INVESTIGATION: Inside the horrific bloodshed and massive extrajudicial killings in Nigeria’s Oyigbo community
This
is a moving story of how the Nigerian Army inflicted war-grade assault
on Oyigbo community in Rivers, killing many residents, and injuring many
others. It is another case of gross human rights violations.
Like
most brides-to-be, Queen Nwazuo, 30, was beside herself with
anticipation. Her wedding to her fiancé, Monday Bakor, was scheduled for
next February and the preparation for the event had long begun. But the
rosy future the student of Abia State Polytechnic looked forward to
with her lover was truncated by bullets from rampaging troops of the
Nigerian Army, who were on a reprisal mission in Oyigbo, Rivers State.
Ms
Nwazuo, an orphan, was shot dead on Thursday, October 22, as she and Mr
Bakor were trying to lock the latter’s shop at 12B Ehi Street as
residents scurried to safety from soldiers who were shooting
indiscriminately at unarmed civilians in Oyigbo town. Oyigbo lies west
of the Imo River, the location of the oil wells that straddle Abia State
and Rivers State in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
“They did not care,” a
distraught Mr Bakor told PREMIUM TIMES as he sobbed intermittently.
“They were directly shooting at people. It was not stray bullets. They
were directly shooting people. They killed people and they were using
grammar to explain it.
“They came to the street where people were
and I saw everybody as they were locking their shops. I was rushing to
lock mine when a bullet pierced through the iron door of my shop. I saw
particles all over me but the bullet hit my fiancée and she fell.
“I
did not even care if they would kill me. I carried her to the hospital
with the help of a person who brought a bike. It was at the hospital,
Divine Light, that she was confirmed dead. Nobody was confronting
anybody in that area. I am not IPOB. I don’t meet with anybody. You can
only see me at my house and church and that shop.
“I am angry.
They killed innocent people and they are still denying. They killed a
woman I am about to marry next February. I opened this shop for us to
make some money to use for her return to school.”
Mr Bakor said
he and his late lover had fled Oyigbo to Etche on Wednesday, before they
returned on Thursday, believing calm had returned. He said he took the
woman’s remains to a mortuary around Timber Road in Oyigbo, a claim
verified by PREMIUM TIMES. Informants at another mortuary at Imo River,
which a resident, Emmanuel Maduabuchi helped locate, said families were
bringing dead bodies to deposit amid the siege.
“It was divine
grace that I was not also killed when I took her to hospital and later
to the mortuary. Everywhere was dry and there were shootings
everywhere,” he said.
Another victim, just like several others
who were killed by the troops, Excellent Moses was, on the evening that
the fatal cockktail opened in Oyigbo, standing hundred metres from the
Mbano Camp Junction where an armoured combat vehicle of Nigerian
soldiers was stationed, powering gunfires to different directions . He
was hit by a bullet. Fallen and soaked in blood, Mr. Moses, a young
Christian minister, let out a loud painful screech, before some low
dying moans.
His friend by whose house he was standing, Willy
Callistus (surname not included over safety concern), hurtled towards
him. Given a fireman’s carry, Mr Moses was taken to a nearby hospital,
Glorious Medical Centre.
“By the time I got to the hospital after
his friends called me, my son was already dead,” Mr Moses’ mum, a civil
servant, visited by PREMIUM TIMES, began, struggling to hold back
tears. “I saw two holes, one on his chest and the other by his side,
meaning the bullet pierced through the front and blew open his side. His
shirt was also perforated.”
Mr Moses, a pastor serving at the
Living Faith Church, Igwuruta, a Port Harcourt suburb, had travelled to
his Oyigbo family home on Tuesday, October 20, to get a carpenter and
interior decorator for some work at his Igwuruta apartment. It was a
journey of no-return. He was shot dead by soldiers, his family and two
friends, who witnessed the fatal incident, said.
“They said
soldiers did not kill anybody in Oyigbo but my own first son was killed
and those who witnessed the incident and carried him, like these boys
(pointing to Willy Callistus, and Emmanuel Maduabuchi, another of Mr
Moses’ friend) said the bullet was from the APC (armoured personnel
carrier) at the (Mbano Camp) Junction,” his mother, a civil servant,
told PREMIUM TIMES at her Ohita Street family home.
This reporter saw bullet holes on the houses close to the spot where Mr Moses stood before he was killed.
The
video in this tweet has been verified to that of a young man called
Justice, who was shot by Nigerian forces in Oyigbo. We showed the video
to a set of young men at a football field off the road that leads to the
Glorious Medical Centre. They identified him, as did Willy Callistus
separately.
A brutal reprisal mission to Oyigbo
The
killer soldiers launched out on a vengeful mission after mobs, whom the
authorities alleged were members of the Indigenous People of Biafra
(IPOB), an Igbo separatist group, killed some security personnel. As
fully-loaded military trucks rolled into the town, soldiers, armed to
the teeth, jumped down in combat fashion, then took strategic positions
on the streets of Oyigbo, also called Obigbo. The carnage soon began in
earnest.
The official narrative provided by authorities was that
the troops were deployed to the town to fish out separatists who
murdered soldiers and police officers. Authorities also said the
soldiers were there to recover stolen arms.
But under what seemed
a deliberate blackout, with a 24-hour curfew in force, the Nigerian
Army inflicted a cocktail of devastation and bloodshed on the town, a
PREMIUM TIMES investigation found, based on on-the-ground reporting,
interviews with multiple sources, including families of victims,
witnesses, military, mortuary attendants and hospital sources, and a
review of verified citizen-generated videos and photos.
The
soldiers took vengeance on defenceless people in what ranks among the
cruellest use of excessive force against unarmed civilians in the
country’s history. The carnage at Oyigbo is comparable, in its
execution, to the massacres in Odi (1999) and Zaki Biam (2001), under
former President Olusegun Obasanjo; and Zaria(2015), under incumbent
President Muhammadu Buhari. Both leaders were military dictators before
becoming democratically elected presidents.
For several days
between the last week of October and November 3, soldiers, day and
night, fired bullets around Oyigbo, indiscriminately targeting unarmed
civilians, several of whom were either killed or injured, multiple
witnesses, among them rescuers of victims, said. They planted fears in
the community and triggered forced displacements, with residents fleeing
westwards to Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, or eastwards to
neighbouring Imo and Abia States.
“My family was able to escape
to Port Harcourt,” Christian John told PREMIUM, adding that a friend,
with whom he attended preparatory lessons for the Joint Admission and
Matriculation Board (JAMB) examinations in the past was killed during
the shootings. He only identified the friend by his first name, Olisa.
At
Mbano Camp Junction, on the old road to Aba, the economic nerve centre
of Abia State, an armoured combat vehicle was stationed, ferociously
powering gunfires in different directions, according to multiple
witnesses, including residents and tricycle operators, who operate in
the vicinity. It was some hundred metres away from that spot that, Mr
Moses, the young Christian minister, was hit by a bullet.
Amid
the siege on Oyigbo, gory pictures depicting man’s inhumanity to man
emerged on social media at the end of October and Rivers State, once the
main theatre of Niger Delta militancy, became Nigeria’s latest
epicentre of gross human rights abuses, competing with Lagos where
soldiers descended on peaceful protesters, killing yet an unknown number
of them and injuring several others.
As public concerns rose,
#Oyigbo #Obigbo #Oyigbomassacre trended on Twitter days after Mr Moses
and several others, including at least one child, whose case was
verified by our reporter, were killed by the soldiers. Many of the
soldiers who executed the massacre were deployed from the Operation
Delta Safe camp protecting Imo River oil and gas installations, sources
familiar with the matter said.
The Terrible Things of Oyigbo
“Terrible
things happened in Oyigbo,” a worried Ifeanyi Egesi said, as he drove
this reporter towards the subdued community. On this day, Mr Egesi was
the only Port Harcourt airport cabman who agreed to take an Oyigbo-bound
passenger. Others were fear-stricken, aware of the grisly crimes that
had happened there and the possibility of being killed by soldiers.
Henry
Shield, who told PREMIUM TIMES he had spoken with people on the ground,
including one person, Monday Bakor, whose fiancée, Queen Nwazuo, was
shot dead, said, “what happened in Oyigbo was total suspension of
people’s rights, like a declaration of martial law.”
Residents
unable to flee the town complained that they were left starving in their
homes as they were unable to go to work or buy food to eat for days
because of the indiscriminate shootings by soldiers. They said they only
began to enjoy some reprieve after the 24-hour curfew was reviewed to 7
PM – 6 AM on November 3.
With a 24-hour curfew in force and with
the Rivers State Government and the army denying extra-judicial
killings of innocent and defenceless people and human rights abuses, a
clear and factual picture of the situation was slow to emerge.
During
our week-long investigation in Oyigbo, we observed that fears rang
clear among the people and many of them had to clear their telephones of
pictures of victims or military in action over fear soldiers could
forcibly take their devices and punish them for having recorded abuses.
By
interviewing several residents, many of them still terrified, our
reporting showed nearly every individual in Oyigbo is aware of the
abuses, having witnessed them happen, seen mourning families, or seen
fleeing residents and dead human beings abandoned by the roadside like
the two at Trailer Park.
We obtained disturbing pieces of
evidence suggesting war-grade violence by the military on unarmed people
and challenged the claim by the government and the army that the Oyigbo
operation was only in search of stolen arms and members of the
separatist group, IPOB, accused of carnage.
Oyigbo Massacre Victim — 14-year-old Victor Eme
Among
multiple witnesses interviewed by PREMIUM TIMES, a motorcyclist, who
did not want his name mentioned, said he saw seven persons die from
gunshots fired by soldiers at three different locations.
He took
our reporter, accompanied by Willy Callistus, to the three locations. At
one place, a right turn after the roundabout on Old Aba Road, facing
Imo River eastwards, three persons were said to have been killed there.
But the families refused to comment on the record, firmly rejecting
requests for details after confirming the fatalities only.
One
family member said they were scared as soldiers were stationed just
across the Imo River bridge and that they remained suspicious that the
soldiers had planted informants among the civilian population.
Next
was to Bernard Eme, who operates a restaurant on the Old Aba Road, and
had two of his brothers helping him. One of them, Victor, a 14-year old
schoolboy, was hit by bullets during the siege of Oyigbo, Mr Eme
confirmed.
“We thought he (Victor) was in the shop during the
shootings but I was called that he was shot and lying on the ground. I
said ‘no’ that he was in the shop with my other brother but he left the
shop when the other boy had slept off,” Bernard said. He said neither he
nor his brothers had any link with IPOB.
He said Victor was taken to Heritage Hospital where he was confirmed dead.
The
third place the motorcyclist took PREMIUM TIMES to was the market “by
St. Paul Catholic Church” where three men were said to have been shot
dead. One person at Mr Eme’s restaurant corroborated this claim, apart
from traders, who also said their wares were destroyed.
"Six persons confirmed dead at Glorious Hospital, Oyigbo”
For
the days the soldiers besieged Oyigbo, six persons hit by bullets were
taken dead to Glorious Medical Centre, authoritative sources at the
private facility told PREMIUM TIMES. One of the six persons was
Excellent Moses whose grieving family PREMIUM TIMES visited.
“We
confirmed six persons dead as they were brought severally,” one person
at the hospital said. “14 persons were admitted and we referred some to
the University of Port Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, UPTH.” The
hospital sources did not disclose the identities of those admitted and
transferred to the teaching hospital.
At the teaching hospital,
Choba, in Port Harcourt, a front desk nurse, identified as Mercy,
confirmed victims from Oyigbo were referred to the public facility. She
declined to disclose details of patients, citing hospital rules as
reason.
But our reporter told another nurse that he was in search
of a friend who went missing in Oyigbo and believed to have been
brought to the teaching hospital.
The nurse checked the register
for the fictitious name our reporter provided. Of course, it was not
found. However, the nurse disclosed that there were Oyigbo victims
admitted but that access to the wards would not be granted since the
fictitious name of the missing person our reporter provided did not
match any entry in the register.
But she said, “one person among
those brought during the incidents in Oyigbo is now dead, and was a
Cameroonian, called Eriga. But there was no serious person with him and
he was on the bed there (pointing to one of the beds in the hospital’s
Accident and Emergency reception area) before he died the following
day.”
“Ambulance burnt with dead bodies inside”
The commercial
motorcyclist, who said he witnessed how seven persons were killed by
soldiers, and led this reporter to the restaurant of Mr Eme, whose
14-year old brother, Victor, was also killed, again took us to the
Market area to see and photograph a burnt ambulance in the middle of the
road.
One person, at Mr Eme’s restaurant, – who also
corroborated the motorcyclist’s claim of having witnessed fatal
shootings of three persons at the Market “by St. Paul Catholic Church” –
confirmed the account on the burnt ambulance with the dead bodies in
it.
We saw and took photographs of buildings the motorcyclist and
residents said were razed by soldiers. One of such buildings, on Timber
Road, was used by IPOB members as a place of worship and they called it
synagogue, we were told. Another was razed by soldiers on suspicion it
has links with IPOB but residents said there was no link to the
organisation.
Oyigbo suffered for “harbouring” IPOB
We
described our findings to the spokesperson of the Army’s 6th Division
based in Port Harcourt, Charles Ekeocha, who asked if we had been to
Oyigbo, and then said “no comment”. Our letter of November 11 to the
Division’s General Officer Commanding (GOC) also detailed our findings.
We did not get a response by the time this story was published.
Despite
its proscription, IPOB is becoming increasingly radicalised, observers
say, and its leader, Mr Kanu, continues to fire incendiary remarks,
usually against Abuja and the Muslim Hausa-Fulani north. In Oyigbo,
particularly, residents accuse the separatists of hoisting the Biafran
flag and of exhibiting violent tendencies.
Governor Wike has
repeatedly denounced the group, insisting the state subscribes to
Nigeria’s corporate existence and indivisibility.
Oyigbo killings triggered by Lekki Shooting, but more tragic
The
shooting of peaceful #EndSARS protesters at Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos on
the night of Tuesday, October 20, immediately triggered a wave of
anarchic violence across parts of Nigeria, with mobs targeting police
stations and private and public assets.
The protests turned
violent in Oyigbo too and mobs broke into two police facilities, one on
the expressway to Aba and the other at Afam, stole arms and ammunition
and set inmates free in the early hours of Wednesday, October 21.
Residents
said among the mobs were IPOB members, with whom the police had endured
a prolonged period of hostility. “It is hard to show evidence that IPOB
were the only ones that destroyed the stations and killed the policemen
but we, who know them, could identify them among the hoodlums,” said
one resident, Emmanuel Maduabuchi.
Four police officers were
savagely hacked and burnt and police stations were razed, the police and
residents said. The spokesperson for the police in Rivers State, Omoni
Nnamdi, told PREMIUM TIMES that two of the slain cops – Ona Amaechi and
Sunday Dubol – were Inspectors, and the other two – Swale Orlan and
Umulla – were sergeants.
After it became clear the police had
been overpowered, soldiers intervened that morning, and one senior army
officer said it was on the invitation of Governor Wike. “As they saw
soldiers arrive, they should have withdrawn but they continued and
murdered seven soldiers,” the army officer said in Port Harcourt. “The
soldiers were not killed. They were slaughtered by IPOB.”
PREMIUM TIMES saw two burnt military vans at the market before the Imo River bridge in Oyigbo.
Wike, army lied
Beginning
from the evening of Wednesday, soldiers re-mobilised and invaded
Oyigbo. But with the media hardly gaining access, both Mr Wike and the
army continued to make official claims that the military operation was
aimed at arresting IPOB members and recovering stolen arms.
On
Sunday, November 8, Igbo leaders and governors from the Southeast zone
visited Mr Wike in Port Harcourt on what they called a fact-finding
mission. During that visit, Mr Wike repeated the claim that the military
was in pursuit of IPOB whom he suggested were criminals. The visitors
accepted Mr Wike’s claim that defenceless residents, in the community
majorly occupied by the Igbo, were not targeted.
Particularly,
Governors Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia and David Umahi of Ebonyi said they had
determined that what circulated on social media as killings of unarmed
civilians was fake news. Similarly, the President of the Ohanaeze
Ndigbo, Jim Nwodo, praised Mr Wike and rhetorically asked the audience
if there was any threat to them in Rivers State.
The visiting
Igbo leaders were never in Oyigbo. But, perhaps unknown to them, they
were used to validate Mr Wike’s claim, a misleading narrative aimed at
covering up the army’s excessive use of force.
Mr Nwodo was twice
contacted by phone but he said he could not comment “for now” and he
also did not reply a text message informing him our findings showed his
delegation was misled by Mr Wike. We could not get through to the
governors.
Our findings contradicted substantial parts of the
claims by the army and Mr Wike. While the soldiers indeed went after
Oyigbo residents suspected to be IPOB and suspected to have participated
in the attacks on security operatives and destroyed their buildings,
they indiscriminately shot at defenceless and innocent people, leaving
many dead. They tortured residents and several persons are missing in
Oyigbo.)
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