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Totilopussylick:
Nairaland forums have suddenly turned to children's playground because of tribal bigots like this urchin🦍

Start packing.

We are sending you closer to Israhell.

It is either this or we restart the slave trade on OSU commodities and ship you in containers to Amerikkka.

Be grateful .

Totilopussylick:
Nairaland forums have suddenly turned to children's playground because of tribal bigots like this urchin🦍

Start packing.

We are sending you closer to Israhell

From positive comments so far it is safe to say that Sambisa is now the new Aligbo.

This is your new Pale if Settlement.

The sooner you guys begin to pack to your new allotted region the better it will be for us all.

Totilopussylick:
The same yeeebos have several billionaires that are richer than the entire south west region

In Wyclef and The Rock's voice : IT Doesn't matter!

OSU materialistic pig

The contested areas of Sambisa forest in Bornu is roughly the size of Lagos and is bordering 3 international borders (Niger, Chad and Cameroon).

I am making a case for the heebo to have sambisa once we drive the batshit lunatics of BH out since it is perfectly situated to cater for their international business trading.

We can even rename it to "Ike Sambisa" and declare it a FTZ of the Sahel .

Its a win-win scenario. We ship them all to Sambisa (far away as possible from the south) and convert their evil forest region to a catchment lake in event of Cameroon opening their dam on us we can use the area as a large inland lake. Igbos finally get to be northerners and their lame attempts at empire building at our expense (SS) is resolved since they will have both the Kanuri and Fulani to check them.

What you guys think?

MuchAdo:


Exactly! Especially when he made Ben Akabueze commissioner. That was the beginning of the madness

Goes to show that Igbos are the tribalistic goats and not Tinubu

bdon123:

U are still sounding very tribalistic.In kaduna ,Ekene won house of reps .Most big hotels are owned by igbos.....d number agenda is rid Lagos frm Tinubu hands bt u guys are busy fighting abt who owns lagos.
Ok for me na north get Lagos....We northerners plenty for Lagos...lets be fighting abt rubbish since suffer never tire una

And what is your business with Lagos and Tinubu ?


Have you driven Orji Kalu and his okija shrine mafia from Abia?

Has IMO seen a descent individual govern her since conception ?..

Why is Anambra unable to attain good governance ?

What of Enugu and Ebonyi with their recycled mediocrity ?

You are bloody hypocrites.

Fix your shithole and leave Lagos for Yoruba people.

bdon123:

They are Nigerians n can live anywhere.Even i from d north was born n bred in Lagos therefore Lagos is my home.Stop d tribalism....no country can move forward wit this kind of mentality

The heebo has proven the saying of "good fences make good neighbours"


Even in one nijeriya we still have ancestral lands we are Africans of our own nationality first before Nigerian.

Will the heebo tolerate one percent of the rubbish they do in other peoples lands?

Will they be so accommodating to even patronise your business even in places like Lagos talk more of places like Onitsha ?

bluefilm:


Who cares about the wasteful and underdeveloped Niger Delta?

Japan does not have any crude oil but look at where they are today.

Sweet music to my ears.

But that's not what your grandfathers sacrificed 3 million piglets for and last I checked Rabbi Kanustein's IPOB is still bent on repeating that same rubbish.

bluefilm:


Don't be stupid.

Are there no more any other landlocked country in the world?

If those countries can cope, what makes you think Biafra cannot cope?

Nonsense.

Then stop dragging any Niger Delta state into your future Hobbesian nation.

The tyranny and madness of state backed Bakassi boys

Setting themselves up as self-appointed judges, juries and executioners, the Bakassi Boys have killed scores of people after putting them through their own form of "trial," resulting in apparently arbitrary decisions as to the individual's guilt or innocence, often on the basis of fabricated evidence, evidence extracted under torture, or no evidence at all. The Bakassi Boys claim to use "magic" to ascertain whether individuals are guilty or innocent; the premises from which they operate are adorned with symbols and objects related to this belief. The chairman of the Abia Vigilante Services, Onwuchekwa Ulu, told CLEEN that they had foolproof, secret methods of finding out who was a criminal.66 Some of those "judged" to be innocent were released, although several, such as Chief Okonkwo, were later re-arrested and killed. Many of those "judged" to be guilty were brutally murdered without any other form of process, sometimes in public, in front of large crowds. One of the most publicised "catches" by the Bakassi Boys was an alleged armed robber in Onitsha, Okwudili Ndiwe, also known as Derico Nwamama; he was detained by the Bakassi Boys on July 3, 2001 and executed six days later, on July 9. In cases described to Human Rights Watch and CLEEN, the Bakassi Boys often mutilated and burned their victims, decapitated or dismembered them.

Public summary and arbitrary executions have also been carried out with impunity by the Bakassi Boys in Imo State. The Bakassi Boys started executing people as soon as they began their operations in Imo, as described in an article in Newswatch: "They showed everyone that `the real Bakassi Boys' had arrived by slaughtering two persons believed to be criminals on the major streets, apparently to send a warning signal to all criminals in the state. Newswatch gathered information in Owerri that the two persons slaughtered had been undergoing trial in a Bakassi detention camp outside the state. The two people were convicted by the Bakassi Boys and therefore summarily executed in line with their operations in other states especially Abia and Anambra."

Executions in Imo were carried out particularly along the Owerri-Port Harcourt Express Road, where around ten people were reported by the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) to have been killed by the Bakassi Boys in July 2001. Among those executed there were a man nicknamed Commotion, who had been detained by the Bakassi Boys for almost one month; he was killed and burnt, along with three other people.

Former detainees told Human Rights Watch and CLEEN how people were regularly taken out of the Bakassi Boys' cells for execution. There was no doubt in their minds as to the fate that awaited such prisoners. A man who was detained in Onitsha in November 2000 said: "They were killing people there. They would come into the cell, take about ten people out, beat them and bring them back in. Sometimes they would chain someone and take them out. Those ones never came back. We presumed they had been killed. Sometimes they would even say they were going to kill the ones they took out."

Another former detainee held in Onitsha supported this account: "Everyday they came and took people out, sometimes as many as eight. They would take them away. They never came back. There was a man called Ike that they took outside. We never saw him again. I presume he was killed. The day I was arrested, they took eight people out. They tied them with rope: that means they will be killed. When the Bakassi returned they had blood on their knives." A man who was detained in Onitsha in March 2000 also stated that detainees were called out, apparently for execution, and were never seen again.

Some detainees personally witnessed others being killed. A man who was detained by the Bakassi Boys in Onitsha in August 2000 stated: "While I was detained they brought a man out and killed him in front of me. He was about seventeen or twenty years old. They killed him with a knife, a matchet and a big stick. They cut him up in one or two minutes."

The Bakassi Boys' victims have included women. In Anambra, for example, a mother of five and a caterer who had become a successful trader in buildings materials was killed by the Bakassi Boys in August 2000. There were different theories about the motive for her killing: one was that she had been accused of killing her husband's first wife; the other was that she was friendly with a man who was an armed robber, whom the Bakassi Boys were hunting down, and that they killed both of them as they found him in her company. It was also alleged that the Bakassi Boys accused her of having guns and training criminals, but there was never any criminal investigation into these allegations.

Human Rights Watch and CLEEN are particularly concerned about the fate of the lesser- known victims of the Bakassi Boys, as their cases are rarely reported. Although it is impossible to estimate the number of people killed, the Bakassi Boys are certainly responsible for scores of murders, perhaps hundreds. The majority of victims are young men and boys, some under the age of eighteen, who come from poor backgrounds; they have no one to report on their behalf to the authorities about these abuses, and, unlike some of the Bakassi Boys' more prominent victims, no possibility of appealing to any authorities to intervene to save their lives. Their deaths have also gone mostly unreported by the media. In some cases, the victims were street-boys or orphans whose names were not even known and who had no one to identify their bodies after they were killed. Some may have participated in minor, petty offences but never had a chance to present their side of the story. Others may well have been innocent of any offense. From the testimonies of former detainees, it would appear that these "anonymous" victims constitute the bulk of those picked up and killed by the Bakassi Boys.

Residents of all three states where the Bakassi Boys operate told Human Rights Watch and CLEEN that unidentified, dead bodies lying on the roadside were a common sight. For example, one man stated: "There are lots of cases. In about March this year [2001], I saw two dead bodies on the road in Umuahia. Their bodies were burnt. Tyres had also been burnt around them. There were Bakassi Boys parading around."74 A woman said: "They play football with people's heads in the market in Onitsha. Children watch and cheer."75 A man described a particularly gruesome period in late 1999-2000 when OTA was responsible for many killings in and around Onitsha. He said that he would regularly see between six and twelve dead bodies on the streets in Onitsha town, Obosi, Nkpor and Ogbaru. Most of the victims had their arms tied behind their backs and had been shot with rifles.

At least nine people, including several teenagers, were killed in Onitsha on April 10, 2000. The perpetrators are believed to have been members of OTA, the predecessor to the Bakassi Boys in Onitsha, assisted by policemen; according to witnesses, they arrived in police vans and in vehicles of the Anambra State Vigilante Services. Most of the victims were young men, including at least three local government employees-Vincent Ogbuli, aged twenty, Chuka Bosah, aged nineteen, and Chilo Chukurah, aged twenty-four- and two school students, Stephen Chukwurah, aged fifteen, and Obiora Okechukwu, aged thirteen; a thirteen-year-old girl and a pregnant woman were reportedly also killed. Their bodies are believed to have been thrown into the Niger river, but were never recovered. OTA's claims that all the victims were criminals were contradicted by local sources who knew the victims well. Some of their families complained to the authorities, requesting an explanation and compensation for their deaths, but relatives of others did not dare to do so.77

In August 2001, Christian Onwuma, a twenty-year-old okada (motorbike taxi) driver, and three other men were abducted and killed by the Bakassi Boys in Nkpor, near Onitsha, at a location sometimes used for marijuana-dealing. Christian Onwuma, who worked in Onitsha but was originally from Nsukka, in Enugu State, was described by friends and neighbours as a quiet, hard-working young man who had never been a thief or a criminal. A lawyer acting for the family stated: "The only offence he was believed to have ever committed was to smoke marijuana. But it is not the duty of the Bakassi Boys to arrest drug-takers. It is the duty of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency. [...] They were killed in public. People shouted that Christian should not be killed, but they were told to keep back. The Bakassi alleged that they had found guns in the marijuana dealing site."78

A childhood friend and colleague of Christian Onwuma explained what had happened:

[b]That Tuesday, at about 2 p.m.at the okada park, I saw the Bakassi driving away, with Christian and three other young men: twin brothers (one okada boy and one trader who sold beverages and marijuana) and another man. There were about five Bakassi Boys. They were in an Isuzu pick-up van; I know their car. I saw they were carrying knives and guns. The men had been beaten and injured with knives. They had their arms tied behind their backs. The next day their relatives went to the Bakassi office. They were told to come back the following day (Thursday).

But on the Wednesday the Bakassi drove the four victims to the junction and killed them. Some fellow drivers came to tell me. We went there and saw the corpses. All four corpses were together. They had been killed with matchets and burnt together. They were badly burnt but still recognizable. They had cut off their heads and legs, but the heads were still lying there. People looked, then everyone just went his or her own way. The bodies stayed there for four or five days. I don't know who removed them.

I've seen other people who've been killed but not people who have been close to me. I feel the loss very much. The family is also very affected. We knew each other when we were little. Christian used to be a motorcycle mechanic. He was easy-going, not quarrelsome. He never stole anything. After his death, his relatives tried to get his bike back. The Bakassi made them pay 5,000 naira [approximately U.S.$38]for it.79
[/b]


On May 29, 2001, in one of the most serious cases, thirty-six alleged armed robbers were killed by the Bakassi Boys in Onitsha. Some of them had reportedly been detained for several weeks beforehand. They were publicly killed with axes and machetes, mutilated and set on fire, in several different locations.80 A woman who happened to be passing by the place where their mutilated bodies were found described what she saw: "It was on the road going from Onitsha towards Delta state, at the spot where they normally burn the bodies. I saw a pile of human remains. They had cut people up with matchets and put them in a container. There were piles of body parts which had been set on fire. The bodies had been cut up into small pieces like in a butcher's shop. They use very sharp matchets. You can't even recognize what part of the body it is."81 Nigerian human rights organizations, including the CLO, appealed to the government to publish a complete list of the victims' names, but to date, there is no known confirmation of the names and identity of the victims.

In March 2002, an Amnesty International delegation visiting Anambra State witnessed an attempted summary execution by the Bakassi Boys inside the compound of the state government in Awka, Anambra State, some one hundred metres away from the governor's office. The Amnesty International delegates described how about twelve Bakassi Boys armed with automatic weapons and machetes were surrounding a man in his fifties, who had his arms tied behind his back and was bleeding profusely, apparently as a result of beatings. "AVS members were pouring petrol over the man's body with the clear intention of setting him on fire. When they realised that there were strangers watching the scene, they bundled the victim into a van, loaded the vehicle with machetes and guns, and drove away." The identity of the victim and his fate remain unknown.82

On July 9, 1999, two young men, Sergeant Okechukwu Madukwe and Chukwudozie Nwachukwu, both in their twenties, were killed by the Bakassi Boys in Umuahia, Abia State. Chukwudozie Nwachukwu, a twenty-nine-year-old man who worked as an operational manager in a seafood company, had traveled from Lagos to Umuahia to visit his family. When he arrived at the family house, his parents were not there, so he went to wait in a restaurant in the centre of town, known as the Safari restaurant. According to eye-witness testimonies and members of the family, a few minutes after Chukwudozie Nwachukwu arrived in the bar, a group of about ten armed men entered the bar. They identified themselves explicitly as Bakassi Boys and said they had been sent from Aba by the state government to stop criminals.

Soon after they entered the bar, the Bakassi Boys got into an argument with the bar boy. The argument escalated and the Bakassi Boys hit the bar boy with a broken bottle. When Chukwudozie Nwachukwu intervened and asked what was happening, the Bakassi Boys began attacking him with knives. Another man who was in the bar, Sgt Okechukwu Madukwe, approached when he saw Chukwudozie Nwachukwu lying in a pool of blood, surrounded by armed men. The Bakassi Boys then set upon him too. They accused Chukwudozie Nwachukwu and Sgt Okechukwu Madukwe of being robbers, after discovering that they were carrying money. Within a short time, they had killed both of them, using machetes and guns. They took their bodies outside, poured fuel over them and set them on fire. Okechukwu Madukwe's brother, who was also in the bar, was attacked with machetes, tied up and put inside a vehicle; he was injured, but survived after being saved by the police.

Chukwudozie Nwachukwu's father was at work when his son was killed: "I was in the office. Someone came in and said: `Come and see what's happening in the Safari restaurant! Your son has been fighting." I said that was not possible. I took off immediately. I reached the restaurant. There were crowds there. I saw the boys' bodies on fire. Blood was flowing. The Bakassi were still there, with their weapons. They had two guns and many matchets. They were searching the vehicle of the spy sergeant [Sgt Okechukwu Madkuwe]; they found nothing. My son had been shot on the neck and shoulder. They had cut off his feet. I was so dazed I couldn't react. I had to leave. I then went to the police with my wife to report it. The body was left there overnight. The police helped us remove it the next day. We had a big funeral."83

Unusually in a case involving the Bakassi Boys, the police came to the scene quickly, arrested six of the Bakassi Boys and took them to the police station. The police then received instructions from Government House, described as follows in the police findings and recommendations on the case: "Shortly after the arrest of these people directives came from the Government House that the suspects should be brought to Government House. At the Government House, the deputy Commissioner of police, Abia State police command was instructed to release the suspects by the governor. Based on the instruction, the suspects were released few hours after having recorded their statements."84 Following a public outcry at their release, the police re-arrested four of them a few days later; this time, they remained in detention and, in one of the very few cases of its kind, they were actually charged and tried. Court proceedings began in Umuahia, on June 21, 2000, but the trial did not commence until February 14, 2001. By April 2002, it has still not concluded, following repeated adjournments.

The police's initial investigations into this case in Abia State were reportedly obstructed by the state government, so the investigation was transferred to the police in Lagos. According to the police findings in the case, at least two Abia State government officials-the secretary to the state government and the protocol officer-had called the Bakassi Boys to Umuahia on July 9. However, the reasons and motives for the killings remained unclear. The police findings state: "On 9th July, 1999, at about 1400 hours members of a vigilante group based in Aba, Abia State popularly known as `Bakassi' invaded Safari Restaurant [...]. Members of this gang with their office at block C4 Ariaria market Aba were invited by the Secretary to Abia State Government Dr E.J.Nwogbo through one Ndukwe Okereke, a Protocol Officer attached to the Government House on behalf of the State Government. The Deputy Governor in his statement confirmed that they i.e. the Governor, himself and the Secretary to the State Government on 9th July 1999 held a meeting bordering on the activities of the Bakassi group. He asserted that after their deliberation an arrangement was reached to invite the group. Ndukwe Okereke a Protocol Officer was dispatched from Umuahia to Aba to invite this group and on his return trip with the gang numbering about (10) ten men went straight to the Abia State Government House, Umuahia. At the Government House, Ndukwe and the Chairman of the group by name Ezeji Oguikpe called at the office of the Secretary to the State Government, Dr E. J. Nwogbo. The SSC had some discussions with the Chairman of the group after which Ndukwe Okereke led them to Safari Restaurant [...]" The police report then goes on to describe the killings and confirms that the two victims were not criminals or armed robbers.85

The victims' relatives believe it was a case of mistaken identity. They asked the government to admit publicly that it was a mistake and to state for the record that the men were innocent. The government refused to do so.86 In an interview with the magazine Insider Weekly two years after the deaths of the two men, in which he was asked about the case, Abia State governor Orji Kalu simply said: "Well, there is nothing I could have done because the case is before a court of competent jurisdiction and government was directly not involved."

pandax:


Malaysia did what you harbour in your mind to Singapore and today we know the better state between the two

But you are not Singapore but a barbaric savage heathen people .

Setting themselves up as self-appointed judges, juries and executioners, the Bakassi Boys have killed scores of people after putting them through their own form of "trial," resulting in apparently arbitrary decisions as to the individual's guilt or innocence, often on the basis of fabricated evidence, evidence extracted under torture, or no evidence at all. The Bakassi Boys claim to use "magic" to ascertain whether individuals are guilty or innocent; the premises from which they operate are adorned with symbols and objects related to this belief. The chairman of the Abia Vigilante Services, Onwuchekwa Ulu, told CLEEN that they had foolproof, secret methods of finding out who was a criminal.66 Some of those "judged" to be innocent were released, although several, such as Chief Okonkwo, were later re-arrested and killed. Many of those "judged" to be guilty were brutally murdered without any other form of process, sometimes in public, in front of large crowds. One of the most publicised "catches" by the Bakassi Boys was an alleged armed robber in Onitsha, Okwudili Ndiwe, also known as Derico Nwamama; he was detained by the Bakassi Boys on July 3, 2001 and executed six days later, on July 9. In cases described to Human Rights Watch and CLEEN, the Bakassi Boys often mutilated and burned their victims, decapitated or dismembered them.

Public summary and arbitrary executions have also been carried out with impunity by the Bakassi Boys in Imo State. The Bakassi Boys started executing people as soon as they began their operations in Imo, as described in an article in Newswatch: "They showed everyone that `the real Bakassi Boys' had arrived by slaughtering two persons believed to be criminals on the major streets, apparently to send a warning signal to all criminals in the state. Newswatch gathered information in Owerri that the two persons slaughtered had been undergoing trial in a Bakassi detention camp outside the state. The two people were convicted by the Bakassi Boys and therefore summarily executed in line with their operations in other states especially Abia and Anambra."67 Executions in Imo were carried out particularly along the Owerri-Port Harcourt Express Road, where around ten people were reported by the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) to have been killed by the Bakassi Boys in July 2001. Among those executed there were a man nicknamed Commotion, who had been detained by the Bakassi Boys for almost one month; he was killed and burnt, along with three other people.68

Former detainees told Human Rights Watch and CLEEN how people were regularly taken out of the Bakassi Boys' cells for execution. There was no doubt in their minds as to the fate that awaited such prisoners. A man who was detained in Onitsha in November 2000 said: "They were killing people there. They would come into the cell, take about ten people out, beat them and bring them back in. Sometimes they would chain someone and take them out. Those ones never came back. We presumed they had been killed. Sometimes they would even say they were going to kill the ones they took out."69 Another former detainee held in Onitsha supported this account: "Everyday they came and took people out, sometimes as many as eight. They would take them away. They never came back. There was a man called Ike that they took outside. We never saw him again. I presume he was killed. The day I was arrested, they took eight people out. They tied them with rope: that means they will be killed. When the Bakassi returned they had blood on their knives."70 A man who was detained in Onitsha in March 2000 also stated that detainees were called out, apparently for execution, and were never seen again.

Some detainees personally witnessed others being killed. A man who was detained by the Bakassi Boys in Onitsha in August 2000 stated: "While I was detained they brought a man out and killed him in front of me. He was about seventeen or twenty years old. They killed him with a knife, a matchet and a big stick. They cut him up in one or two minutes."71

The Bakassi Boys' victims have included women. In Anambra, for example, a mother of five and a caterer who had become a successful trader in buildings materials was killed by the Bakassi Boys in August 2000. There were different theories about the motive for her killing: one was that she had been accused of killing her husband's first wife; the other was that she was friendly with a man who was an armed robber, whom the Bakassi Boys were hunting down, and that they killed both of them as they found him in her company. It was also alleged that the Bakassi Boys accused her of having guns and training criminals, but there was never any criminal investigation into these allegations.72

Human Rights Watch and CLEEN are particularly concerned about the fate of the lesser- known victims of the Bakassi Boys, as their cases are rarely reported. Although it is impossible to estimate the number of people killed, the Bakassi Boys are certainly responsible for scores of murders, perhaps hundreds. The majority of victims are young men and boys, some under the age of eighteen, who come from poor backgrounds; they have no one to report on their behalf to the authorities about these abuses, and, unlike some of the Bakassi Boys' more prominent victims, no possibility of appealing to any authorities to intervene to save their lives. Their deaths have also gone mostly unreported by the media. In some cases, the victims were street-boys or orphans whose names were not even known and who had no one to identify their bodies after they were killed. Some may have participated in minor, petty offences but never had a chance to present their side of the story. Others may well have been innocent of any offense. From the testimonies of former detainees, it would appear that these "anonymous" victims constitute the bulk of those picked up and killed by the Bakassi Boys.73

Residents of all three states where the Bakassi Boys operate told Human Rights Watch and CLEEN that unidentified, dead bodies lying on the roadside were a common sight. For example, one man stated: "There are lots of cases. In about March this year [2001], I saw two dead bodies on the road in Umuahia. Their bodies were burnt. Tyres had also been burnt around them. There were Bakassi Boys parading around."74 A woman said: "They play football with people's heads in the market in Onitsha. Children watch and cheer."75 A man described a particularly gruesome period in late 1999-2000 when OTA was responsible for many killings in and around Onitsha. He said that he would regularly see between six and twelve dead bodies on the streets in Onitsha town, Obosi, Nkpor and Ogbaru. Most of the victims had their arms tied behind their backs and had been shot with rifles.76

At least nine people, including several teenagers, were killed in Onitsha on April 10, 2000. The perpetrators are believed to have been members of OTA, the predecessor to the Bakassi Boys in Onitsha, assisted by policemen; according to witnesses, they arrived in police vans and in vehicles of the Anambra State Vigilante Services. Most of the victims were young men, including at least three local government employees-Vincent Ogbuli, aged twenty, Chuka Bosah, aged nineteen, and Chilo Chukurah, aged twenty-four- and two school students, Stephen Chukwurah, aged fifteen, and Obiora Okechukwu, aged thirteen; a thirteen-year-old girl and a pregnant woman were reportedly also killed. Their bodies are believed to have been thrown into the Niger river, but were never recovered. OTA's claims that all the victims were criminals were contradicted by local sources who knew the victims well. Some of their families complained to the authorities, requesting an explanation and compensation for their deaths, but relatives of others did not dare to do so.77

In August 2001, Christian Onwuma, a twenty-year-old okada (motorbike taxi) driver, and three other men were abducted and killed by the Bakassi Boys in Nkpor, near Onitsha, at a location sometimes used for marijuana-dealing. Christian Onwuma, who worked in Onitsha but was originally from Nsukka, in Enugu State, was described by friends and neighbours as a quiet, hard-working young man who had never been a thief or a criminal. A lawyer acting for the family stated: "The only offence he was believed to have ever committed was to smoke marijuana. But it is not the duty of the Bakassi Boys to arrest drug-takers. It is the duty of the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency. [...] They were killed in public. People shouted that Christian should not be killed, but they were told to keep back. The Bakassi alleged that they had found guns in the marijuana dealing site."

These are the savages that will complain about BH and Fulani bandits meanwhile they are slanderers, false accusers and cold blooded murderers.

Heebo land is the most dangerous place on earth for an heebo.

The Anambra State House of Assembly set up an ad-hoc committee to investigate the arrest of Ifeanyi Ibegbu. In their submissions to the committee, Ifeanyi Ibegbu's personal assistant and his driver, who were traveling with him at the time of his arrest and were both arrested and detained with him, confirmed that the Bakassi Boys had not accused Ifeanyi Ibegbu of any specific criminal offence, but of challenging Chuma Nzeribe and being against the activities of the Bakassi Boys in Onitsha. They both stated that when their car was intercepted on the road, the Bakassi Boys made a call on their mobile phone before then assaulting and arresting them. In his own submission to the ad-hoc committee, Chuma Nzeribe accused Ifeanyi Ibegbu of using his house as the operational base of an armed gang and having links with two well-known armed robbers. He denied any involvement in his arrest and denied threatening to kill him. Gilbert Okoye, for his part, admitted to the committee that he had been informed on the telephone about the arrest of Ifeanyi Ibegbu, but claimed that he had asked the Bakassi Boys not to harm him since he was a public figure. The operational secretary of the Bakassi Boys confirmed to the committee that the intention had been to kill Ifeanyi Ibegbu: "He disclosed that Hon.Ifeanyi Ibegbu would have been killed but for the timely intervention of the Commissioner of Police and the Security Adviser."64 Ifeanyi Ibegbu's own testimony, including his account of comments made by the Bakassi Boys during his detention, clearly confirms that they would have tried to kill him had it not been for the intervention of the police.

Ifeanyi Ibegbu has taken his case to court and is suing the Anambra government, Chuma Nzeribe, and the Bakassi Boys for damages for wrongful arrest and assault. Despite having been given a police escort since his release, he still felt unsafe when he spoke to Human Rights Watch and CLEEN, more than a year after his abduction and torture.

When Human Rights Watch and CLEEN met Camillus Ebekue, who replaced Gilbert Okoye as chairman of the Anambra Vigilante Services in May 2001, and asked him about the abduction and torture of Ifeanyi Ibegbu, he said the story was not true, or else he was "not aware of it."

On the afternoon of August 20, as he was driving from Enugu towards Onitsha, Ifeanyi Ibegbu noticed that he was being followed:63

Along the road I noticed the Bakassi in strategic positions. They flagged me and said: "Who are you? Oh, you're the criminal we're looking for." They kicked me and stripped me. They gagged me and tied my feet and arms with rope. I was naked. They forced me into the pick-up truck. It was about 4.00 p.m. A crowd had gathered. People were stoning the Bakassi, trying to protest. The Bakassi numbered about forty or fifty; they had pump action guns and matchets. They put me face down in the vehicle. I didn't know where we were going. Later I saw that I was in the heart of Onitsha market.

They took me upstairs and tortured me; this was at about midnight. I still have the wounds. They called me for interrogation. They were sitting like judges. They said: "Your time is up." They tied my legs and arms and loosened the rope on my mouth. They asked: "Why did you oppose Bakassi?" I said I didn't but they must work in concert with the law. They said: "We will kill you," and mentioned by name various other prominent people they wanted to kill, who had denounced their violence. I started pleading with them. They refused to listen. This went on until about 8 a.m. One Bakassi boy who knew me told me: "The government wants you to die."

At about 12.00 p.m., they announced in the market that they were going to display a big fish and that I was a big criminal. They brought me downstairs to the execution ground. I was still naked. Some of them said they would kill me, others said they wouldn't. They took me back upstairs, then down again, then back up again, then down again. The traders had closed their shops and were standing around, waiting for me to be displayed. The Bakassi leader Gilbert Okoye said: "Your day is up. Stop going around with those criminals." They said they would kill me. I was still pleading with them.

They were making calls on their cell-phones, saying: "This is the man, we have him." They were calling Chuma Nzeribe. Then the inspector general of police got to hear about it. He called Nzeribe for him to tell the Bakassi to release me .

They forced me to make a mark on my body. They rubbed a black native substance into a cut on my arm. They hit me three times on my chest and back. I had to take an oath that I would keep it secret and say they were doing a great job. They warned me not to go to the police and not to go to court. After they released me, I went to make a statement to the police. The Bakassi came to the police station. Then they entered the car and zoomed off.

The same night, after my release, they killed two boys at the junction just to frighten me. They just left the bodies there, near my house.

The harassment and intimidation of Ifeanyi Ibegbu began several months before his arrest. After first being warned that he was likely to be killed, he fled from his home. Members of OTA then came to his house in Onitsha in April 2000 and destroyed everything, leaving a human head behind in his house. He then decided to move out of the city.

On August 18, 2000, Ifeanyi Ibegbu attended a party at which Chuma Nzeribe, the governor's security adviser, was present. He claimed that he overheard Chuma Nzeribe saying that he (Ifeanyi Ibegbu) was trying to discredit the government and that Nzeribe was going to kill Ibegbu. The two men got into an argument and a scuffle ensued.61 The following day, Gilbert Okoye, the Bakassi Boys' chairman, approached Ifeanyi Ibegbu and asked him to apologize for his conduct at the party: "He advised me not to adopt the attitude of championing civil rights, because it would cost me my life. He said that this was Nigeria, not America, and that I could not oppose the governor, even though I am the Opposition Leader in the House."