Civil war looms as bandits claim territories in Abia, Anambra, Imo

Sopuruchi Onwuka

As the fireworks for the 2023 elections begin to spark flares across the country, the stakes are particularly high in Abia State where the local government area with the largest landmass is under strong contest by an army of Fulani bandits who have engaged isolated villages in daily attacks.

The headquarters of the Umunneochi Local Government Area, Isuochi, is currently under intensive attack by the bandits who, our investigations have shown, are steadily mobilizing more bandits from the northern parts of the country in a spree of underreported kidnappings, rapes, brutal killings, brazen robberies and will-breaking siege.

The most that has been reported of the plight of the communities in the local government area of  Abia State remains the kidnap of the erstwhile Prelate of the Methodist Church, His Eminence, Dr SKC Uche, who was snatched by the Fulani bandits and released on the payment of N100 million by the church.

Despite bold revelations made by the former prelate on his ordeals, including the indictment of military officers in the area, the reluctance and complicity of the police, the ambition to claim lands by the bandits, and subjugation of the local communities under attack; there has not been any palpable response by the government to the security emergency in the area.

Weeks of investigation by The Oracle Today showed that the bandits have since been emboldened by the inaction of the authorities especially after those initially arrested at behest of social cultural leaders in the communities were said to have been ordered “released” by higher authorities.

Another prominent incident in the area was the kidnap of a lecturer at the Spiritan University, Nneato, also in the local government area. The shaken lecturer who had visited the university from Awka in Anambra state had also circulated lurid description of his ordeal in the hands of the kidnappers, corroborating the tales of the prelate about killing pits, swarms of flies feeding on decomposing bodies, gang rape of women who fall victim to the kidnappers, and professed plan by the bandits to seize a triangular space of land stretching from Isuochi in Umunneochi council area of Abia State through swathes of communities covering Ideato and Okigwe council areas of Imo State to Owerre-Ezukala in Orumba South local government area of Anambra State.

The bandits, who currently reside around the cattle market between Awgu in Enugu State and Lokpanta in Abia State, have since demonstrated their will to exert control on the area by intensifying attacks, kidnappings, killings, extortions and terror messages.

In messages they have consistently and constantly spread through their ransomed victims, the bandits have mocked the communities that they would use their ransom money to stock weapons with which they would later attack and sack the communities before settling down.

They have repeatedly boasted that they came down south with nothing, telling their victims that “we take your money to buy the weapons with which we will use to kill all of you.”

They have also boasted that no security arm of the government can withstand them, regularly pointing at their relationship with political leaders of the country. And their claim of immunity has since played out in the reluctance of the police and military formations in the local government areas of the states to respond to distress calls relating to bandit attacks. 

In the areas already mapped out by the bandits for occupation, Isuochi is the largest, most developed, most populated and most resourced. The bandits see the community as the biggest obstacle to their conquest agenda. The community has thus become the focus of their attacks; wearing down the community with deadly siege and resource drain by abducting and placing huge ransoms on the pillars of the society.

A President General of one of the communities in Isuochi told our reporter that response to ransom demand has drained the community to the estimated tune of over N100 billion, while post kidnap medical bills and damages to vehicular property are in the range of N30 billion.

Human toll is rising.

“Hundreds of our people are still unaccounted for as most of them who were thought to have returned to their places of work and business are turning out to have been abducted and killed by the bandits,” he said.

Actual number of those kidnapped and ransomed by the Fulani bandits was not available. Our source said non-cooperation by the security forces has made documentation of incidents difficult.

“Initially, there was a bit of confusion over whether the kidnappers were local or foreign. You know kidnapping in Abia State started locally after 2003 elections. It reached a national crisis necessitating presidential intervention after the 2007 elections. So, it was difficult to realize when the Fulani invasion overwhelmed us,” a traditional ruler in Isuochi said.

He said a popular Ndiawa-Leru highway has been seized by the kidnappers who have successfully claimed the area.

The Oracle Today reports that a District Crime Officer (DCO) attached to the local government area (names withheld) was kidnapped and killed by the Fulani herdsmen after collecting ransom. The DCO was said to be returning from a state police function with his Divisional Police Officer (DPO) when both were attacked along the Ndiawa-Leru highway by bandits. The DPO was said to have continued running on bare metal rims of his vehicle after the bandits burst his tires, while the DCO was successfully brought down and taken by the kidnappers.

No rescue effort was made by the Abia State Police Command during the DCO’s hostage until ransom was paid by his family and he was finally killed by his abductors, it was gathered.

Youths in the area who had protested police and military inaction after the Methodist Prelate was kidnapped were harassed by both the police and the military officers in the area.

Later a policy officer from the state’s high command who addressed the youths had declared that the military was a huge hindrance in eradicating banditry in the area. And the military officers in pickup vans had paraded the communities in the area, shooting sporadically in the air to subdue the protesters.

Bandit attacks have since worsened after the altercations, and there has been no attempt by the security forces at hunting down the armed bandits whose domains and routes have been vividly described and confirmed by different hostages.

Even after the abduction and killing of the senior police officer in the local government area, the police have not feigned any form of bravado!

People in the area appear convinced that that the military checkpoints established by the federal government are mere shields and cash custody points for the kidnappers.

The lecturer who addressed his Amesi community of Anambra State in a viral video about his ordeal at Spiritan University narrated that his relations were asked to report to the military personnel stationed at a post at Lomara Junction that they had come to deliver ransom for a kidnapped victim. He said the ransom negotiators only received a mocking laughter from the army personnel on duty.

The Methodist Prelate had also stated that he and the church’s officials were held by the kidnappers under the clear and conscious view of the military personnel at Lomara who, he said, interacted closely with the kidnappers during the period of his captivity.

Abandoned by state and federal governments, kidnapping and ransom abductions have worsened and become increasingly endemic in villages that had hosted herdsmen and offered hem hospitality. These areas, community leaders say, are already mapped by assailants who know the nooks and crannies that now facilitate vanishing after each round of kidnapping.

From targeting wealthy residents riding in SUVs, the kidnappers have succeeded in wearing down the communities, scaring away people from returning home, killing businesses in the area and regularly mopping up cash from relations of abducted victims.

Since the abductions became brazen, over 700 people who whose relations were unable to respond to cash calls have been reported killed! And the killing pit which freed hostages have described to be located besides the Ibii River has become not just a feasting spot for nocturnal canine scavengers but a brewing pot for imminent epidemic.

“The Fulani herdsmen are killing our people every day and no government security agency cares,” our source laments.

In resorting to self help, good minded sons of the communities have floated ill equipped but strong willed vigilante groups to push back the bandits that pillage the communities.

The efforts are getting cooperation and collaboration from willing communities in Anambra State to forestall the spread of conquest to the state, our reporters gathered.

Unfortunately, the Imo State angle of the contested territory remains the weakest point in the push-back effort as the state appears overwhelmed with internal gang wars that have seen wastage of thousands of Igbo youths.

With collaboration from boys from Anambra State and sponsorship of youths from Umunnneochi, fierce battle currently rages between community vigilante groups and bandits who are strongly digging in with military grade battle gears. And there appears to be no respite in sight as the bandits have maintained their grounds; spreading in numbers and mounting new outposts on daily basis.

One of the bitter results is that the bandits have seized all the roads leading into and out of Umunneochi, including the Enugu-Okigwe axis of the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway. And despite several military and police checkpoints that dot the area, the bandits successfully strike at any time and place. No arrest has been made neither have there been any effort by security agencies at chasing the criminals.

Villagers who spoke to our reporters said the police and military personnel normally give way about one hour to any kidnap incident, and return quickly to their posts after hostages have been successfully taken.

In one incident along the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway between Leru and Ihube, the bandits had boldly chased away military personnel from their checkpoint and set their patrol van on fire! The attack on the military came after the bandits had successfully attacked several motorists and taken hostages. They were said to have been angered by hasty return of the military personnel to their duty posts.

Local residents report that they are now used to routine of daily attacks on motorists along the expressway.

Just recently, four nuns of the catholic faith were seized by the Islamic kidnappers and later released on payment of ransom. Stories of identity, defilement and rape at the hostage camps are out of this report.

What is critical is that that Southeast territory is under claim by Islamic militants, and the political administrators of the region are silent and waiting for 2023 to be relieved of responsibility on the people that elected them into office.

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu who visited Isuochi shortly after the kidnap of the Methodist prelate had promised to rid the area of bandits. He subsequently raised a security committee.

The Abia State government also moved to sanitize the cattle colony established by Senator Orji Uzor Kalu; demolishing brothels, drug hubs and gun running centers surrounding the Lokpanta Cattle Market. But without mobilization and deployment of security personnel, the efforts of the state government have since passed down as political charade.

Governor Ikpeazu had also called for collaboration among the four states that share common boundary in the area: Abia, Anambra, Enugu and Imo. And apart from the public speech, there has been no visible move or response from any of the states to the worsening security threat in the heart of Igboland.

Thus, the communities of Isuochi, Nneato, Uturu and Isuikwuato in Abia State; Owere Ezukala and Umuchukwu in Anambra State; Mgbowo, Awgu, and related communities in Enugu State; and Ihube, Umulolo, and surrounding villages in Imo State are left to be raped by hoards of invading AK-47 wielding Fulani bandits who evidently enjoy immunity.

Quantifying the damage inflicted by the burgeoning banditry in the area is difficult. Communities are under siege and constantly pillaged through regular abductions for huge ransoms, able bodied men who pose threats to the kidnappers are being killed as minutes tick away, poor hostages that fail to meet ransom demands are slaughtered under the watch and at the horror of other hostages, businesses in the areas are rapidly shutting down, and travelers are no longer certain to reach their destinations.

And just like the Kaduna-Abuja expressway, the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway is gradually falling to the bandits. Currently, the Awgu-Okigwe axis of the highway has become a death trap for travelers most of whom maintain the northeastern and southeastern trade link that services exchange of goods from Lake Chad basin down to Niger Delta.

Elsewhere in Southwest of the country where the dehumanizing siege was mounted on communities by the Fulani bandits, political leaders had united to form the adequately resourced, properly constituted and proficiently managed Amotekun vigilante outfit. The outfit has since assumed the role of regional police with focus on crime fighting, especially purging the region of terror groups seeking to displace communities and claim their lands.

Most of the terror groups displaced from the southwest region and Benue State are now digging into the southeast where civil security is lax and political leaders ignore the worsening existential threat to their people. The situation exposes the total loss of cohesion among the political leaders of the region.

The five states in the region are governed by three different political parties; and the political differences have failed to deliver the benefits of diversity but inflicted fragmentation and disunity. The result is the unfolding conquest by well mobilized bandits imported by enemies to displace Ndigbo and take their land.

The Southeast Governors Forum has been reduced to a sham under the leadership Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State. The group had discredited the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and formed an inexistent Ebubeagu vigilante group. With their selfish antics governors appear to have deliberately offered their people for sale at political auction.

From Ebonyi State where traditional rulers are now abducted for ransom to the boundary settlements that connect the rest of Igboland, the bandits roam brazenly, freely and boldly. They attack, abduct, rape, maim, kill and terrorize villagers under the watch of their leaders.

The bandits told the lecturer from Spiritan University that they claim control of areas spreading from Abia to Anambra and Imo States. They also told the Methodist prelate that they are currently using their ransom money to amass weapons with which to eventually sack the communities. 

Who comes to the rescue of these communities?