Ebubeagu killings: HURIWA petitions NASS, requests investigation of the murder of Imo wedding attendees

Ebubeagu killings: HURIWA petitions NASS, requests investigation of the murder of Imo wedding attendees

After the Ebubeagu killings, HURIWA petitions NASS, requests investigation of the murder of Imo wedding attendees.

A civil rights organization, HURIWA, has urged the National Assembly’s public petitions committee to investigate the alleged massacre on their own for the benefit of the public after learning about the purported slaughter of numerous wedding guests in Imo State by Ebubeagu.

According to the Civil Society Group HURIWA, the National Assembly’s committees on public petitions should initiate a public, transparent, and impartial investigation into the alleged murders of more than a dozen wedding guests in Awo-omama, Imo State, by ebubeagu.

Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, the national coordinator of HURIWA, gave the senator who represents the people instructions to act quickly to prevent the slaughter from being covered up.

The governor of Imo State and the DSS are each giving a different account of the killings, which the villagers claim were carried out in the manner of a public execution by the Ebubeagu. However, the governor and the DSS both claim that those killed were members of the Eastern Security network, which HURIWA described as totally obscene, unconstitutional, and even unconscionable. Given the stark discrepancy between all of the allegations regarding the killings, it is imperative that the MPs in Abuja take action to protect human rights.

The DSS is alleged to have claimed that those killed died during an exchange of fire, which is in direct opposition to the claims made by the villagers who initially raised the alarm. Days after the alleged wedding guests were allegedly murdered, the civil rights organization said it is shocking.

The rights group argued that it is now crucial that the country is informed of what actually happened, and HURIWA asserted that Nigeria is the only country in the world where armed security personnel can kill citizens at will, labeling them as bandits or simply inventing any justification. Additionally, there is no independent agency funded by taxpayers to conduct a forensic investigation to determine whether the killing was justified.

HURIWA said that in most civilized societies the National Assembly provides such a safeguard but wonders why many incidents of suspected extramural executions of citizens by security forces are happening and there are no reassuring institutional methods of accountability.

HURIWA recalled that the Department of State Services (DSS) has made claims on the seven persons in Imo State, who were alleged to be wedding guests. In what it termed its clarification yesterday in Owerri, the Imo State capital, on what has been classified as “Awomama Killings”, the DSS said the victims were alleged members of the Eastern Security Network (ESN). The DSS insisted that the victims killed on Sunday were members of ESN and not guests coming from a wedding ceremony as against earlier reports.The agency made this known in a statement made available to newsmen when it paraded the suspect at the command in Owerri. The DSS said the victims fell during a fierce gun battle between a joint security team and the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its armed affiliate, Eastern Security Network last Sunday.

If the public petitions committees don’t start an investigation into this allegation of a massacre of civilians, Imo citizens, which has already gone viral around the world, HURIWA said it will on its own be sending a petition to the National Assembly soon. It also dismissed the claims of the Imo State Governor and the DSS as unsatisfactory and biased.

The group argued that because Nigeria is a constitutional democracy and not the banana republic that both the governor of Imo State and the DSS’s accounts of the incident have painted the country as, the National Assembly must intervene right away and transparently gather claims and counterclaims regarding the incident before coming to a decision that will be acceptable.

“Assuming without conceding that those killed were not wedding guests as claimed by Hope Uzodima why should Ebubeagu fire their bullets to kill persons riding on motorcycles? What is lawful would have been for the Imo State government to investigate the killing but sadly the governor even took sides before ascertaining what really happened. This is so cruel, inhumane, wicked, irrational, and insensitive that the governor can dismiss the alleged mass shooting of Imo citizens on the excuse that they were ‘bandits’ even before any sort of forensic probe is instituted”.

HURIWA quoting several media channels stated that there was considerable trepidation, and unprecedented anger in Imo State on Monday after news filtered in that gunmen suspected to be operatives of Ebubeagu Security outfit allegedly killed 7 wedding guests in Awomama, Oru West Local Government Area of the state.