Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC), the youth wing of the South-East apex socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, has condemned harsh treatment of Igbo women by the security forces deployed at the court premises during the trial of Pro-Biafra leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, Wednesday in Abuja.
The group claimed that the security operatives assaulted Igbo women who were in Abuja to show their solidarity to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) at the federal high court Abuja by hitting them with Ak47 riffles, an act Ohanaeze youths described as unprofessional.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja, Wednesday, the National President of Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC), Comrade Igboayaka O. Igboayaka said: “Nigeria is crawling to a banana Republic, where dignity of human life is easily reduced to nothing because violation of human rights is the order of the day in the hands of security officers who are expected to demonstrate high level of expertise and professionalism in the discharge of their constitutional duties.”
Disclosing the women’s experience, Comrade Igboayaka said, “Igbo women who stood about one kilometer away from the Federal High Court close to Blue Springs Hotel, Abuja, became objects of security brutality when the troops of Nigeria security agents sprayed tear gas on them.”
According to him, “the officers marched the women on the ground, hit them with guns and left them with bruises all over their body. The women were also stripped naked by the security men in the process of the torture.
He said: “This is completely unacceptable, a taboo to womanhood and a slap on the dignity of Nigerian women. The behaviour of the security personnel on Igbo women today is a challenge to women groups, The National Assembly, and the global community.
“People have rights to movement and association, but the case of Nigeria is fast becoming different.
“Nigeria is drifting into a state of lawlessness where fundamental human rights are serially abused especially by security agents and this truism accounts for why Nigeria is leading in abuse of human rights violation, globally.”
Comrade Igboayaka called on the International Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other relevant organisations to follow events in Nigeria especially the ongoing killings in the South-East, noting that the region has, so far, recorded highest rate of human rights abuse in the hands of security agents deployed in the zone.
While the Ohanaeze youth leader maintained that intimidation, marginalization, injustice and human rights abuse, among others remained the root causes of agitations in the South-East, he called on the National Human Rights Commission to make public, recorded cases of human rights abuses in the region.
