Why insecurity increased in the second quarter of 2022, by group

EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content / A man walk past the blood the stained floor after an attack by gunmen at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo town, southwest Nigeria on June 5, 2022. – Gunmen with explosives stormed a Catholic church and opened fire in southwest Nigeria on June 5, killing “many” worshippers and wounding others, the government and police said. The violence at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo town in Ondo State erupted during the morning service in a rare attack in the southwest of Nigeria, where jihadists and criminal gangs operate in other regions. (Photo by AFP)

A group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has blamed inaction of security forces, partisanship and unwillingness on the part of security agencies for the increase in kidnapping, banditry, and killings, among other crimes, in the second quarter of 2022.

The group pointed out that no fewer than 50 Christian clergies, 26 of them from the Catholic Church, have been kidnapped and four killed within the period.

Coordinators of the group, Emeka Umeagbalasi and Chidinma Udegbulam, stated, yesterday, that the release of four Catholic reverend sisters (Nuns) abducted on Sunday, August 21, 2022, along the Okigwe-Umulolo axis of Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, in Imo State, has continued to expose the country’s security forces’ inaction.

Disclosing statistics of clergy that have been abducted in a statement, made available to The Guardian in Enugu, they stated that the killings and kidnappings were carried out between January and the end of August 2022 at various locations.

Quoting data compiled by the Aid to the Church in Need Int’l (ACN), released on July 11, 2022, they stated that the number of abducted Catholic priests had risen since then, adding that the number included seminarians, postulants, reverend fathers and reverend sisters.

“On July 15, 2022, for instance, two more Catholic priests, Rev. Frs John-Mark Cheitnum and Donatus Cleopas, of Christ the King Catholic Church, Kafanchan, Kaduna State, were abducted and shortly after, on July 19, Fr. Cheitnum was killed. On Friday, August 12, 2022, Fr. Chinedu Nwadike Cssp and a young seminarian, Emmanuel Nwafor (pre-postulant) were abducted at Umunneochi, along the same Enugu-Okigwe-Port-Harcourt Expressway.

“The four Catholic priests so far killed this year are Rev. Frs. Bako, Borogo, Odia and Cheitnum.

The abducted four reverend sisters who have regained freedom are Johannes Nwodo, Christabel Echemazu, Liberata Mbamalu and Benita Agu.

“Intersociety, hereby, makes bold to say that incompetence, partisanship, unwillingness and inability of the country’s security forces to respond to threats by the Jihadists, particularly those laying siege along Umunneochi-Okigwe-Umulolo-Lokpanta on the Enugu-Port-Harcourt Expressway are no longer a hidden fact.”