The apex Igbo sociocultural organization, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, yesterday faulted the claim by the Nigerian Army that security operatives, including the army were provoked into killing protesting members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign the State of Biafra (MASSOB) and their indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) counterpart on Monday in Onitsha and Asaba.
The Army through its Deputy Director, Public Relations of the 82 Division, Enugu, Col. Hamza. A. Gambo, had in a statement alleged that security forces were provoked into using extreme measures when the separatist groups, during a remembrance day programme, “launched unwarranted attacks against the civilian populace as well as security agencies.”
According to him, MASSOB and IPOB members who had earlier assembled at a school location on Ataa Road near Saint Edmunds’ Catholic Parish Maryland Nkpor-Agu in Anambra State, resorted to fierce attack against the intervening security agencies who were carrying out their legitimate duties.
“The nature of these attacks included brazen employment of various types of fire arms and all sorts of crude weapons, volatile cocktail such as acid and dynamites. Instructively, troops of 82 Division Nigerian Army as the lead agency of the security agencies had to invoke the extant Rules of Engagement (ROE) to resort to self defence, protection of the strategic Niger Bridge, prevent re-enforcement of the pro Biafran members apparently surging ahead from the far side of the Niger Bridge at Onitsha,” the military had confirmed five persons killed and eight others wounded but MASSOB and IPOB officials claimed that the casulity figure was more than 40.
However, in an official reaction to the killings, Ohanaeze Secretary-General, Dr. Joe Nwaorgu, in a statement in Enugu yesterday, debunked the military’s account, lamenting that Ndigbo were traumatized by the cold blooded killing of the peaceful protesters.
“We are unimpressed and unconvinced by the talk of provocation. What level of provocation will warrant the firing of tear gas, without first warning the crowd of the legal implication for them to disperse? The tear gas was followed by a salvo of gunfire with live-bullets.
“The two groups are nonviolent. We believe that they were totally unarmed at the times of the onslaughts. The Federal Government also should set up its own inquiry to give the world the true picture,” he demanded.
Ohanaeze expressed sadness with the continued bloodletting being visited on the people of the area and called for an end to what it described as dastardly act.
Today.ng
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