The group stated these in a release on Thursday, signed by its principal officers - Emeka Umeagbalasi, Obianuju Igboeli and Chidinma Udegbunam.
Human rights organisation, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has slammed the Nigerian Army over its “partisanship and crude soldiering” which are worsening insecurity in the South-East region.
Intersociety stated that beyond the Nigerian Army’s watery and diversionary reaction including deliberate misrepresentation, the military failed to address specific issues of human rights violations raised by the civil society.
The group stated these in a release on Thursday, signed by its principal officers - Emeka Umeagbalasi, Obianuju Igboeli and Chidinma Udegbunam.
The rights organisation stated that South-East region is under the siege of security without local contents, adding that over 90 per cent of security personnel belonged to the northern region.
"It is also saddening and deeply regrettable that the once secularised and cherished but now ethno-religiously sectionalised and radicalised, Nigerian Army is the leading perpetrator in the state actor coercive terrorisation of the South-East region.
"The Nigerian Army is also found to be the leading aider and abettor of the non-state actor insecurity including terrorisation of the South-East defenceless civilian population and their properties. The Army’s claims of being “professional and ethno-religiously neutral” are loudly laughable and greatest joke of the Year 2022 ending in 30 days from today."
Citing the invasion of several communities in Enugu State with so many people killed and over 14 villages sacked by armed Fulani herdsmen, Intersociety said that the military especially soldiers and principal officers of the Nigerian Army under 82 Division in Enugu including Cross Rivers State and 6 Division in Port Harcourt including Igbo parts of Delta State under 63 Brigade had conspicuously looked the other way.
The military were only quick in raiding communities in search of ESN members and burning houses.
The statement partly reads: "The Nigerian Army has been brutally fractured and bastardised since July 2015. This is to the extent that it now bears the atrocity conduct attributes of the failed Armies of Libya and Somalia. Instead of providing public and citizen’s security and safety in the East, especially the South-East in line with their constitutional responsibilities and limitations, the Army has turned the Region into killing field and jihad war zone.
"Nigerian Army and other deployed security personnel and their commanders in the East, particularly South-East, have been chasing shadows and watching the militarily protected Jihadists in Eastern forests, bushes, farmlands and major road networks and their bypasses slaughtering over 300 and abducting 400 since Jan 2022.
"Till date, there are no records anywhere in the Army crimes statistics (if any), showing a single Jihadist Fulani Herdsman or number of Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen or other Jihadists that have been arrested and prosecuted or “gunned down in exchange of gunfire” for slaughtering defenceless citizens of the South-East since January 2022, if not since 2016.
"A typical case in point was a recent account by a survivor of the Jihadist Herdsmen abduction who chillingly disclosed how he, along with three abducted others, were abducted on 20th Oct 2022 along Abia State University, Uturu in Abia State and forced by their Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen abductors to trek for eight days through bush paths in Abia, Anambra, Enugu and Igbo part of Delta States during which they saw dead bodies of abducted Igbo-Christians as they covered the four States.
“The bloods of the eight defenceless citizens killed by Nigerian Military (Army and Navy) in Isuofia and Umuona in Aguata, Anambra State are still on their heads. The innocent spirits of the slain are also seeking for justice. The Nigerian Army and the Navy had on 12th Nov 2022 opened fire and killed no fewer than eight innocent and defenseless citizens."