Ezu River And The Floating Corpses By SOC Okenwa

On January 19th this year the world
was served a horrific photographic
menu of scores of human bodies
found floating on Ezu River in
Amansea community of Anambra
State. When the local folks discovered
the floating corpses they raised alarm
but frantic searches within and
without revealed no one in the
community was missing. Governor
Peter Obi, cutting short his trip
abroad, visited the scene of horror to
bear witness to the tragedy. Days and
weeks and a month-plus gone
nothing concrete has yet been done
in terms of diligent investigation to
unearth the source of the
decomposing dead bodies found in
that river.
Since no one has been declared
missing in the neighbourhood or
neighbouring villages and towns in
Anambra and Enugu states it follows
logically, therefore, that the floating
bodies must have been those of
citizens killed and brought and
thrown into the river at wee hours of
the night from elsewhere. So who are
these ‘criminals’, these young men
who met their ultimely death through
‘firing squad’ without trial or
judgement? The police normally
should be able to tell us but the
problem here lies in the fact that the
police is being accused of being
behind the illegal atrocious killings.
In other words the police is the chief
culprit!
Hundreds (if not thousands) had been
executed by security forces especially
in Igboland without necessary
questions asked nor answers
provided. Exploiting the people’s
ignorance of their rights and bowing
to intimidation of the gun has
conspired to mystify law enforcement
in the south-east in particular.
Accusations and counter-accusations
are flying everywhere between the
police and MASSOB on one hand and
the government and human rights
advocates on the other. The truth
must be made to prevail in this sordid
incident that calls for our collective
indignation and solidarity with the
dead.
Though a Senate committee has since
visited the horrible site in an
investigative effort the Federal
Government ought to have
constituted a special investigation
team to try to unravel the mystery
surrounding the gory incident. Daily,
Nigerians are being executed extra-
judicially by the security forces
without any proportionate penalty.
The combined forces of corruption
and leadership mediocrity has
rendered living in Nigeria akin to
living in hell! Life is therefore worth
little or nothing.
The law enforcement in Nigeria
ubiquitously remains, post-
colonialism, a brutal exhibition of
naked primitive force fit only for the
animal kingdom. Poorly trained,
equipped and remunerated the police
men and women tend to vent their
frustration on a larger society they
are supposed to protect. Rather than
being seen therefore as ‘friends’ they
are seen more as enemies worth
keeping at arm’s lenght. Even the
military are not left out of the
shedding of innocent blood in
Nigeria. Recently, four students of
Nasarawa State University Keffi were
shot dead by soldiers sent to quell a
peaceful protest by the students over
water and power shortage.
The impunity guaranteed by a lawless
federation with an absurd centralized
police force makes it possible for men
and women in uniform to commit
crimes every now and then and go
scot-free. That was why a A 27-year-
old woman, Mary Sunday, has been in
the hospital bed at Igbobi
Orthopaedic Hospital in Lagos seven
months after she was allegedly
attacked crudely by her fiancé,
Corporal Isaac Gbanwuan, with a pot
of boiling stew and a lighted stove!
While Mary is still writhing in pain
recuperating from the first degree
burns she received from the wicked
jealousy-induced attack Corporal
Gbanwuan is free as a bird working in
his station!
Again in October 2009, a 36-year old
Friday Orjieh, a breadwinner of his
young family, a bureau-de-change
operator based in Ikeja, was brutally
shot dead at close range by an army
officer, Private Aminu Audu, of Op-
MESA, a joint military security patrol
team in Lagos hired by one Mrs
Elizabeth Olubunmi. Though the
widow, Adiza Orjieh, had recently won
a court case against the killer of her
late husband it remains to be seen
whether such brutal incidents could
be nipped in the bud. Meanwhile the
murderer Private Audu and his
accomplice Mrs Olubunmi are still at
large enjoying the life and freedom
they had denied others!
The Ezu River macabre discovery
bore the hallmark of police brutality.
The Movement for the Actualization
of the Sovereign State of Biafra
(MASSOB) leadership in Onitsha has
brought forward facts and proofs that
18 of its members were among those
killed and dumped in the river by the
security outfit in Anambra state called
SARS. One believes the MASSOB
story because thus far the SARS
commanders have not proven
otherwise what the MASSOB were
saying by providing the arrested
MASSOB members in their custody.
The Special Anti-Robbery Squad
(SARS) based in Awkuzu in Anambra
State is more of a terrorist
organisation, a killing machine than a
joint task force against armed
robbery, kidnapping and other sundry
violent crimes. It must be reformed or
disbanded! Much as one is against
kidnapping, armed robbery or violent
agitation for nationhood (secession)
SARS are killing more innocent Igbos
than the men of the underworld they
are supposed to be tracking and
bringing to justice. SARS are
operating dangerously as if they were
established primarily to kill and
maim!
The Commissioner of Police in
Anambra state, Bala Nassarawa, must
be investigated and redeployed if not
sacked outrightly for his
incompetence and/or complicity in
the Ezu River abominable affair. He
knows what the SARS men were
doing but he preferred to lie his way
out! One does not yet comprehend
the reason behind the manifest
animosity towards MASSOB by
governments and their agencies. The
open campaign of hostility is
reprehensible to say the least!
MASSOB has not done anything more
unpatriotic or grievous than what
Boko Haram in the north, MEND in
the Niger Delta and OPC in Lagos are
doing. Their non-violent campaign for
Biafra cannot be criminalised when
the ‘terrorists’ in the north and in
Niger Delta are seeking dialogue or
amnesty from the federal government!
When I went home in December 2005
my late mother had warned me
dreadfully against late night
adventures. One night as I made to
drive out of the house in the village
with a brother and a friend for a
concert up-town featuring the late
‘Ogene’ high-life King, Oliver De
Coque, my mother issued a stern
warning against returning home late
in the night because SARS, according
to her, were killing people extra-
judicially at night with cases of
disappeared villagers been reported
often. Of course I heeded her advise
and came back home quietly at dawn.
The central police station in Ihiala
town in Anambra state (my
hometown) was burnt down many
years ago and till today it remains so!
The town folks were furious and went
for self-help when a trigger-happy
policeman opened fire accidentally
killing a young boy on an errand. In
all intents and purposes the Nigerian
police force has become “a mindless
and unrestrained killing machine…a
human slaughtering enterprise” —
(apology to Prof. Okey Ndibe).
Even if those young men (nearly
hundred) murdered extra-judicially
and denied decent burial and dumped
like dogs without families in Ezu
River were armed robbers, kidnappers
or ‘terrorists’ did that justify the
abominable way they were treated?
Whatever happened to justice that
presumes one innocent of any
charges until proven guilty? Could
that strategy of ‘arrest and waste’ be
said to have dissuaded organized
crimes in Anambra state in particular
and Nigeria in general? Not at all;
rather, the high-handedness of the
security forces has forced the boys in
criminal adventures to become more
daring and more violent sparing no
member of the police or army seen
anywhere around their operations.
By reportedly ordering the mass-
burial of the bodies floating on the
river even before any postmortem or
autopsic examination could be
conducted on them to identify who
they were and how they were
murdered Governor Peter Obi acted in
a haste that suggested cover-up or
outright connivance with the police to
destroy evidence. By promising to
reward any information volunteered
by interested parties or members of
the public with 5 million Naira
without assuring people of protection
the Governor sought to trivialise a
serious matter involving wasted
young lives.
The blood of those wasted souls
dumped callously in Ezu River are
crying for justice. They deserve
justice and justice they must get! Any
attempt to sweep their dehumanising
case under the carpet (like many
unresolved murders across the land
before it) must be resisted and
challenged. We call for an impartial
probe and demand for full disclosure
and justice on their behalf. May the
good Lord accept their souls and
may they repose in peace!
SOC Okenwa
soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr