Admin I Wednesday, January 14.26
AWKA, Anambra- Renowned Nigerian human rights lawyer and Lead Counsel to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor, has strongly condemned the recent release of 70 confirmed bandits and jihadist terrorists by the Katsina State Government, describing the action carried out under the euphemistic guise of a so-called “peace accord” as a dangerous encouragement of crime and criminality.
In a statement titled “MIDWEEK MUSING: WHEN TERRORISTS ARE NEGOTIATED WITH AND THE INNOCENT ARE IMPRISONED—KATSINA STATE GOVERNMENT AND THE TRAGIC INVERSION OF JUSTICE, MORALITY, AND SOVEREIGNTY,” issued on Wednesday, Ejiofor said the development ought to send “cold shivers down the spine of every conscientious Nigerian.”
According to him, the action is not merely troubling but represents an ominous signal of a perilous policy direction,one which, if left unchecked, is capable of igniting widespread instability across the entire Northern region and, by extension, imperilling the already fragile cohesion of the Nigerian state.
Ejiofor argued that any government which elects to negotiate with terrorists, reward violence with legitimacy, and replace justice with political expediency is not brokering peace but rather institutionalising insecurity.
“The message being conveyed is unmistakable,” “Arms, bloodshed, and lawlessness have now become viable bargaining tools in engagements with the Nigerian state.”he stated.
He further noted that Nigerians are not only entitled, but morally compelled, to ask,loudly and persistently whether this disturbing action enjoys the tacit approval or silent acquiescence of the Federal Government and the nation’s security agencies.
According to him, the absence of a firm, unequivocal repudiation of the policy lends disturbing credibility to the inference that an official imprimatur may hover over this reckless and dangerous enterprise.
Ejiofor maintained that the Federal Government owes Nigerians not hollow platitudes, but a clear, candid, and constitutionally grounded explanation for this alarming contradiction in security governance.
He lamented that, while armed insurgents whose hands are stained with the blood of security personnel and defenceless civilians are courted with negotiations and reintegrated into society, thousands of innocent Igbo youths, mothers, and sisters continue to languish in unlawful detention across Nigeria.
According to him, the so-called “offences” attributed to these detained Igbo citizens are unknown to any law, save for the misfortune of wrongful ethnic profiling and prejudicial categorisation.
Ejiofor further recalled that only days ago, it was officially reported that the State Security Service (SSS) confirmed the death of one Mrs. Calista Ifedi while in detention at the notorious Wawa Barracks detention facility in Niger State.
Mrs. Ifedi, he stated, was arrested on 23 November 2021 alongside her husband not for any offence recognised by law, but merely on the allegation that they sold food to individuals labelled as IPOB members.
Regrettably, throughout the entirety of their unlawful detention, neither Mrs. Ifedi nor her husband was ever arraigned before a court of competent jurisdiction. He said instead, they were detained at the unfettered discretion of one of the most notoriously brutal Directors-General the Service has known, Alhaji Yusuf Magaji Bichi, alongside numerous other innocent Igbo citizens.
The statement reads in full:
The recent release of seventy (70) confirmed bandits and jihadist terrorists by the Katsina State Government, under the euphemistic cloak of a so-called “peace accord,” ought to send cold shivers down the spine of every conscientious Nigerian. This development is not merely troubling; it is an ominous signal of a perilous policy trajectory, one that, if unchecked, is capable of igniting the entire Northern region and, by extension, imperilling the already fragile stability of the Nigerian state.
A government that elects to negotiate with terror, reward violence with legitimacy, and substitute justice with expediency is not brokering peace; it is institutionalising insecurity. The message is unmistakable: arms, bloodshed, and lawlessness have now become viable bargaining instruments in dealings with the Nigerian state.
Nigerians are therefore entitled, indeed compelled, to ask, and to ask loudly, whether this aberration enjoys the tacit blessing or silent acquiescence of the Federal Government and the national security agencies.
The absence of a firm and unequivocal repudiation lends disturbing credence to the inference that an official imprimatur may well hover over this reckless enterprise. The Federal Government owes Nigerians not platitudes, but a clear, candid, and constitutionally grounded explanation.
THE CRUEL IRONY: FREEDOM FOR BANDITS, CHAINS FOR THE INNOCENT
While armed insurgents, whose hands drip with the blood of security personnel and defenceless civilians, are serenaded with negotiations and ushered back into society, thousands of innocent Igbo youths, mothers, and sisters remain unlawfully detained across Nigeria.
Their crime? None known to law, save for the misfortune of wrongful ethnic labelling and prejudicial categorisation.
Only days ago, it was officially reported that the State Security Services confirmed the death of Mrs. Calista Ifedi, while in detention at the notorious Wawa Barracks detention facility in Niger State. She had been arrested on 23rd November 2021, alongside her husband, not for any offence known to law, but merely on the allegation that they sold food to persons labelled as IPOB members.
Throughout the entirety of their unlawful detention, neither Mrs. Ifedi nor her husband was ever arraigned before any court of competent jurisdiction. Instead, they were detained at the unfettered discretion of one of the most notoriously brutal Directors-General the Service has known, Alhaji Yusuf Magaji Bichi, alongside numerous other innocent Igbo citizens.
This egregious violation of human rights was conceived, endorsed, and executed under the despotic regime of the late Muhammadu Buhari, whose state governor is today, ironically, unleashing deadly jihadists onto the streets of Nigeria under the guise of a “peace deal.” It was further consummated by the former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, who is now confronting allegations of monumental corruption he perpetrated during that infamous era.
It took the more humane and enlightened administrative reforms of the current Director-General of the State Security Service, Mr. Tosin A. Ajayi, particularly the initiative to profile detainees with a view to releasing those illegally held without trial, before Mr. Ifedi eventually regained his freedom. Tragically, he was informed only two days ago that his wife had died during their incarceration. One can scarcely imagine a more harrowing injustice, nor a more broken man.
For years, I have persistently raised alarm over the fate of hundreds of innocent Igbo citizens incarcerated at Wawa Barracks, Kainji, Niger State, subjected not to open and transparent trials, but to secretive, pseudo-judicial processes that mock every tenet of constitutional democracy and the rule of law.
Yet, in the face of this manifest injustice, a deafening silence prevails.
Our so-called political leaders from the South-East appear far more animated by the permutations of 2027 electoral arithmetic than by the immediate agony of their unlawfully detained kinsmen. While they calculate future ambitions, the architects and sponsors of real terror are rewarded with peace deals, handshakes, and freedom.
I hereby call, with utmost urgency, on Igbo political leaders, particularly the Governors of the South-East states, to rise above lethargy and the complicity of silence. They must investigate, interrogate, and demand accountability concerning the continued detention of their people: men and women whose only offence is wrongful labelling, unlawful detention, and punishment without trial.
Let it be stated without equivocation: where culpability is established, prosecution must follow; openly, transparently, and before a duly constituted court of law. Anything short of this amounts to executive lawlessness thinly disguised as security policy.
THE IMPLICATIONS: A STATE SURRENDERING ITSELF
The implications of the Katsina State Government’s actions are stark and deeply unsettling. A state that negotiates with terrorists from a posture of fear rather than authority is conceding its sovereignty. It signals an effective surrender of governance to marauders and indicts the capacity of the national security architecture to safeguard lives, property, and democratic order.
History teaches, often cruelly, that appeasement of terror does not extinguish it; it emboldens it. A day may come, sooner than anticipated, when these same terrorists, having tasted power and legitimacy, will overrun state institutions and assume de facto control of governance. When that day arrives, no peace accord will save us.
Most chillingly, reports now suggest that further negotiations are underway for the release of additional incarcerated terrorists. As the elders would say: “Ụka agwụla.”
Nigeria today sits precariously upon a keg of gunpowder. If this perilous initiative is not promptly halted by the Federal Government, the grim prospect looms of entire swathes of the federation being ceded, piecemeal, to jihadist terror.
Time, as ever, will be the final arbiter.
