Intersociety, Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria Saturday, 4th Dec 2021 How Nigerian Government Terrorizes Citizens Of Sabbath Faith & R...
Intersociety, Onitsha,
Eastern Nigeria
Saturday, 4th Dec 2021
How Nigerian
Government Terrorizes Citizens Of Sabbath Faith & Related Others
The Nigerian Government and its security forces have been
engaging in mindless ethno-religious profiling and terrorization of citizens
subscribing to Sabbath Christian Faith and related others in Eastern Nigeria
especially those under the umbrella of ‘the African Instituted Churches”.
Several investigations by Intersociety since the Obigbo Army massacre and
abductions in Rivers State in October/November 2020 have clearly shown that
targeting, criminalizing, stigmatizing, terrorizing and killing members and
leaders of the Sabbath Faith Family and related others have become the official
‘operation code’ of the Nigerian Government and its security forces. Without
provable and indictable pieces of evidence, the security forces including
Police IRT, RRS and others and soldiers of the Nigerian Armed Forces and their
joint forces under “Special Forces” as well as operatives of the DSS have been
going about in frenzy, abducting members and leaders of the Faith, destroying
their properties including homes, sacred places of worship and livelihoods and
killing them at will after being taken into custody or at the point of their
arrest or abduction.
Strong pieces of evidence also abound confirming that over
95% of them are arrested or abducted unarmed-with several of them risk being
instantly killed or killed after being taken into custody. They are also
mercilessly tortured in custody leading to their death or being left half-dead.
Further investigations by Intersociety revealed that the ongoing targeted
persecution and terrorization are borne out of ‘religious profiling’ whereby
Nigerian Government and its security forces lethally perceive any member or
leader of the Faith as “IPOB/ESN member”. This was further discovered to have
arisen from open identification by some members and leaders of the leading self
determination movement in Eastern Nigeria with Sabbath Faith and related Jewish
mode of worship as their religion or belief system. Therefore, rather than the
Nigerian Government and its security forces professionally and intelligently
identifying and going after criminal citizens, using intelligence and crime
detection, they have been relying heavily on pieces of ‘hearsay evidence and ethno-religious
profiling and hatred to target and terrorize members and leaders of the Faith
and these are clearly outside the confines of the country’s body of laws
including criminal laws and their procedures. As a matter of fact, it is like
tagging every member of Nigerian Muslim Faith as “Boko Haram or ISWAP or Ansaru
or Fulani Terror Jihadist”.
Egole Family Of 25
Under Threat Of Familicide
The Nwachukwu-Egole Family is located in Orlu in Imo State,
Southeast Nigeria and comprised of three principal heads and nineteen children
including a Pastor at Synagogue Church/head of Egole Family (Cletus Egole,
father of nine children), a Pastor at Pentecostal Church (Chinedu Egole, father
of three infants), a businessman (Eugene Egole, father of five children), a
pharmacist wife of Pastor Cletus Egole (Ifeyinwa Egole, mother of nine
children), a maternal grandmother (Evelyn Mgbenwa) and their nineteen children
most of who underage from two years to 16 years. The Family is presently in
disarray and at high risk of being wiped out (familicide) by the Intelligence
Response Unit of the Nigeria Police Force (Police IRT) and soldiers of the
Nigerian Army, known as “Special Forces”. The two oldest among the nineteen
children in the Family are first son of the head of the Egole Family
(Chinemeze, 25) and the Family’s first daughter (Deborah Chidozie, 23). Deborah
has remained in hiding since February 2021 and dropped out of her School of
Nursing at Okigwe. The nineteen affected children and their parents are: 1.
Nine children of slain Pastor Cletus Egole: Chinemeze, Deborah, Iruoma,
Ekperebuike, Promise, Mmerichukwu, Solomon, Peculiar and Emmanuel. 2. Five
children of missing and presumably murdered Eugene Egole: Mmesoma, Mmasi,
Ebenezer, Favour and Chigozirim. 3. Three infant children of slain Pastor
Chinedu Egole are also at high risk, starving and endangered. His nursing wife
has abandoned her matrimonial home to escape being killed. 4. Their maternal
grandmother (mother of Ifeyinwa Egole), Madam Evelyn Mgbenwa and her two
underage children: Blessing Ngozichukwu Okafor and Emmanuel Okafor are also in
hiding, starving and at high risk.
Pastors Cletus &
Chinedu Killed In Custody, Ifeyinwa In Chain And Eugene & Chinemeze
Disappeared
Personnel of the Police IRT at ‘Tiger Base’ in Imo State and
those at the Force CIB/IRT Abattoir, Abuja have extra-judicially killed two
principal family members in their custodies and they are: Pastor Cletus
Nwachukwu Egole, who was killed extra-judicially in detention at Abattoir in
Abuja in July 2021 and Pastor Chinedu Nwachukwu Egole, killed extra-judicially
in detention at Tiger Base, Owerri in June 2021. Another key member of the
Family and father of five children, Mr. Eugene Nwachukwu Egole and first son of
the slain Pastor Cletus Egole; Chinemeze Nwachukwu Egole were also abducted and
disappeared since February 2021 by the combined team of the Police IRT and
military personnel called “Special Forces”. They are most likely to have been
killed in captivity. As if the above conduct atrocities were not enough, the
Imo and Abuja IRT personnel also abducted the pharmacist wife of the slain head
of the Egole Family (Pastor Cletus Nwachukwu Egole); Mrs. Ifeyinwa Nwachukwu
Egole, mother of nine and 45 years of age and vandalized and burnt down her
pharmacy store. She was later taken to Abuja IRT Abattoir, where she was
mercilessly tortured, dehumanized and presently held in chain since February
2021 without trial. The arsonist security personnel also burnt beyond
recognition the Family House and the Synagogue Church of slain Pastor Cletus
Nwachukwu Egole.
Invasion And Burning
Of Egole Family On 13th February 2021
The invasion and burning of the Nwachukwu Egole Family took
place when a combined team of Police IRT and Army personnel targeted and attacked
the slain Pastor Cletus Egole's Family on the 13th of February 2021 at about
4:30pm in the morning and abducted the entire family members including Pastor
Cletus Egole (60), Wife, Ifeyinwa (45), and their eight children. The first son
of the Family, Chinemeze, 25, was not at home. The invading security personnel
also ran riot on their Family house and Synagogue by setting them ablaze and
burning them beyond recognition through use of explosives and petrol bombs.
They also returned and set a Pharmacy store belonging to slain Pastor Cletus
Egole’s Wife ablaze and burnt same beyond recognition.
Infants And Underage
Children Of The Egoles Terrorized And Forced Into Hiding
The underage children of slain Pastor Cletus Egole were also
abducted and taken into custody where they were tortured, starved, traumatized
and held for seven days, after which they were ordered to be reporting to
police station on daily basis. Since then and after the release of the tortured
and traumatized Egole’s children, they returned home and became homeless-with
no shelter, clothes or food for them. They have been begging for shelter and
food from one family to another and anywhere they settled, the same Police and
soldiers would track, invade and traumatize them for being the siblings to
“IPOB/ESN member” (referring to their elder brother, Chinemeze). The eight Children, now joined by ten others
or children of missing Eugene and slain Pastor Chinedu and those of their
maternal grandmother have continued to move from one house to another forcing
people to become scared of accommodating them for fear of being invaded by
Soldiers and Police. The Nigeria Police IRT personnel and soldiers have after
invading and attacking the house and Synagogue of slain Pastor Cletus Egole,
also invaded the Family of Eugene Ofoma Egole, who is a Widower and when they
could not find him at home, they flogged, dehumanized and tortured his children
who are between the ages of six and sixteen years. The rampaging police and
Army personnel also destroyed his home, forcing the children to flee for
safety. Since then their father, Eugene, has never been seen or located. He was
likely abducted and disappeared later by the Police.
Still not done, in the month of April 2021, the same
combined team of Police IRT and soldiers again stormed the family house and the
church of now slain Pastor Philip Chinedu Nwachukwu Egole in Port Harcourt, the
youngest brother of Pastor Cletus Nwachukwu Egole, a Port Harcourt resident and
powerful Pastor of a Pentecostal Church in his early 40s, who was married with
three little kids and living with his nursing wife. Slain Pastor Chinedu Egole
was tortured and abducted in a Gestapo styled operation in his house and taken
away to unknown destination. The wife, a young mother of three infants, was
forced to move from one Police Station to another until she finally received a
message from somebody who said he was just released from Police custody where he
spent some weeks with her husband (Pastor Chinedu Nwachukwu Egole) at
Tiger-Base of the Imo State CID Owerri. The freed cellmate also told the wife
that her husband was a popular and highly respected Pastor in their cell and
that he conducted morning and evening Devotion and became an inspiration to
many of them. Mrs. Chinedu Egole also made several efforts to see her husband
in detention all to no avail and was threatened with arrest, forcing her to
flee her matrimonial home and disappear into hiding. She was also forced to
drop her children out of school and shut down her private business.
How Police IRT Framed
And Killed Pastors Cletus And Chinedu Egole In Custody
The Police and Army had upon the mass arrest of Pastor
Cletus Nwachukwu Egole, his wife, Ifeyinwa and their eight children accused
them of “being related to and shielding their first son, Chinemeze, 25, a
member of IPOB that killed some security personnel in Dec 2020”. The Nigeria Police Force Headquarters, Abuja
later twisted same and accused Pastor Cletus Egole of “being one of the
masterminds of various attacks on security personnel in different parts of the
Southeast”; that he “provided spiritual cover, his house and farmland for
members of his gang to plan their nefarious operations”. Slain Pastor Cletus
Egole’s wife, Ifeyinwa, and mother of nine children, was accused of “being the
accomplice wife of IPOB/ESN sponsor/spiritualist” and has remained in detention
without trial for over nine months or since 13th February 2021. Intersociety also
investigated and discovered that Pastor Cletus Egole’s youngest brother, now
slain Pastor Chinedu Egole, was tricked by the Police IRT squads at Owerri
(Tiger Base) and Abattoir, Abuja to ‘come forward and take his eldest Brother
(Cletus) on bail at NPF IRT, Abuja and
as the “bail arrangements” were being perfected on phone, the same
Police IRT deceived his eldest Brother (when he was still alive in custody)
into furnishing them with his youngest brother’s contacts and location and
before Pastor Chinedu knew what was happening, his Port Harcourt house and
Pentecostal Church had been invaded, attacked and vandalized. He was later
abducted and detained incommunicado at Tiger Base, Owerri and labeled “IPOB/ESN
Pastor/Spiritualist”. He remained in detention and was mercilessly tortured
alongside others until he was dragged out of cell alongside others sometime in
June 2021 and taken to nearby isolated location where he was shot and killed
alongside others. His killing was confirmed to Intersociety by at least three
key eyewitnesses that were detained with him. While Pastor Chinedu was killed
in detention in Owerri in June, his eldest brother, Pastor Cletus was killed in
July 2021 at NPF’s CIB/IRT, Abattoir, Abuja. Intersociety had some time ago
mentioned him as one of the “57 detainees killed extra-judicially in custody at
NPF’s CIB/IRT, Abattoir, Abuja in connection with Biafra Matters”. Till date,
sources close to Intersociety from the female cell of the NPF’s CIB/IRT at
Abattoir, Abuja where the slain Pastor Cletus Egole’s wife, Ifeyinwa, is being
held without trial since February 2021 indicated that she is not aware that her
husband and her brother-in-law (Pastor Chinedu) have been killed in custody.
Police And Military Killings And Property Burnings Unknown
To Laws Of Nigeria And Int’l Others
We have searched the 320 Sections of the Nigeria’s 1999
Constitution and its subordinate Criminal Laws and Procedures as well as the
country’s acceded regional and int’l Rights and Humanitarian Treaty Laws and could
not find a single place supporting the conduct atrocities above highlighted and
other internationally prohibited acts. For instance, nowhere in any of the
above mentioned written laws is it provided for security forces to brazenly and
hatefully frame citizens without any ink of indictable and convictable evidence
or on the grounds of their religion or worship belief. This is not to talk of
brazenly engaging in extra-judicial destruction or burning down of defenseless
citizens’ properties such as homes, sacred places of worship and livelihoods;
or atrociously transferring criminal responsibilities to innocent and
defenseless relatives including parents and siblings of citizens accused of
being in conflict with criminal laws irrespective of the gravity of offences
under accusation or labeling. No place in any of the written laws it is also
heard or read that security forces can arrest members of a nuclear or extended
family including the infants, and render them homeless and visit them with
starvation by burning down their homes and sources of their livelihood; kill
their parents, or hold them indefinitely and subject them to other sub-human
treatments with clear intent to wipe them out and close their generations.
Also killing in the custody of two key innocent members of
the Egole Family, disappearance of two others and detention of their young
matriarch for ten months without trial; all clearly amount to persecution,
jungle justice and trial by ordeal-which are totally repugnant to natural
justice including fair hearing and trial and presumption of innocence before
the law. The above, therefore, not only show blatant lack of indictable and
prosecutorial evidence but also brazenly expose the rampancy with which the
radical Muslim dominated and controlled security personnel in the country go
about framing innocent and defenseless citizens and leveling phantom charges
against them. We have checked all the country’s written laws on crime and
society and there is nowhere it is provided for citizens to be indiscriminately
profiled, targeted, criminalized and stigmatized on the ground of their Faith
and Religion.
Drawing the Attention
Of US, UK, EU, UN, Int’l Rights Bodies And Others
The congregated and aggregated attention of the United
Nations, especially its bodies responsible against arbitrary arrest and
detention, torture and other inhuman treatments or punishment and extrajudicial
and unlawful killings or executions as well as the UK, US and Canada
Governments and the European Union and int’l rights bodies is drawn and called
to intervene as a matter of extreme urgency and importance. The above named
respected international Governments and Inter-Governmental and Non-Governmental
Organizations and others are prayed to
mount intensive and sustained pressure on Nigerian Government and leaderships
of the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian Army to investigate the conduct
atrocities speedily and conclusively so as to ensure their discontinuation and
fish out and punitively punish their perpetrators. The Nigerian Government must
be prevailed upon to free the Egoles including Mrs. Ifeyinwa Egole who has been
detained since February and discontinue all forms of persecution and terrorization
of all the children of the Egole Family, numbering nineteen and other
relatives. The death in custody of Madam Ifeyinwa’s husband and her husband’s
youngest brother including their slain bodies’ whereabouts must also be
disclosed. The Police IRT and the Nigerian Army must be further compelled to
fetch dead or alive the disappeared two other senior members of the Egole
Family: Eugene and Chinemeze.
Identified Culpable
Police IRT Officers Must Be Dismissed and Sanctioned
The following atrocious IRT officers at Owerri Tiger Base
must thoroughly be investigated and punished severely. They include Officer
Ndidi, Officer Nickolas, Officer Ola, Officer Utaba, Officer Uzor, Officer
Bello, Officer Ebele and Officer Omimi; likewise those at Police IRT, Abattoir,
Abuja including Inspector Ekwueme Chukwudi Daniel (”Biafra Matters” General
IPO), SUPOL Vincent Makinde (Jolikate) and SUPOL Abbah (Head of Legal
Department). All their superiors including unit and overall or general heads of
Police IRT at Owerri Tiger Base and Abuja Abattoir or ‘Human Slaughter House’
must also be identified, investigated, dismissed and sanctioned or prosecuted.
DSS Operatives In
Enugu And Anambra Must Produce Citizens C. Nnamani And K. Okoroeze
Similarly, the authorities of the State Security Services
(DSS) in Enugu and Anambra States must be prevailed upon to publicly produce or
disclose the whereabouts of Citizen Cletus Nwanagu Nnamani, the younger brother
of Reverend Father Tobechukwu Nnamani, a respected Catholic Priest of the Enugu
Diocese, who was abducted at midnight of November 25, 2021 in his village of
Egudene-Nkanu and has been discretely traced by his family to the Enugu
Directorate of SSS. According to the respected Catholic Priest, his abducted
younger brother was the immediate past Chairman of the Enugu State Neighborhood
Watch in Egudene in Nkanu East, Enugu State and
was framed and labeled “IPOB/ESN member” by his detractors. The Anambra
Directorate of SSS must also publicly produce or disclose the whereabouts of Citizen
Kenechukwu Okoroeze, a prominent member of the Action Democratic Party, ADP,
who was abducted by DSS on 11th October 2021 at about 5am. According to his
wife, Adaora, the abductors wore DSS helmets and jackets when they broke into
their home and only asked her to “come to our office at Awka”. Citizen Kenechi
Okoroeze, a native of Owerre-Ezukala in Orumba South, Anambra State is also
likely to have been abducted by DSS and labeled “IPOB/ESN member”. The DSS must publicly produce them and charge
them to Court or free them unconditionally. Pictures of persecuting children of
the Egoles are attached.
Signed
For: International
Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi
(Criminologist & Graduate of Security Studies), Board Chair
Lawyer Chinwe Umeche,
Head, Democracy and Good Government Department
Lawyer Obianuju
Igboeli, Head, Civil Liberties and Rule of Law Department
Lawyer Chidimma
Udegbunam, Head, Campaign and Publicity Department
Comrade Chibueze
Nwajiaku, Deputy Head, Policing and Law Enforcement Department
Contacts:
Mobile Phone/WhatsApp:
+2348174090052
Email:
info@intersociety-ng.org
Website: https://intersociety-ng.org
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