- It is now exactly 12 years since our townsman and friend, Mr Barnabas Igwe, the chairman of the Onitsha Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association, was assassinated in Onitsha, Anambra State. Barnabas and his wife, Abigail Amaka, also a lawyer, were, together with their unborn male child, brutally eliminated after visiting a family friend at Awada Layout, Onitsha, on Sunday, September 1, 2002. The murders are widely known to be politically motivated. The NBA in Onitsha, the biggest and most active NBA branch in Anambra State, had just issued a 21-day ultimatum to the state government to pay a backlog of salaries owed judiciary workers, the state legislature staff, teachers and civil servants or face the consequences of the refusal. Barrister Igwe was severely threatened many times by state government agents foolowing the threat.
- It is most regrettable that 12 years after the gruesome murders, the killers have not been arrested, let alone prosecuted. Security agents have rather been arresting the wrong people deliberately and punishing them. Top government officials, senior police officers and influential politicians have been protecting the very person who planned and executed the dastardly act: Chief Chuma Nzeribe, who was then the Special Adviser to the state government on Security. Nzeribe was officially the Special Adviser on Security, but his main job was actually coordinating and directing the notorious Bakassi Boys, the militia which was savagely killing thousands of people without trial. The militia was promoted and financed 100% by the state government.
- Barrister Igwe and his wife as well as their unborn male child were executed in the typical Bakassi fashion: with machetes and guns within a few minutes right in the public glare. The killers entertained no fear of a probable arrest or confrontation. Private intelligence sources were to reveal that the operation was carried out with the assistance of the Black Axe Movement from the Enugu Campus of the University of Nigeria, a particularly vicious cult then led by a rusticated medical student.
- Nzeribe has over the years been shielded by the following people at one time or the other: Chief Chris Uba, popularly called the godfather of Anambra State politics; Chief Andy Uba, now a senator who was then the most powerful aide of President Olusegun Obasanjo; Sir Emeka Offor who had a close relationship with both President Obasanjo and Andy Uba; and Deputy Police Commissioner Solomon Arese, principal staff officer to the Inspector General of Police who has just been named Deputy Inspector General of Police ( Force CID) and who was the person who advised Nzeribe to go into hiding after tipping him that Sunday Ehindero had ordered his arrest when Nzeribe fell out with the Uba brothers in 2003. Nzeribe has since fallen out with all of these people except Mr Arese.
- We are using the occasion of the 12th anniversary of the assassination of the three Igwes to urge the Anambra State Government and the Inspector General of Police to interrogate Chief Nzeribe for his key role in the these brutal killings. We are encouraged by the fact that the Anambra State governor, Chief Willie Obiano, has shown himself to be tough on violent crime and does not care his ox is gored in the determination to provide sufficient security to the state. We are also encouraged by the fact that there is a new IGP who appears to want to make a difference by performing his duties professionally. However, we would like to advise that in investigating the murder of the Igwes, the new DIG (FCID), Mr Solomon Arase, be excused. He is too close to Nzeribe, who led the three-day mayhem in Anambra State during the governorship of Dr Chris Ngige, now a serving senator. The same Nzeribe led the abduction of Dr Ngige in 2003 when he was the governor, and went ahead to forge the so-called resignation letter by Chief Ngige. It says a lot about Nigeria’s security system that a person with such a record could be a very close friend of a very senior police officer who in the last 10 years has held very sensitive positions.
- There will never be a hiding place for those who planned or financed or executed the plan to murder Barrister & Barrister (Mrs) Barnabas Igwe and their unborn male child. The Igwes were worthy children of our historic town, Atta in Njaba Local Government Area of Anambra State, and those who eliminated them will never find peace either in this world or in the world to come. The blood of the Igwes cries out loudly for justice.
God bless Nigeria.
Signed:
Elder Jonathan C. Ihejirika
For & on behalf of friends of Barrister & Barrister (Mrs) Barnabas Igwe.
