Ben Ezechime, Enugu
Rights activist, and Director, Abuja School of Social and Political Thoughts, Dr Sam Amadi, has said that the Governors of South-East geopolitical zone are not keen to fight the human rights violations of citizens of the region.
Amadi said this while featuring as guest speaker at the monthly Ikengaonline Town-Hall meeting for June 2025 with the topic: “South-East Governors, JAMB and Tertiary Education in Igboland.”
Amadi said that most of the governors were not home-grown hence they were far-connected with the people and lacked social accountability.
“There is this historical tendency by governors of the South-East not taking actions on issues affecting citizens in their respective states.
“Many youths in the South-East have been arrested, maimed and killed but none of the governors in the zone has done anything.
“There is almost an institutionalized system of non-accountability in the South-East,” he said.
Dr Amadi further said that there was a high level of impunity in the area of human rights abuses in the region, adding that this was due to lack of strong human rights groups operating in the zone.
He said that the South-East lacked vocal, active, and strong human rights groups to challenge most of the human rights abuses in the zone.
“There is also lack of funding opportunities for the few ones that still exist in the zone,” Amadi said.
The human rights advocate said there was the need to have a vibrant human rights base in the South-East geopolitical zone, to challenge most human rights violations happening in the region.
He singled Imo State out as one of the states where extra-judicial killings have occurred in the zone and yet the state government had never raised a voice.
He said: “According to the human rights report index in April, Imo State ranked third on the issue of extra-judicial killings in the country.”
He also said that the South-East had a bad governance structure, adding that the current governors in the zone cared less about issues of human rights abuses of their citizens.
“Even if it is on human capital or on human development; they don’t like to discuss national issues.
“Look at the issue of Tax reform bill, when the North was shouting raising issues as it concerned their region, even when they were not much affected, the leaders in the South-East could not muster the courage to discuss and present a coherent position.
He said that the zone lacked a pattern for discussing issues that affect their people hence their leaders avoid national conversations on issues affecting the zone.
In the same vein, he decried the dwindling educational standards in the South-East.
According to him, the South-West had overtaken the South-East in the number of tertiary institutions in the county.
“The education system in the South-East is going down drastically.
“We are currently falling behind the Northern Nigeria; the South-East is lagging behind,” he said.
Amadi said that there was a serious decline in WAEC examination performances by the South-East candidates in recent years.
He said that Anambra State that used to be the number one state in WAEC examination results, recently came a distant tenth position.
He attributed the decline to lack of proper planning and funding by the different state governments in the zone.
