Retired Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai as immediate past Chief of Army Staff chillingly left a legacy of monstrosity and barbarism in the Nige...
Retired Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai as immediate past Chief
of Army Staff chillingly left a legacy of monstrosity and barbarism in the
Nigerian Army. This is to the extent that few weeks after he was named as
Nigerian Army Chief of Staff in July 2015, the secularity and professional
tradition and culture of the Nigerian Army got changed and irreparably
bastardized. Today, apart from Nigerian Army clearly running a hateful agenda
on ethnic and religious grounds; particularly targeted at Christians and
defenseless members of Igbo Ethnic Nationality-the largest Christian Ethnic Group
in Nigeria, the Nigerian Army has also become an abominable army and key
perpetrator of internationally classified and defined ‘prohibited acts’
including abominable sexual and other gender-based violence.
Atrocities of the Nigerian Army have remained ceaselessly
untamed or unchecked week in week out since 2015. It is a height of abomination
for soldiers of the Nigerian to have degraded themselves to the extent of
engaging in serial rape and other abominable sexual violence against innocent
and defenseless young Igbo Christian women inside the Mogadishu Barracks-a
Barracks not too far away from Headquarters of the Nigerian Army in Abuja. This
is to the extent of raping to death one, if not more than one of them and
deflowering and inflicting bruises and internal injuries on another, as young
as 23, who resisted being raped because she was a virgin. In all these, the
Nigerian Army has dangerously become serially incorrigible and earned a status
of ‘denial virus’-as it engages in serial and empty denials and hardly conducts
credible investigations or fishes out its perpetrator personnel and hold them
administratively and judicially accountable.
The above was the position of the International Society for
Civil Liberties & Rule of Law contained in a statement issued today in
Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria and signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi (Criminologist &
Graduate of Security Studies), Board Chair, Barrister Obianuju Igboeli, Head of
Civil Liberties & Rule of Law, Barrister Chinwe Umeche, Head of Democracy
& Good Governance, Barrister Chidinma Udegbunam, Head of Campaign &
Publicity, Barrister Ndidiamaka Bernard, Head of Int’l Justice & Human
Rights and Comrade Samuel Kamanyaoku, Head of Field Data Collection &
Documentation.
How The 53 Obigbo Young Women Were Abducted & Serially
Raped At Mogadishu Barracks
The 53 young girls and women and others in non-menopausal
age bracket, were abducted by the Nigerian Army in Obigbo, Rivers State between
Oct and Nov 2020 and serially raped for weeks by its soldiers at the Mogadishu
(Abacha) Barracks in Abuja. They were part of those abducted at various arenas
at Obigbo on their way home from work between 7pm and 7.30pm on 20th Nov 2020
and taken to Obinze Army Barracks in Owerri in the dead of the night or hours
of the blue law from where they were secretly transported next night to the
Mogadishu Barracks, Abuja where many, if not most of them were raped and used
as ‘sex slaves’ for weeks before they were secretly transferred to DSS dungeons
in Abuja where they are presently held incommunicado.
It is recalled that Intersociety had in Dec 2020 issued a
statement alleging that ‘400 defenseless Obigbo residents or more including
young women were abducted by the Nigerian Army between Oct and Nov 2020 and
secretly transported to different military dungeons in Northern Nigeria where
they were clamped into indefinite and incommunicado detention without charge
and public knowledge’. Weeks after, 52 of the abductees were rescued in Niger
State and three died in Army captivity. Also between Dec 2020 and end of Jan
2021, 93 of them were located, rescued and freed through Court bails. Just few
days back, another 63 were granted bail and their bail conditions are being
perfected. That is to say that a total of 145 Obigbo abductees including two
young females have been freed while 63 more are set to be freed in coming days.
With latest discovery of 53 women among them, the total number of located names
among the over 400 Obigbo abductees is now 261, out of which 145 have been
freed, 63 are about to be freed and 53 (all women) have just been located and
over 140 are still at large. All the
abductees, from our several investigations, are engaged in different types of
legitimate occupation and other lawful social activities. Some of them also are
husbands and wives, brothers and sisters; and young and nursing mothers.
How Names Of The 53 Women Were Discovered
Following the release of the second batch of the Obigbo
abductees numbering 29 on 29th Dec 2020 including two young women (23 years old
and 21 years old); a case of rape by soldiers of the Nigerian Army attached to
Mogadishu Barracks and similar harassments at Obinze Army Barracks in Owerri,
Imo State was reported and on 8th Feb 2021, Intersociety dispatched its
investigators to interview the victims. Intersociety is retaining its right of
confidentiality by withholding the identities and full accounts of the two rape
victims. However, part of their accounts relevant to this statement is that
“they were abducted alongside multiple dozens of other young women and men
between 7pm and 7.30pm on 20th Nov 2020 at Obigbo”. The victims were abducted
on their way home from their job or work places. The two rape victims were
specifically abducted and labeled “criminals” on their way home from their hair
dressing salon shops and at a local commuter bus stop. Their abductors
(soldiers) operated with a luxurious bus “packed” with multiple dozens of
abductees. They were taken away to undisclosed locations same night only for
them to find themselves next day (21st Nov 2020) at Obinze Army Barracks,
Owerri (Imo State). In the late evening of same (21st Nov), they were again
taken away in the same luxurious bus only for them to find themselves next
morning at Mogadishu Barracks, Abuja.
At arrival in the Mogadishu Barracks, they were separated
and dumped in ‘male and female guardrooms’. The victims also importantly
informed Intersociety “that there were over 50 young women in the female
guardrooms-all Obigbo abductees” and that “during their stay in the guardrooms
and less than two days after their arrival, soldiers turned them into ‘sex
slaves’ and serially raped them using “random picking or selection”. The
victims added that “just a day after their arrival from Obinze on 22nd Nov,
2020, one of them, called ‘Victoria’ was raped to death and her corpse
disappeared till date.” The victims told Intersociety that “they were not raped
inside guardrooms but were randomly picked each of the raping days and taken to
designated spots where they were raped and returned to guardrooms”. The victims
also alleged that “they were tortured, abused, degraded and starved of food and
toiletries while in the Army captivity and were also totally blocked from their
families and stripped of their personal belongings including cash sums, bags,
jewelries and mobile phones”. Intersociety, Barr E.R. Okoroafor and others have
since sent the clips of the interview to strategic groups including notable
women’s rights groups outside the country.
How The 53 Young Women Were Traced To DSS Dungeons
It was a thorough underground search and investigation,
built on the rape victims’ accounts and anchored by Barr E.R. Okoroafor,
assisted by the leadership of IPOB, an internationally respected rights group
and Intersociety that paid off leading
to tracing of names of the 53 young women to DSS. It was further found that
they were handed over to DSS by Nigerian Army several weeks after their
abduction and being serially serial raped. DSS in turn, dictatorially clamped
and detained them incommunicado using crooked remand orders without recourse to
required judicial review of same at the expiration of remand deadlines as
provided in the Access to Criminal Justice Act of 2015 and in flagrant
violation and breach of 35 (4) of the 1999 Constitution. If abducted in Oct 2020, the 53 women and
others still held captive must have been held for four months and over three
months if abducted in Nov 2020. This is more so when the Nigerian Army (the
sole abductors) and the Spy Police or DSS have neither charged them to court
nor released them unconditionally; likewise maintaining silence of the
graveyard till date.
Names Of The 53 Raped
And Abducted Young Women
They are: Ijeoma Francisca, Pauline anyanwu, Grace Samson,
Rebecca Ibeanusi, Ebere Uchechi, Emmanuella Oluchukwu, Okafor Uloma, Peace
Amaka, Eberechi ibe, Ekene Silver, Grace Anwulika, Mba Asiegbu, Modestus Umeazie, Blessing Paulina, Joy Anozie,
Amarachukwu Believe, Amadi Chinasa, Onwuka Uzoma, Chidinma Ukachukwu, Chioma
Isaac, Peace Isaac, Ebube Aneto, Tina Emeka,, Stephanie Sunday, Mercy Chidinma,
Diri Ibe, Mirabel Angel, Nwosu Abigail, Uwaoma Queen, Sarah Alo, Sandra Evoh,
Cynthia Evoh, Bridget Dede, Erica Ndubisi, Oluchi Mercy, Uchendu
Priscilla,Goodness Kaima, Ujunwa Ndubisi, Mama Nnamdi, Ekpere Odinanka, Nwoji
Mary, Rosemary Ogudike, Happiness Odinaka, Georgina Umunze, Ngozi White,
Atumofe Charity, Atumofe Precious, Amaka
Ebere, Clementina Obiageli, Success Florence, Dike Amara, Kelechi Orji and
Ukaamaka Oluchi.
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