Group Wants Southeast Governors To Order Shoot-At-Sight On Hoodlums Enforcing Sit-At-Home

Center for Victims of Extrajudicial Killing and Torture (CVEKT AFRICA) has condemned the forceful disruption of social and economic activities in the Southeast by some hoodlums in the guise of enforcing IPOB's sit-at-home order

In a statement signed by its Executive Director Reverend father Tony Amarube, CVEKT noted that the continued enforcement of the order by hoodlums is a declaration of ‘war’ against the Igbo and must be resisted.

It recalled that IPOB had long announced an end to the Monday sit-at-home practice in the Southeast given its negative effect on the socio-economic well being of Igbos.

“It is in this light that CVEKT views the continued enforcement of the so-called sit-at-home order by these hoodlums as a declaration of war against Igbos as well as an insult and affront on the collective interest of Ndigbo.

“CVEKT considers it both ironical and highly insidious that after Fulani herdsmen who have been terrorizing the people of the South East and destroying farm crops and preventing our people from engaging in economic activities by way of farming had largely been forced out of our forests and farmlands, some Igbo young men have taken over from the Fulani to wage economic war against their people by preventing them from doing their legitimate business on Mondays.

“This open declaration of war by these hoodlums must not be allowed to stand. This is to say that the governors of the South East, as the Chief Security Officers of their respective States must put their feet down and assert their constitutional power and obligation to defend the lives and property of citizens and residents in the region.

CVEKT said it rejects the impression advanced in some quarters that the Southeast State governors have lost their power and authority to IPOB. 

"We would rather believe that Southeast governors have been humane for too long, to the point of risking the charge of abdicating their constitutional responsibilities, by continuing to treat these recalcitrant and pseudo-IPOB irredentists with kid gloves even when they have turned to bare-faced terrorists.

“CVEKT is convinced that the time is overdue for the governors of the South-East to assert and invoke the powers conferred on them by the law to stop these hoodlums in their track with an executive order by directing law enforcement agencies in their respective states to marshal every force allowed by law, including a shoot at sight order, to deal decisively with these enemies of Ndigbo and clear criminals under a false cloak of Igbo patriotism.

“As the Igbo proverb says, when an animal runs too fast, the hunter responds with equal alacrity. A situation where over 100 billion nairas is lost to the South economy every Monday and other days people are prevented from their business, and where dozens are killed and cars burnt with reckless abandon in the name of enforcing sit-at-home has certainly assumed a state of emergency.

“This is why the Southeast governors must act fast and now. Or be seen to be incapable of the primary obligation of their offices, which is the protection of lives and property of their people.

"We are convinced that our governors are not incapable.”