BY KINGSLEY MADU
Some Igbo families actively involved in the agitation for the actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra are paying the supreme price as security forces continue to target known leaders of the struggle for an independent state.
One of such families is the Ossai family who are still being hunted by security forces despite having lost two members to the struggle.
On August 18 ,2015, a massive protest broke out in the commercial city of Onitsha in the south east of Nigeria. The protest was called by the pro- Biafra group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to press home its demand for the Sovereign State of Biafra.
For two days running, the city of Onitsha was in flames as the protesters set up burnfires at major points, thus preventing both vehicular and human movements in and around the city.
Nigeria security forces comprising the police, the army and other segments of the nayion’s security apparatus responded to the protest with lethal force. Live ammuntions were allegedly fired at the protesters. By the time the dust settled in the city, dozens protesters were reportedly killed by Nigeria security forces in Onitsha and some cities across the south east.
Among the victims was 57 -year-old Chukwuma Isaac Ossai. Mr Ossai and two of his compatriots were allegedly shot dead by security forces as they raised the Biafran flag in solidarity with their comrades who had barricaded the Onitsha head bridge.
Four months later, December 24,2015 to be precise ,his elder son Bright Isaac Ossai who led one of the IPOB cells in Delta State, was stabbed and later strangled to death when unknown assailants attacked him on his way home in Agbor . Family members believe the unidentified assailants were personnel of the Department of State Security (DSS,) who sometimes operate in a gestapo style when targeting enemies of the state.
Other members of the family including some young men in the neighborhood perceived to be sympathetic to the Biafra project have severally been harassed and tortured by the security forces.
Those members of the embattled Ossai family who were lucky to have escaped arrest had since gone into hiding but their fate hangs precariously as the security forces continue to target them and others involved in the agitation for the actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra.
Another member of the Ossai family, Kelvin Isaac Ossai and two of his childhood friends, who are equally involved in the struggle have not been accounted for after the December 24,2015 gruesome killing of his elder brother in Agbor, Delta State..
Sources say Kelvin and his friends may have been killed during an encounter with security forces or probably languishing in one of the military detention camps in the south east of Nigeria.
” For now, no one can actually tell their fate as their whereabouts remain unknown. We fear Kelvin and two of his friends may have been killed or they are in military detention somewhere in the south east’, a resident in the neighborhood who did not want his name mentioned in the media told this reporter.
Rights activists have accused the Federal Government of Nigeria of allowing its security forces to commit grave attrocities against Biafra agitators.
Amnesty International had also accused Nigeria security forces of carrying out extra-judicial killings of IPOB members and others involved in the struggle by firing live bullets at peaceful protesters.
According to Amnesty International, over,200 peaceful protesters were killed by Nigeria security forces between August 2015 and March 2016. The body said innocent people have been targeted by security forces , saying the Federal Government has allowed the killings to continue unabated.
A rights activist, Barrister Sunny Acha says the silence on the Biafra attrocities by the international community has emboldened the Nigeria security forces to continue the deadly crackdown, arrest and torture of the Biafra protagonists.
He appealed to the leaders of the Western world to act now to prevent the situation in South East of Nigeris from degenerating into a pogrom and the complete annihilation of people of Igbo extraction.
” What we are seeing is the systematic annilation of the Igbos by Nigeria security forces. The situation in the south east is precarious, and it’s gradually degenerating into a pogrom”, Barrister Acha lamented.
