By Nonso Emecheta
It is no longer news that the reign of terror by the notorious and sanguinary state sponsored executioners and coercive apparatus known as Ebubeagu has gotten to an alarming rate.
Of more worrisome is the fact that the evil machinations of the marauding prognosticators of death and bloodletting are perpetrated under the watch, supervision and silent acquiescence of Governor Hope Uzodinma.
He watches the daily gruesome wholesale slaughter of innocent Imo State youths by his hired butchers notoriously known as Ebubeagu with reckless abandon.
Our erstwhile peaceful, hospitality, lounging and therapeutic Imo state has become a slaughter’s slab where heads of innocent Imo youths are taken to Ebubeagu’s slaughter house like cows on a quotidian basis.
Regrettably, Imo State can now be likened to the Hobbesian state of nature where life was brutish, nasty, solidarity, poor and short.
Life in Imo has become anarchic, hellish and nightmarish owing the fact the inhabitants of the state have been subjected to the worsening forms of apprehension, anxiety, dread, anguish and folornness, as they now move around the state with palpable fear.
They have resigned to fate and God’s grace as the security of their lives and property can no longer be guaranteed under Governor Hope Uzodinma led administration, as he treats the perpetrators of the dastardly act with kid gloves.
Security is the primary responsibility of a government and as such, any governor who fails in this primary responsibility should be impeached.
But what can the helpless rubber stamp Imo state house of assembly members do, as they have become the extension of the executive arm and the ancillary to governor Hope Uzodinma’s insensitivity, executive rascality and monumental impunity.
According to Denis Diderot: “The sacred duty of the government is to ensure, maintain and guarantee the liberty of the citizens”.
For Diderot, any government that fails to secure and guarantee the liberty of the citizens should not be respected in the comity of nations.
Unfortunately, the governor of Imo state has failed abysmally in securing the lives, property and liberty of Imolites as his inability to call them to order is a clear indication that he works with the connivance of the Ebubeagu executioners to unleashed mayhem on Ndi Imo that he took an oath to protect.
There is an Igbo adage which says that “Ebubeagu N’eche Agu” which translates in English to mean that “The aura of the Leopard gives him protection” but the reverse is the case in Governor Hope owned Ebubeagu, as his N’egbu Agu’ (kills the Leopard) on the contrary.
Thus, when a supposed protective aura becomes a potential threat to your life, it is only natural to do away which such deleterious aura, as Thomas Hobbes tells us that “self-preservation is a natural law which is based on man’s natural inclination to protect himself from the destructive tendencies of others”.
My kinsman recounted his horrendous experience and ordeal in the hands of the marauding, pillaging and plundering Ebubeagu murderers.
According to him, in a WhatsApp voice note he sent to our village WhatsApp platform, on Saturday, August 6th, 2022, while he was on his way back to Owerri from the village, Ebubeagu killer squad stopped him at Aguneze, Obowo.
He was told to get down from the bike which he did. He was ordered to join other arrested youths in their vehicle and he obeyed.
Right there before him, one of the Ebubeagu killer squad shot a young man dead because he did not have money in his account to transfer to Hope Uzodinma’s protected armed robbers.
That gruesome, bestial and inhuman killing of the young man sent shivers into the spines of my kinsman and he quickly transferred all the money in his account to the thieves and they weren’t satisfied as they also collected his phone and freed him.
What if the young man didn’t have money in his account like the one they killed? Of course your guess is as good as mine, as he wouldn’t have lived to narrate his dreadful ordeals.
Against this backdrop, there is a compelling need for a statewide revolt in Imo State for immediate disbandment of the unlawfully constituted state killer squad called Ebubeagu, in order to save the lives of the youths as it is now a crime to be a youth in my state, Imo.
It is pertinent to observe that when Amotekun, the paramilitary security outfit in Ondo state was formed by the governor of the state, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, it passed through legislation at the state house of assembly and was inaugurated.
A couple of days ago, the governor of Benue State, Mr. Samuel Ortom followed suit and inaugurated the Community Volunteer Guards to secure the state through same legislative process.
However, the big questions begging for answers are; when did the bill for the formation of Ebubeagu pass through the Imo state house of Assembly? Again, when did governor Hope Uzodinma inaugurate Ebubeagu in Imo state?
The Ebubeagu terminators under the command of the Federal government and supreme court governor foisted on Imolites have committed atrocious crimes against humanity and must be disbanded forthwith and brought to book for peace to be restored in Imo state, as we have no more lands in Imo state for mass burial of our youths in their prime.
Governor Hope Uzodinma’s insensitivity and deafening silence over the river of blood of innocent Imolites, on a daily basis, under his watch without condemning it or bringing the perpetrators of the heinous sanguinary carnage to book, has become an issue of considerable concern.
At the wake of the Otulu massacre in Oru West, Local Government Area, where innocent youths who were coming back from traditional wedding on motorcycles were massacred in cold blood by Ebubeagu, the governor was interviewed by newsmen for his reaction to the despicable sanguinary massacre but he described the slain youths as bandits making the state ungovernable for him.
The mother of two of the boys who were killed, passed away a few days after receiving the sad news with rude shock, as life without her two slain sons will be meaningless, gratuitous and melancholic.
The recent Orogwe killings where 7 youths were decimated in cold blood are still begging for justice. Orlu communities have been sacked. Investors are leaving our states. Business owners are counting their loses.
The litany of reign of terror in the Eastern Heartland is endless. In fact, the heart of the Heartland is bleeding profusely. Imo is now known as Chi Bọọ Anụ Ọzọ (each day with another story).
On the whole, I call on all well meaning Imolites both in and outside the state to condemn in the strongest possible terms, the Imo River of blood before it overflows its riverbanks and submerges the entire state, which portends humanitarian catastrophe of biblical proportions, as no one will be spared, and no state will exist to call our own.
Human life is sacrosanct and as such, any albatross to human life must be met with fierce resistance.
Hope has rendered Imo hopeless while his Ebubeagu executioners have turned our backyards to graveyards. Imo is under siege of Ebubeagu and the time is now to end Ebubeagu before they end all of us.
Ọzọemena!
*Comrade Nonso Emecheta is the AAC Candidate Imo State House of Assembly, IMHA, Ihitte/Uboma State Constituency
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