Renewed demands for an independent inquiry into alleged security abuses in the South-East have placed fresh pressure on the Federal Government, as civil society organisations and rights bodies converge on a single message: the region’s unresolved killings, disappearances and detentions must be investigated and those responsible held to account.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has given President Bola Tinubu a three-week ultimatum to set up an independent judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests, extortion and deaths in custody across the five South-East states. In a statement by its Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko, the group warned that failure to act within the timeframe would prompt consultations with Amnesty International and other organisations on a possible petition to the International Criminal Court, ICC.
The ultimatum follows a sustained accountability campaign by Amnesty International Nigeria, which has taken its findings to town hall meetings across the region, most recently in Umuahia, Abia State. At those gatherings the organisation presented two reports, “A Decade of Impunity: Attacks and Unlawful Killings in South-East Nigeria” and “Tiger Base of Atrocities: Human Rights Violations by Nigeria Police Anti-Kidnapping Unit in Owerri.”
The scale of the crisis, as documented by Amnesty, is significant. According to the organisation, at least 1,844 people were killed in the South-East between January 2021 and June 2023 across Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states. By December 2024, Amnesty says, the documented figure had risen to at least 5,500 deaths. The organisation attributes the violence not to a single actor but to a mix of non-state armed groups, state-backed outfits, security operations, cult groups and vigilantes.
Much of the bloodshed has been linked to the enforcement of the sit-at-home order issued on 9 August 2021, which has shut markets, disrupted schools and paralysed economic life for years. Amnesty has also raised concerns about the conduct of the state-backed Ebube Agu paramilitary force, established by South-East governors on 11 April 2021, citing allegations of arbitrary arrests, torture and destruction of homes. On the Owerri Anti-Kidnapping Unit known as Tiger Base, the organisation says it interviewed 23 former detainees, including 14 women, documenting accounts of torture and poor detention conditions. It reported that three of those interviewed died after their release.
These remain allegations. HURIWA itself stressed that the claims had not been established as facts and should not be treated as such without an independent investigation, while adding that testimonies from families of missing persons were too troubling to be dismissed through official denials. The military has firmly rejected the accusations. The Defence Headquarters, through the Director of Defence Media Operations, described the allegations against troops as baseless, maintaining that the armed forces operate within the law and do not engage in extrajudicial killings. Both the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, and its Eastern Security Network, ESN, have also denied responsibility for attacks frequently attributed to them.
HURIWA has cautioned against the indiscriminate labelling of suspects as IPOB or ESN members to justify arrests. “If a person is suspected of terrorism, kidnapping, murder or any serious crime, arrest the person, investigate the allegation and take the person before a competent court. Do not replace prosecution with disappearance,” the group said. It added that its call for an inquiry, which it said would also examine the roles of the Imo State Government and Governor Hope Uzodimma, did not amount to an allegation of guilt against any official.
The same statement drew a sharp contrast between the accountability the group is demanding and the law-enforcement success it praised in another arm of the state. HURIWA commended the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, for intercepting 184.50 kilogrammes of cocaine, valued at an estimated N39 billion, in what the agency has described as its largest cocaine seizure through a courier company. According to the NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa, retired, the consignment was destined for the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. The agency arrested the alleged Nigerian arrowhead of the cartel, a self-styled luxury goods dealer and social media influencer, Afolabi Kazeem Michael, popularly known as “KC Luxury,” on 13 August 2026 at the boarding gate of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos as he allegedly attempted to board a flight to Paris.
What is confirmed is that the demands for accountability are intensifying and that the documentary record of killings in the South-East is substantial. What remains unresolved is whether the Federal Government will establish the independent inquiry now being sought, and whether the coming weeks will bring the investigations that victims’ families and rights groups say are long overdue.