Crime
Group reveals how Soldiers abducted, robbed Oyingbo women
The International society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law has accused the Nigerian Army of abducting and robbing several women from Obigbo (Oyigbo) in Rivers state during the crackdown on members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
In a statement titled: “Nigerian Army’s Booklet Of Illegalities In Obigbo Massacre & Abductions: Putting The Record Straight”, issued in Onitsha today, February 23, 2021, the group said the Nigerian Army “acted unconstitutionally, inhumanly, hatefully and abominably by holding the victims particularly the over 60 girls and young women among them incommunicado and outside access to their families, physicians and lawyers and public knowledge for four months.
The group in the statement signed by its Principal Officers Emeka Umeagbalasi, Chinwe Umeche, Esq., Obianuju Igboeli, Esq., and Chidimma Udegbunam, Esq, also alleged that the abducted girls were dispossessed of all their personal belongings at the point of their abductions and detention.
“The personal belongings robbed and disappeared till date since Oct/Nov 2020 included smart phones and other mobile phones and their sim-cards, recharge credits and loaded data; cash sums including fraudulent withdrawal of the victims’ bank cash deposits using mobile apps installed in their mobile phones and ATM cards.
“Going by our findings including oral interviews from the two freed Obigbo girls and insider sources at Army and DSS dungeons, the over 60 abducted Obigbo girls and young women have been made to wear one set of underwear (a pant and a brazier) from Oct/Nov 2020 till date in Army and DSS captivity.
The group also alleged that apart from serious suspicion of routine sexual harassments, the over 60 women presently in the captivity of the Army and the DSS are most likely to have been exposed to a litany of health dangers including sexually transmitted diseases and other health challenges as well as mental and menstrual discomforts.
“Again, it was a height of abomination and atrocity for some personnel of the Nigerian Army to have serially raped its abducted female victims and denied abducting, holding and transferring them to DSS for further captivity.
“Totality of these strongly suggests that the Army intended hatefully to abduct, secretly detain, torture, rape (females among them) and massacre the victims and disappear their bodies without traces; all on the grounds of the victims’ ethnicity and religion.
Intersociety explained that some of the victims only get freed when their names are stressfully and painfully traced by activists and bail applications filed and successfully granted and served on the Army authorities, after which the Army authorities get them out from different secret locations where they are kept and hidden.
It said the totality of these is abominable and unknown to Sections 35 and 36 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution particularly sub section 4 of Section 35 and sub sections 8 and 12 of Section.
