Date Published: 08/06/09
Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation [HRJPF]
93, Market Road, First Floor, Back, Aba, Abia State, Nigeria
E-mail: hrjpfoundation@yahoo.com
Overseas Office:
565 Pines Street, Brooklyn, New York, USA
E-mail: hrjpf_usa@yahoo.com
August 5, 2009 PRESS RELEASE
HRJPF DEMANDS DISBANDMENT OF BAKASSI BOYS
Today, Wednesday, August 5, 2009, marks the fourth anniversary of the suffocation of 32 out of 37 innocent people abducted, tortured with barbered wires/machetes and detained in a dark and unventilated 12 x 12 dungeon by the Abia State Vigilante Services, popularly known as the Bakassi boys, at Orie Ohabiam, Aba, Abia State, Nigeria.
Shortly after the callous spilling of the sacred blood of the “Orie Ohabiam 32”, the Abia State Government under Chief Orji Kalu, a man whose pedigree bespeaks of perennial fraud constituted a kangaroo panel to investigate the mayhem.
But about four years after the panel, which was apparently set up to exculpate the murderous Bakassi boys and their paymasters from blame, the report has not seen the light of the day. It is still under the pillow of Chief Kalu whom the widely read Tell magazine once described as the most corrupt [former] governor in the country. This has vindicated the stance of the HRJPF that the panel was constituted to divert public attention from the involvement of highly placed individuals in the state.
While the bereaved families of the Orie Ohabiam 32 have been writhing in pains over the killing in a manner most brutal of their bread-winners; the Bakassi boys and Chief Orji Kalu, their former Commander-in-Chief, have been walking the streets freely. On a weekly basis, the Bakassi boys unlawfully arrest, detain and secretly kill innocent persons for rituals under the pretext of combating crime in the ill-fated state of Abia. Sadly, security agents appear to have been compromised.
To this end, the HRJPF calls on President Yar’adua, as a matter of urgent importance, to order:
i) The immediate redeployment and demotion of the AIG, Zone 9; the Commissioner of Police, Abia State; the Area Commanders, Aba and Umuahia; the all the Divisional Police Officers in Aba and Umuahia and other principal officers for surrendering their statutory role to a faceless terrorist and ritual killing gang – the Bakassi boys presently controlled by Abia State Governor, Chief T.A. Orji;
i) The immediate disbandment of the Bakassi boys for their indulgence in unlawful arrests, detention, criminal extortion, and subjugation of perceived opponents of officials of the Abia State Government;
ii) The immediate commencement of the trial of the Bakassi boys and Chief Orji Kalu for the senseless killing of the Orie Ohabiam 32; and
iii) The the constitution of presidential task force to retrieve the arms in the hands of the Bakassi boys and other killer squads of Governor Orji.
With the above demands met, the Federal Government will not only reduce the dangers inherent in arms proliferation but will avert any imminent insurrection against the Federal Republic of Nigeria by Bakassi boys and their politically over-ambitious paymasters.
Comrade Chidi Nwosu
President
