How IPOB insurgency is taking shape in southeast

Since insecurity in Nigeria spread beyond the northeast sometime in 2019, citizens in other parts of the country have witnessed one form of dominant criminality or the other, but the southeast has a different dimension.

Criminals now target security agencies, especially the five states across the Igboland, and the police have been specially targeted, with Imo, of all the states, being the worst hit.

No fewer than 15 police officers have been killed between January and April 25 in attacks on police stations, including headquarters, only.

While the casualty figure is rising though actual number is not clear yet, the pattern is unmistakable.

Onslaught on security agencies, with signature attacks by known groups, is a precursor to insurgency, analysts say, pointing at how the Boko Haram insurgency began in Borno.

No fewer than 16 police stations in separate incidents have been burnt or destroyed and cops killed in the last four months.

Imo leads with six incidents, with the least number of police casualties, two.

Following is Abia, recording the highest police deaths, six. Anambra and Ebonyin have three incidents apiece, with two and three police deaths respectively. Enugu has witnessed just one police attack, with two deaths recorded.

Police have pinned the attacks on IPOB, an outlawed organization fighting for secession of the Igbo.

According to PPRO Frank Mba, the Eastern Security Network founded by IPOB’s leader Nnamdi Kanu, from the UK, are behind the attacks.

The group has however denied it.

Nigeria is involved in counterinsurgency in the northeast, and the crisis has dragged out for 10 years now, with over 30,000 Nigerians killed, and over a million displaced.

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To engage in another one with IPOB in the southeast, while its fighting rising banditry in the northwest, will badly impact the country, many have observed.