigeria including political state actors and armed state actors are found to have woefully failed to honor the country’s international obligations especially those aimed at ensuring International Peace and Security and minimization of large scale interstate and intrastate violent conflicts under the United Nations System. This to the extent that should Nigeria with UN estimated 230m population explodes into Rwandan-type ethno-religious genocidal conflict, the whole World and its leading Continents of Europe, South America and Asia including ASEAN, Gulf States and Middle-East will be imploded and exploded into intractable humanitarian tragedies and “complex humanitarian emergencies!
This also is to the extent that Government of Nigeria has failed woefully to uphold and protect International Freedom of Religion or Beliefs contained in Sections 38 (right to freedom of religion, conscience and thought) and 42 (right to freedom from discrimination) of the country’s Municipal Constitution and Articles 8 and 18 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1981), the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976). The Nigerian Government is also found to have observed in gross breach the Right to Freedom from Discrimination under Section 42 of the country’s 1999 Constitution and Articles 1 and 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 2, 3 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Articles 2, 3 and 18(3) of the African Charter on Human Rights and Peoples Rights.
From our collected statistics, Research and Investigative findings, the Government of Nigeria and the State-protected armed jihadist non-state actors are undeniably found to have grossly breached the fundamental provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (Laws of Intrastate and Interstate Armed Conflicts and the Conventions’ enabling Protocols and the International Rules of Engagement such as the Use of Force and Proportionality of it. Nigeria also gross breached the Genocide Convention of 1948 and the International Criminal Court Statute of 1998 including the Court’s criminal jurisdictions on War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity and Crimes of Genocide. Nigeria inviolably ratified the Geneva Conventions on June 20, 1961. These political state actor, armed state actor and armed non-state actor abuses, breaches and violations are found by our Researchers and Investigators to have been rooted in Religious Persecution and its attendant international heinous crimes.
Islamic Jihadists Killed 299 Peaceful Christians & Abducted 213 Others In July 2026: According to the summary of statistics, tracked, collected and archived by our Researchers and Investigators, at least 299 defenceless and peaceful Christians were killed by Islamic Jihadists in Nigeria particularly in Benue, Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Adamawa, Niger, Taraba, among others; during which no fewer than 213 others were abducted. Available statistics further estimated that 150 mostly indigenous Hausa Muslims were killed in the same month. At least, six churches came under jihadist attack, two Catholic Seminarians abducted in Enugu and Kogi, one Catholic Priest killed and four Pastors killed or abducted. The breakdown showed that Benue State recorded the highest number of jihadist killings with 65 Christian deaths, during which 30 were abducted; followed by Southern part of Kaduna State where 58 Christians were killed and 70 others abducted, making it the State with the highest number of abducted Christians in July 2026. Plateau State came third with 55 Christian deaths and not less than 10 abducted Christians; followed by Adamawa State with 35 Christian deaths, Niger with 30 Christian deaths, Southern Kebbi with 6 Christian deaths and 18 abducted Christians. Southern Borno also recorded 20 abducted Christians, Kogi 20 abducted Christians and Edo 20 abducted Christians. There are also at least 40 Christian deaths arising from Jihadist attacks in other parts of the country including in the South-East. The above figures also included “dark figures of crime”. Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and Jihadist Fulani Bandits are also found to have taken the lead with at least 70% culpability. In the end, our Researchers and Investigators also made findings showing that average of ten Christian deaths per day and seven abducted Christians per day were recorded.
South-East Gravely & Atrociously Bleeding: According to our collected statistics, research and investigative findings, the Igbo Land South-East Nigeria is under grisly and egregious ethno-religious persecution and systematic and coordinated violent attacks by political state and armed state actors and armed non-state actors. This is to the extent that there are not less than 40 externally planted or imported violent crimes and 14-group perpetrators involved ravaging the Region since August 2015. We wish to disclose further that before June 2015, Igbo Land South-East as a “Socio-Economic Blue-Collar Society” was only bedevilled and still bedevil by estimated 25 Traditional Street Violent Crimes perpetrated by hundreds of traditional street violent criminal syndicates or entities.
Our research and investigative findings also divided the 40 externally planted or imported violent crimes and their group-perpetrators into three major categories of: (1) political state actor and armed state actor group-perpetrators particularly the Nigerian Military, (2) government-linked armed non-state actor group-perpetrators particularly Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and externally and internally planted and funded Criminal Pro Biafra Entities; and (3) independently armed non-state actor group-perpetrators or traditional street violent criminal entities; out of which armed state actor and their linked armed non-state actor group-perpetrators are found to be the most atrocious. In other words, Igbo Land South-East was violently troubled before the first quarter of 2015 by only 25 traditional street violent crimes and their perpetrators before August 2015 till this date.
Today, the number of violent crimes in the South-East has dangerously jumped from 25 before August 2015 to 65 as at end of July 2026. The addition of 40 externally planted or imported others was brought about by internally planted malicious political class and their patrons or paymasters who also flooded the South-East Region with battalions of abusive and brutish military and police crack squad officers and personnel brutalizing, thieving and troubling the Region since 2015 and 2021 respectively. The implosive and explosive list of the 65 violent crimes bedevilling the South-East since then was also found to have arising from the emergence of externally and internally planted malicious political class desperate to perpetually remain in public offices at the expense of collective security and safety of the defenceless citizens of Igbo Land South-East and their territories and properties.
For purpose of further clarifications, violent crimes associated with political and armed state actors such as deployed security forces in the South-East, particularly the Military are categorized under Conduct-Atrocities or Atrocity-Crimes while those associated with government-linked armed non-state actors and independently armed non-state actors are categorized under Heinous Violent Crimes. Findings from our Researchers and Investigators also indicated that mishandling or poor handling of “Pro Biafra Self Determination Civil Protests” by external and internal political class and deployed armed state actors; in their desperation to strangulate and conquer Judeo-Christian Eastern Nigeria particularly the Igbo South-East-using ethno-religious radicalism and persecution also compounded the insecurity and other unsafe conditions in the Region since August 2015.
State Actor Use Of Structural And Cultural Violence To Bury South-East Butteries: In Criminology and Security Studies, ‘Structural and Cultural Violence’ are the progenitors of ‘Physical Violence’ and have been put to reckless and indiscriminate use by political state actors and armed state actors in South-East since August 2015. For the record, Structural Violence, used by political and armed state actors as insecurity method in Igbo land is sustained through gross lopsidedness and discrimination in the ethnic and religious composition of top military, police and intelligence establishment officers and their field combatants posted or stationed in the Region; found to have been steadily dominated since 2015 by Northern Muslim officers and their field combatants.
Also observed is the fact that Political and armed state actor insecurity method in the Region using Cultural Violence is sustained through reckless and indiscriminate use of false labeling, false denials, apportionment of blames on wrong parties, media censorship, ethno-religious profiling, mass and class criminalization, among others-to deny criminal responsibility in their Atrocity-Crimes or Conduct-Atrocities including mass abductions, mass killings and disappearances, etc. Cultural Violence is also aimed by political and armed state actors at escaping culpability and shielding and protecting the real criminal parties such as Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and their terror-attacks.
Disturbing Death, Abduction And Disappearance Statistics In South-East: According to Findings by our Researchers and Investigators, not less than 6000 Igbo Land South-East families have not traced alive or dead their beloved sons and daughters of productive age-brackets who went missing in the hands of the Nigerian military officers and personnel. It is also estimated that 70% of the victims were those gone missing in the hands of the military in South-East since January 2021, from where they were abducted and bundled to different military dungeons and other secret detention facilities and especially dumped inside the WAWA Military Cantonment in Kainji, Niger State. Our Researchers and Investigators also made findings estimating that 20% and 10% of the abducted and disappeared victims are those who went missing in the hands of various crack squads of the Nigeria Police Force and officers and personnel of the State Security Services and they belonged to those unarmed civilians abducted from the East and never located alive or dead by their families or lawyers till date. Our findings above are also officially reported in several official reports issued by the Nigerian Military through the Defence Headquarters especially since January 2021 till date.
Also circumstantially found by our Researchers and Investigators was that no fewer than 5000 other unarmed citizens of the Old Eastern Nigeria abducted by trio of the military, police crack squads and internal intelligence establishment (SSS) in violent response to “Pro Biafra Self Determination Civil Protests” have not been traced alive or dead by their families or lawyers till date, covering August 30, 2015 and end of July 2026. Massive extrajudicial killings and unlawful executions; as well as custodial deaths particularly by the Nigerian Military, followed by police crack squads and other armed state actors also occurred in Igbo Land South-East, especially from August 2015 to end of July 2026. The above is to the extent that during the period, no fewer than 11,000 Judeo-Christian South-East civilians are found to have been controversially labelled and killed outside the law by officers and personnel of the Nigerian military. It should be reminded that one of the earliest military mass killings and abductions and zero whereabouts of their living or dead body persons took is found to have taken placed between Sept 11 and 14, 2017, during which more than 180 unarmed Igbo Land South-East civilians are circumstantially found to have been secretly and openly killed in Afara-Ukwu and other parts of Umuahia, Asa, Aba, Ogwe and Isiala-Ngwa in Abia State. The victims included unarmed IPOB activists and supporters, interstate, intrastate and inter-regional road travellers and other road users, etc.
Hundreds are also found to have been abducted and disappeared without traces till date. It was also in desperate bid to cover-up and suppress public outcries over the three days’ massacre and mass abductions and shocking casualty figures arisen or recorded thereto that the Nigerian Defence Headquarters hurriedly and hastily DECLARED IPOB A TERRORIST GROUP on Sept 15, 2017, leading to widespread armed state actor criminalization and terrorization of the South-East till date; and as if the above was not enough, the Nigerian military and other security agencies involvement in mass civilian abductions across the South-East have continued into the first seven months of 2026, with estimated 400 South-East Judeo-Christian civilians abducted by the military-with no traces of their whereabouts, dead or alive till date.
Records of the above are also found to have contained in official records of the weekly, bi-weekly and monthly reports of the Defence Headquarters of the Nigerian Armed Forces regarding their ongoing military operations across the country particularly in the South-East. Most of the civilians abducted by the military in the past eleven years of August 2015 to end of July 2026 are also circumstantially feared killed in custody and other torturous holding facilities, compounded by zero access of the abducted or arrested citizens to their families including total denial of their access to such military custodies or facilities. In gross breach of their constitutional limitations on procession and management of the general civilian population including lack of powers of arrest, detention, investigation and prosecution, among others; the military is found to have defiantly refused to handover the arrested or abducted civilian citizens to Nigeria Police Force.
It is in totality of the above that tens of thousands of Igbo Land South-East families withdraw from giving their beloved sons and daughters of military recruitment age and academic and professional qualifications permission to be enlisted into the Nigerian Armed Forces. We also make bold to say that the universal powers of the Nigerian military and other security and intelligence agencies to perform their sworn duties are not our problem but crude policies, processes and procedures adopted. It is an unambiguous case of universal illegality for Nigerian military and other security agencies to have arrested alive suspected armed citizens accused of crimes and those arrested unarmed and defenceless, taken them into custody and turned around to kill them extra-judicially after having been taken into custody alive.
These are also fundamental violations of war crimes or crimes against humanity, or both, as well as crimes of genocide. All of the above is also found to have been sustained by the Nigerian military, other security forces and political state actors through widespread use of false labelling, hasty/hearsay conclusions, mass criminalization, lack of credible and prosecutorial investigations, doctored, concocted and twisted intelligence, transfer of criminal responsibility, apportionment of blames on wrong parties, ethno-religious profiling and cover-ups, among others, with intent to escape operational accountability, deny and cover-up Heinous Crimes and Atrocity-Conducts and protect criminal parties.
According to our Researchers and Investigators, 65 Political/Armed State Actor Atrocity-Crimes and Armed Non-State Actor Violent Crimes including Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen terror attacks ravaging the Igbo Land South-East are found to have been muddled, twisted and solely heaped on “IPOB/ESN”. In the area of Government-linked armed non-state Religious Violent Crimes, particularly Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen terror attacks, our Researchers and Investigators also made findings that an estimated 7000 Judeo-Christian lives have been lost since April 2016 and 200 others estimated to have been ambushed, abducted and killed on roadways and forests in seven months of January-July 2026. The no fewer than 200 South-East Judeo-Christian recorded deaths are further found to have arisen from victims of Jihadist Fulani and Jihadist Bandits’ roadway and forest way abductions and ambushes using “Seven Dangerous Traveling Routes” within and the outside South-East.
According to findings by our Researchers and Investigators, there are at least 20 rural Igbo Land communities presently facing Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen threats or terror attacks, either partly or substantially affected. The affected communities included those located across Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Abia and Ebonyi States and parts of neighbouring Delta State; out of which Ezeagu, Isi-Uzo, Uzo-Uwani and Nkanu East Local Government Areas, all in Enugu and their several villages are found to be the worst hit and adopted as Our Case-Study. In Ezeagu, not less than ten out of about 14 communities are ravaged by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen threats and attacks since 2010, risen to an apogee since 2016; likewise, in Isi-Uzo where several communities and villages including Eha-Amufu and Mgbuji have been turned into ghost towns by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen-with most shocking been burning or destruction of 14 churches including twelve Anglican and two Catholic churches and killing of at least 117 of their worshippers; out of which at least eight corpses of their worshippers were buried in one church compound alone. The Eha-Amufu Jihadist Fulani mayhem was found to have occurred between March 2021 and June 2025; which is ongoing till date. In Uzo-Uwani, at least sixteen communities or villages in the area have been sacked, uprooted and forced to flee by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen who also turned the area into ghost towns and IDP camps particularly since 2022.
All of the above are to the extent that the combined forces of the South-East Governments, the stationed security forces including military, police and internal intelligence agency (SSS), in collusion with some censored and muzzled Government-owned and private media have been mobilized to deny state vicarious responsibility/complicity, cover-up and shift the criminal responsibility from the real criminal parties (Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen) to uninvolved or wrong parties such as ‘IPOB/ESN’ and members of the Igbo Land South-East civilian population. These have been deliberately and systematically sustained using false labelling and framing-up of defenceless and unarmed South-East civilians especially members of productive male population-who are also victims of hasty and hearsay conclusions, mass criminalization, lack of credible and conclusive investigations; doctored, concocted and twisted intelligence, shiftingof criminal responsibility and apportionment of blames on wrong parties, ethno-religious profiling of South-Easterners, false denials, and protection of the armed non-state actor criminal parties-all aimed at escaping operational accountability and denial of armed non-state actors’ Heinous Crimes and political and armed state-actors’ Atrocity-Conducts.
Calling For Strong International Justice And Accountability:
Others are: UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Girls (Ms. Siobhan Mullallly), UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders (Ms. Bolanos Vargas). The above is in addition to UN High Commissioner for Refugees and IDPs (Barham Salih) and Head of UN Office on Disarmament Affairs (Mr Izumi Nakamitsu). The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Rights Chief) Volker Turk is hereby called upon to put machinery in place and expeditiously dispatch the named UN Rights and Humanitarian Body of Experts to South-East and South-South Nigeria to forensically enquire into the ongoing armed state-actor and armed non-state actor butcheries and particularly ascertain the level of grievous rights abuses and violations by security forces especially Nigerian Military and armed non-state actors particularly Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen in the two regions especially in the past eleven years of August 2015 to July 2026.
According to the Report: “The Massacre of Ndigbo in 1966: Report of the Justice G.C.M. Onyiuke Tribunal {Tollbrook Limited, Ikeja, Lagos)” “…between 45,000 and 50,000 civilians of former Eastern Nigeria were killed in Northern Nigeria and other parts of Nigeria from 29th May 1966 to December 1967 and not less than 1,627,743 Easterners fled back to Eastern Nigeria as a result of the 1966 pogrom”. Major terms of reference of such near future Special Judicial Commission(s) of Enquiries must include the number and full identities of all those abducted alive by the military and other security forces since August 2015 and bundled to undisclosed locations in faraway Northern Nigeria where they have not been traced alive or dead by their families or lawyers till date as well as full details and number of victims of extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings. These should be unmasked through their families and lawyers’ testimonies.
As a matter of fact, the Attorney General of the Federation should take over the matter, direct and compel the Defense Headquarters, the Office of the National Security Adviser, the National Counter Terrorism Center and the State Security Services to give full details of the whereabouts of the living body persons and the dead body persons of all those abducted alive from Igbo land South-East and neighboring South-South, and the whereabouts of the bodies of their dead sisters and brothers killed or disappeared extra-judicially particularly since January 2021. By fundamental provisions of the country’s body of criminal laws and their procedures, rooted in international best practices including the Geneva Conventions of 1949, it is a serious offence including offenses of war crimes and crimes against humanity for law enforcement officers to kill in custody armed and unarmed citizens arrested alive and taken into custody alive. This explains why the Nigerian Government and the country’s security forces particularly the military must give public account of the whereabouts of thousands of those arrested or abducted alive in the South-East and the South-South between August 2015 and end of July 2026.
This important call of ours is also officially rooted in official records of the Defense Headquarters, particularly from Jan 2021 till date; disclosing “number of IPOB Members/Combatants Killed and arrested in the South-East under Operation Udoka”. In other words, the Defense Headquarters of the Nigerian Military should publicly explain the exact number and full identities of thousands of Igbo Land Judeo-Christians abducted alive and those shot and injured alive and bundled to undisclosed secret locations in faraway Northern Nigeria; the number and full identities of dead body persons of those shot and killed and controversially labeled; and where they were bundled to; where, when, why and how they were killed or shot and injured or abducted and bundled away; where, when, why and how they were starved or shot and injured and left to bleed to death untreated or left to die of hunger, starvation and diseases. The Nigerian Government and its Defense Headquarters should publicly provide names (first and surnames) of the dead, the injured, the starved and the abducted civilians in Igbo Land South-East and neighboring South-South. Other details needed to be publicly disclosed include their marital status, occupations, religion, age-bracket, gender and their village, community, local government and State of origin.
The Nigerian Defense Headquarters shall, as a matter of uttermost immediacy, abolish reckless and indiscriminate use of transfer of criminal responsibility, class criminalization, false labeling, collective punishment and ethno-religious profiling in Igbo Land South-East in the course of their Military and security forces’ law enforcements and operations; and shall also henceforth stop mass abduction and disappearances of South-East civilian citizens and their despicable transfer from Igbo Land South-East where they were abducted, to dangerous secret dungeons located thousands of miles away from Eastern Nigeria to Northern Nigeria where they are sub-humanly treated and abandoned or left in life-threatening and other tortuous conditions to die, leading to their deaths in thousands-amidst total blockade of access to their families and lawyers. The military authorities after exercising their right of arrest involving members of the general civilian population, must swiftly hand them over to various police formations in the South-East and Abuja including FCID in Abuja and SCIDs in the South-East where they were originally arrested or abducted.
End of Our Fundamental Findings
(1)Our General Research Findings Under Armed State Actor Culpability: Researchers and Investigators at International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) in Nigeria and Ekwenche Research Institute and Organization in Chicago, Illinois, the United States of America have made startling findings showing that at least 6000 South-East Igbo Land Judeo-Christian families are still looking for their beloved sons and daughters or wives gone missing and never located alive or dead mainly in the hands of the Nigerian Military. Other security, intelligence and policing establishments partly found to be directly or vicariously culpable included State Security Services, Office of the National Security Adviser and its National Counter Terrorism Centre and various crack squads of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) especially those drawn from the NPF’s Bureau of Intelligence (FIB), Force Criminal Investigations Department (FCID) and Force Operations Department (F-OPS) and their subordinate departments across South-East States and their zonal commands.
Our Researchers and Investigators further made findings indicating that the no fewer 6000 unarmed Igbo Land South-East Judeo-Christian civilians gone missing in a period covering January 2021 to July 2026 (seven years). Before then, too, earlier research and investigative findings indicated that approximately 5000 others have never been located alive or dead between August 2015 and December 2019- (four years). All of the above indicated that no fewer than 11,000 Igbo Judeo-Christian civilians of South-East origin and residency are likely to have gone missing in the hands of the country’s security forces especially officers, personnel and authorities of the Nigerian Military, during periods cumulatively covering past eleven years of August 30, 2015 to July 31, 2026.
The above shocking findings are evidently backed up using a recent case study of widespread Judeo-Christian civilian abductions and disappearances in the South-East by Nigerian Military and other conspiratorial security forces including Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and its crack squads bearing different names and drawn from the Force Intelligence, the Force Criminal Investigations Department and the Force Operations Department and their subordinate departments. The State Security Services was also found to have participated or conspired in the raging armed state actor butcheries.
According to findings by our Researchers and Investigators, these heinous conduct-atrocities by Nigeria’s armed state actors are found to have been perpetrated and still being perpetrated with impunity using false labelling, mass and class criminalization, ethno-religious profiling and hasty and hearsay conclusions rooted outside credible intelligence and detailed and evidence based criminal investigations; and have been recklessly used or deployed by Nigerian Military inside the ‘WAWA’ Military Cantonment (in Niger State) and other dangerous and life-threatening prisons, lock centres and coercive secret detention centres in Northern Nigeria; located thousands of miles away from the South-East.
Such life-threatening detention facilities included those located in Abuja or the Federal Capital Territory and others in Niger, Kogi, Nasarawa, Sokoto, Kaduna and Zamfara States, etc. These draconian practices supported by no known modern human rights compliant criminal laws and their procedures and other standardized regional and international processes and principles have been deployed and targeted at South-East Judeo-Christian civilian population and their defenceless properties; resulting in “the outside the law” death of tens of thousands of unarmed civilians including more than 10,000 civilian deaths recorded in the hands of the military alone in the past eleven years and disappearance of estimated 11,000 others never located alive or dead by their families and lawyers since August 2015. Tens of billions of naira worth of defenceless civilian properties were also targeted and wantonly destroyed by the military and other armed state actors within periods under review (August 30, 2015 to end of July 2026).
While we acknowledge those lawful powers vested on Nigerian security forces including the subordinate powers of the Military under the Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution and Democratic Dispensation in management of the country’s security concerns, clearly laid out in the country’s various criminal laws and their procedures in accordance with the Constitution and regionally and internationally acceded Human Rights and Humanitarian Treaty Laws; we, however, are deeply concerned that Nigerian Governments and their security forces since June 2015 have observed and continued to observe them in gross breach by turning them upside down and in practice-replacing them with roguish practices, procedures and enforcements.
This is to the extent that the clear and unambiguous provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their enabling Protocols (Laws of Intrastate and Interstate Armed Conflicts) and others dealing with ‘Non-War Situation Civil Protests and Civil Disturbances’ have been breached with utter recklessness. The most worrying is that the successive Nigerian Governments and their security forces since 2015 have acted and continued to act as an “Outlaw” including by consistently undermining Nigeria’s Regional and International Human Rights and Humanitarian Obligations including by undermining the UN’s Establishment Principles of International Peace and Security. The critical aspects of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 being observed in gross breach are the International Rules of Engagement, including the Use of Force and Proportionality of it and rooted in three international war management Principles of ‘Jus In Bellum, Jus Ad Bellum and Jus Post Bellum.
Also, contrary to the clear provisions of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution particularly Sections 33, 34, 35, 36 and 42, most of the abducted and disappeared South-East Judeo-Christians are circumstantially found to be those abducted outside the knowledge of their families, without custodial statements, from where they were secretly bundled at late night and other hours of the ‘blue-law’, to life-threatening military security dungeons in Northern Nigeria. The limited operational powers of the Nigerian Military and other provisions specified in the Armed Forces Act of 2004, the Criminal Code Act and the Penal Code Act of 2004 and their Procedural Law (Administration of Criminal Justice Act of 2015) under Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution have been grossly undermined.
That is to say that officials and personnel of the Nigerian Military are found by our Researchers and Investigators to have recklessly chosen, in practice, to undermine these provisions and regional and international Human Rights and Humanitarian Treaty Laws acceded to Nigeria; to the extent that the Nigerian military establishments have been going about unchecked, abducting thousands of South-East Judeo-Christians under the pretext of “being IPOB/ESN members or supporters”. These, the Nigerian military authorities have been doing without clearly established prima facie or indictable material evidence warranting such allegations bordering on heinous criminal offence of terrorism. Military’s False Labelling Of “Killing 1,500 IPOB Combatants For 130 Recovered Weapons”: In 2024, for instance, the Defence Headquarters stated in one of their periodic reports that: “under Operation Udoka in the South-East, (total of) 1,500 IPOB Combatants were neutralized (killed), 1,261 arrested and 130 weapons recovered between Jan 2023 and July 2024”. These numbers were calculated from various reports issued by the Defence Headquarters during their “Habeas Corpus”-styled Media Briefings. The above, a height of false labelling and mass criminalization; falsely indicates that “for every ten IPOB Combatants killed, only one weapon was recovered”; or “every ten POB Combatants engaged soldiers of the Nigerian military in exchange of gunfire with one offensive weapon”.
In other words, “ten IPOB Combatants engaged soldiers in exchange of gunfire with only one weapon, in their attempt to commit offense of terrorism and got killed in battle by soldiers”. All of the above is more so when such military reports have little or no room for credible independent questioning or verifications due very tight media censorship and stifling of Civic Space in Nigeria. Our Researchers and Investigators also made findings indicating that public display of weapons by military authorities to justify their periodic reports on military “counterterrorism” and associated mass killings and mass abductions in the South-East have been mired in controversies and series of unanswered questions. While most of the military’s displayed weapons are found to be hunting and gaming weapons such as old double-barrelled and single-barrelled guns, Dane guns and Pump Action guns, internationally excluded from the list of guns use in modern crimes of terrorism; further findings circumstantially indicated that many of those displayed weapons are those seized by the military from their licensed or former licensed owners in Igbo Land South-East, licensed for legitimate self-defence or hunting or gaming activities, Besides, such weapons are also recognized as “Un-Prohibited Firearms” in the country’s Firearms Act of 2004.
Scenes Where The Military Abduct Thousands Of South-East Judeo-Christians In Igbo Land: The abduction and disappearance of thousands of South-East Judeo-Christians in the past eleven years in Igbo Land are found to have taken place and still take place using the following conduct-atrocity methods and locations: 1. Widespread extortion and other extortionist conducts at several military roadblocks across the South-East, targeted at those unable to pay, resulting in them being brutalized and randomly labelled “IPOB/ESN members” and abducted. By law, the military roadblock extortion and related briberies are a serious breach of Section 108 of the Armed Forces Act of 2004, it is recklessly being observed in gross breach across the Region.
2. Class false labelling arrests and abductions arising from victims’ hairstyles, body tattoos, stylist clothing, bangles, necklaces, flyers, symbols, etc. 3. Late night and early morning invasion of several Igbo communities-resulting in mass shootings, abductions and disappearances; likewise, indiscriminate war-jet bombing of Igbo communities’ residential areas and associated mass abduction of those fleeing for safety. 4. Mass arrest and abduction of rural and urban Igbo civilians following attacks on military or police personnel by opposition fighting parties and street criminal armed persons. 5. Indiscriminate abduction and arrest of South-East Judeo-Christians by military and police extremists arising from Stop-and-Search across Igbo Land. 6. Widespread mass arrest and abduction of South-East Judeo-Christians arising from post-crime scene shoot-outs between military or police personnel and armed opposition fighting parties, 7. Mass arrest and abduction of South-East Judeo-Christian civilians arising from indiscriminate invasion by military and police crack squads of social gathering or entertainment arenas including nightclubs, football fields and international football match watching centres; likewise, invasion and disruption of church activities including live church services and daytime and night-time crusades, and 8. Indiscriminate brutalization, abduction and disappearance of rural and traveling South-East Judeo-Christians arising from use of excess and crude force by drafted military and police crack squad officers and personnel guarding mineral resources locations and routes. These are just but a few.
Further found by our Researchers and Investigators is the fact that after bundling the South-East Judeo-Christian civilians in their thousands to Northern Nigeria’s secret security dungeons, lock-centres and prisons (through roguish transfers); located thousands of miles away from Igbo Land where they were arrested without records, they further ended up being dumped without traces and knowledge of their families, with official records concerning them nowhere to be found. In other words, there are no available official records as per their surnames, age brackets, gender, marital status, next-of-kin, occupation and village, community, local government and State of origin; and also no official records as per where, when, how and why they were arrested and identities of security officers that arrested them and those officers in charge of investigating them and reasons why they are being investigated, if any.
This is to the extent that in August and Sept 2024, our field undercovers were sent to Keffi 1 and Keffi 11 Prisons or Correction Centres in Nasarawa State-where more than 60 South-East abducted Judeo-Christian civilians were discovered. On further enquiries, our field undercovers were confidentially informed by prisons officials who pleaded anonymity that “they were ordered not to allow the victims access to any lawyer or family member because they were brought by the military with a matching order to them that they are Federal Government property”. Our field undercovers were further informed that “they were brought from the East and dumped here without case files containing their names, where they were arrested and by which coercive establishments, as well as when and why they were arrested and alleged offenses warranting their arrest”.
In furtherance of our field undercover enquiries, using as a case-study the two Keffi prisons and Wawa Military Cantonment in faraway Kainji part of Niger State, the largest landmass State in Nigeria with more than 76,000km2 (roughly three times the size of the entire South-East Region), we instructed our field undercovers to locate an awaiting trial inmate in one of the Keffi prisons so as to use him or her to reach out to one of the victims, from whom it was gathered that the victims were transferred to several security dungeons across the East before being blinded-folded and landed in the Keffi prisons without their families’ and official records; during which scores especially the shot and critically wounded and the starved died in custodial transit or substantive security dungeons-and their dead body persons disposed like dead fowls without records till date.
Many others were also circumstantially found to have died of untreated gunshot wounds, hunger and starvation, diseases and other terminal illnesses in different military and other security dungeons in the East. Several deaths were also believed to have occurred among those abducted, blindfolded or face-bagged during the hours of the blue-law, to faraway Northern Nigeria, where they reportedly died following untreated gunshot wounds and other custodial harsh treatments while on military guarded transit to their final locations especially at Wawa Military Cantonment.
All of the above is contrary to the status and procession of a criminal person under United Nations and its International Law provisions applicable and enforceable in Nigeria as a Member-State since October 7, 1960. By the International Criminal Law Principles, a Criminal Person is anybody that has globally attained 18 years of age who violates criminal laws generally categorized under ‘mala inse’ and ‘mala prohibita’, applicable, operable and enforceable in his or her country or state or province of birth or naturalization or residency. Such a citizen is not a criminal person until he or she has been subjected to processes of credible suspicion and detailed investigation; resulting in his or her constitutional arrest and detention, credible indictmennt, fair trial and fair hearing and punishment; and adequate compensation, if he or she is, in the end, discharged and acquitted. In Nigeria and in the instant case, these laid down principles, procedures and processes have been observed in breach with impunity and recklessness by Nigerian military and other armed state actors involved in the South-East.
A Case Of Military’s Conduct-Atrocities At WAWA Cantonment In Niger State: Testimonies and other pieces of evidence obtained by our Researchers and Investigators including from human rights attorneys, human rights activists and international rights groups such as the US based Human Rights Watch and others conversant with the WAWA Military Cantonment Killing Field and Torture Chamber maximally deployed against the abducted South-East Judeo-Christian civilian citizens. According to survivors’ accounts, many of the abducted victims from Igbo Land South-East have been killed or tortured or starved to death at the Cantonment while dozens of others subjected to military’s kangaroo and flawed trials and secretly convicted and imprisoned for life or 40 years or not less than 20 years for “involvement in IPOB terrorism”. Contrary to Sections 33,34, 35 and 36 AND 42 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution and their subordinate provisions in the procedural Administration of Criminal Justice Act of 2015-and Nigeria’s Human Rights and Humanitarian Treaty Laws; the Igbo Land victims inside the Cantonment are found to have been held outside the law for more than five years and above.
As if that was not enough, 99.9% of them did not have access to their families and independently chosen attorneys or medical doctors and medical facilities. While many of them in estimated thousands since 2015 or 2021 have died owing to custodial sub-human treatments, hundreds of others who managed to survive have either been secretly tried, convicted and inhumanly jailed without fair hearing and fair trial, of still facing “ex-parte” or one-sided and flawed court trials or outside the law criminal proceedings. Also found undeniable was the fact that out of every ten WAWA Military Cantonment Igbo Judeo-Christian survivors, ten are found to be tortured in custody while most are found to have no idea of the offenses leveled against them.
Pathetic Case Of Ozioma Elizabeth Onyeaka Held In WAWA Cantonment For Over Five Years: One of the most agonizing and pathetic cases was that of Miss Onyeaka Ozioma Elizabeth, a young female in her early 20s as at 2020. According to findings from a Human Rights Attorney, Ozioma Elizabeth has spent more than five years and three months inside WAWA Military Cantonment dungeon in faraway Niger State after gone missing since 2020. Now looking terimnally sick, emaciated, starved, malnourished and tortured; and having survived harvests of custodial deaths and routine torture inside the Cantonment; she was sighted in Abuja in June 2026 as one of the few survivors undergoing secret “terrorism trials” being prosecuted by Office of the Attorney General of the Federation, SSS and Legal Department of the Nigerian Military. Our Researchers and Investigators were also informed that Ozioma Elizabeth was one of those being forced to plead guilty of belonging to IPOB and promised freedom once they pleaded. It was from the WAWA Military Cantonment that she was brought alongside others to Abuja for continuation of secret terrorism trials in June 2026 and despite being forced to plead “guilty”, she refused and was landed in heavily guarded military trucks that brought her alongside others and briefly held in nearby prisons from where they were bundled back to WAWA Military Cantonment in Kainji, Niger State in North-Central Nigeria.
The Human Rights Attorney who was one of those disallowed by the authorities of Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Justice from entering independent appearances for the victims especially Miss Ozioma Elizabeth Onyeaka; took further steps to speak to her in the prisons where she alongside others were briefly held, only for the Human Rights Attorney to shockingly discover she was abducted by a military patrol team in early morning of a certain date in a certain month of 2020 around Nsugbe-Onitsha 33 in Anambra State-while returning from an early morning church activity. It was from there that she got disappeared without traces since 2020. When contacted by the Human Rights Attorney, her mum instantly became unconscious and developed high blood pressure. Her siblings also told the Human Rights Attorney that they had gone to several places and quarters in search of her in the past five years and later gave up hopes. It was also reported that her family members cried profusely during telephone calls with the Human Rights Attorney when they heard the news. As it stands now, Miss Ozioma Elizabeth Onyeaka has, again, been abducted and disappeared by the Military.
In Service to Humanity,
For: International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law-Intersociety, Nigeria
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