An aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak, was shot dead last week in Imo State.
According to the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Mr. Bala Elkana, “On May 30, 2021, at about 07:20hrs, armed bandits intercepted and attacked a Toyota Camry cab, carrying Ahmed Gulak and two others, who were on their way to Sam Mbakwe Airport to catch a flight.”
He added, “Six armed bandits who rode in a Toyota Sienna intercepted, identified and shot Ahmed Gulak around Umueze Obiangwu in Ngor-Okpala Local Government Area, close to the Airport.”
According to a Thursday, June 3 by Owerri ThisDay newspaper, gunmen invaded the Orji area in Owerri killing three persons in different locations. The operation lasted for more than an hour, as the armed men moved around the area shooting sporadically.
In their June 8 statement, CAN representatives make reference to some incidents of violence and arbitrary detention in Imo State saying, “We have had cases of people killed with reckless abandon by these security agencies, including a young girl sent to her early grave at the Imo State Government Gate, another young man murdered for violating check-point rule, whatever that means, and just recently, a Germany-based Nigerian brought down on his way to the Owerri airport.”
“The list is endless. This is not to talk of tens of youths arrested every day and kept incommunicado; nobody knows whether they are dead or alive,” they say in their statement signed by CAN’s Chairman for the South-East, Bishop Goddy Okafor.
CAN representatives that also include members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) pose, “In the North-East where Boko Haram is wreaking havoc every day, killing security forces and bandits kidnapping hundreds of schoolchildren, has every Northern youth been tagged Boko Haram or bandit?”
“Why has the South-East been singled out for this onslaught?” the Church leaders further pose, and say, “enough is enough.”
They also “condemn the silence of the governors of the zone in the face of the atrocities and genocide the security operatives were committing.”
As a way forward, the Church leaders say, “It has now become imperative to not only caution the security agencies, but to also ask our governors to speak up. Their silence is not good at all, because they swore to protect the people.”
