Ohanaeze Warns Against Linking Peter Obi To Ezu River Killings

Linking Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, to the alleged killings of suspected members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra and others in 2013 is to tarnish Obi’s chances at the 2023 general elections.

The Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC) stated this on Wednesday while reacting to a statement credited to one Mr Simon Ekpa, a self-exclaimed disciple of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB leader.

OYC said such insinuations by Mr Ekpa and his cohorts were because they were ‘threatened by the democratic cum ballot revolution of Mr Obi’.

According to him, “Intersociety and Anambra Civil Liberty Organisation were the only human rights groups that forensically investigated the Ezu River police-SARS killings and followed up and defended same up to the office of the then DIG, Force Criminal Investigations, now retired DIG Peter Gana in April 2013.”

He alleged that the killings were perpetrated by the police-SARS under retired CSP James Nwafor.

Igboayaka claimed that, “The victims were detainees arrested and detained at Awkuzu, Nneni and Nnewi SARS facilities, and among the slain victims were nine members of MASSOB and others numbering about thirty, accused of perpetrating violent crimes.”

Comrade Igboayaka regretted that the remains of the victims were ‘indiscriminately disposed at some designated spots like Omambala River, Awada and Onitsha cemeteries as well as Abba Forests by Onitsha-Awka expressway’.

Quoting him, “The secret killings and other unlawful killings by police had continued from then till date which led to the EndSars protest that sparked fire in August/September, 2020.

“It is to our utmost dismay that those who held Nigeria down with economic strangulation, league of political quagmire, and gangs of primitive looters hired or paid agents who also have formed the habit of resurrecting the Ezu River killings following the nearness of 2023 presidential poll, using the social media as a possible tool.”

He said Simon Ekpa’s linking Mr Peter Obi to Ezu police-SARS killings was propaganda and ‘clear indications that he is working to truncate the chances of Obi at the polls’.