On November 1, 2020, a detachment of Nigerian Army launched a massive operation in Oyigbo, Rivers State. The military operation came days after the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, asked security forces to resolutely deal with suspected members of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The violent operation which lasted for days, led to the killing of dozens of people in Oyigbo Community. Residents and rights activists described the military operation as a wilful massacre of innocent citizens. The military operation was largely fluid because the soldiers blocked journalists and rights groups from accessing Oyigbo, an Igbo-dominated settlement about 30 kilometres east of Port Harcourt. The community was shut down after a curfew was imposed by Governor Nyesom Wike, which made it impossible to ascertain the actual number of casualties. However, it was estimated that civilian fatalities might well be in hundreds.
At the peak of the operation, many youths perceived as members of IPOB were either killed, fatally wounded, arrested or declared wanted. Mr. Philip Ozazi, a rights activist in Port Harcourt, said Nigerian Army ordered “random and wholesale executions across the community because it lacked the requisite intelligence to identify separatists. Every young man who is Igbo is seen as IPOB because they have no intelligence to identify those who are actually separatists.”
He added that “Journalists and civil societies were banned from entering the community, which means it was a very deliberate massacre that was carried out in Oyigbo.”
A resident of Oyigbo who witnessed the orgy of killings said the soldiers went from home-to-home shooting people.
“Most of them are not IPOB members and many bodies were left to decompose inside houses,” he added.
“For days, the street of Oyigbo were littered with dead bodies, some either fatally wounded or burnt alive,” another resident said.
Some of the youths arrested during the military operation were clamped into detention for months without trial. Five of them, Faustin Ogala, Samson Ebele, Chukwubueka Nnamdi and Benabi Simpson were arrested, brutally tortured and later released on the condition that they report daily to the military authorities.
However, a few months later, November 22, 2020 to be precise, the five Oyigbo youths were declared wanted by the military authorities in Port Harcourt, for their failure to report as directed. Family sources are worried that the fate of the five youths is precarious as their whereabouts remain unknown. They fear that they may have been arrested, detained or possibly killed as they are obvious targets of the Nigerian military. The case of one of the five wanted youths, Chukwuebuka Nnamdi is said to be more precarious as he had earlier been ostracized from his Uzuoma Community for being a bisexual and was consequently declared wanted by police.
Homosexuality, bisexuality or same-sex relationship apart from being considered a taboo and forbidden in virtually all Nigerian communities with dire consequences, is also a serious crime for which offenders are liable to 10-14 years imprisonment. For now, as the hunt for the five youths continue, their relatives are praying and hoping that they find a safe abode anywhere they may be.
