Former Chairman, Police Service Commission (PSC), Chief Simon Okeke has unreservedly condemned the killing of Biafra agitators who were commemarating Biafra Day on May 30. Talking to newsmen yesterday in Amichi, Okeke said the killing of Igbo youths under any pretence and without any provocation by security agents has become very unacceptable and must stop because it is unacceptable in any civilized society that people, who were protesting over an issue, should be shot dead extra- judicially, and somebody would be talking about existing Rule of Engagement, ROE.
He expressed disbelief over what he called criminal silence of Igbo elders over the incident of May 30, 2016 at Nkpor and other parts of Onitsha.
Okeke called on President Muhammadu Buhari to set up a judicial commission of inquiry to look into the alleged shooting of members of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, and other Biafra agitators.
The former PSC boss painfully recalled that it was the second time Biafra agitators were allegedly killed in Anambra state and the Igbo elders were keeping quiet. He could not understand how some people, who call themselves South East Group for Change, went to Abuja the next day, as if nothing happened, and had a hand-shake with the President, without muting anything about the killings or registering their displeasure.
“I was in New York when I heard about the killing and I was so angry that I had to call the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Gary Igarewey to ask him what they had done and I was happy with his answer on that incident, including the action they took over the beheading of the Igbo woman in Kano State and the other one in Niger State.
“But I was shocked that a day after the shooting in Anambra State, an elder statesman of Igbo extraction led a group called South East Group for Change to meet with the President and was dumb on the killing,” he said. Chief Okeke said that there was no war going on in the South East and South South states, just as the IPOB and Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, were not violent groups and do not carry arms.
“In the civilized world, the military does not come out to check the activities of people protesting. It is the police that is responsible for that. They use water cannons to ensure that there is no break-down of law and order and not deploying the armed forces to open fire on innocent people who are protesting, forgetting that in some cases, some non-members show solidarity to the protesting group and in the process, members and non-members may be killed,” Okeke said.
He further asked President Muhammadu Buhari to release Mr. Nnamdi Kanu in order to forestall further killing of Igbo youths, by soldiers, who later give flimsy reasons for their action.
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