Okene: Soldiers Killed Innocent Citizens, Not Boko Haram Members, Says Community Group

Bodies of some of the victims

A community group in Okene, Kogi State, where the Nigerian Army on Friday night supposedly killed nine suspected members of the Boko Haram terror group, has sensationally announced that innocent civilians — not members of the dreaded sect — were killed.

The group also alleged that the gunmen who engaged soldiers in a duel were armed robbers, not Boko Haram members as claimed by the Army and certain media agencies (excluding THEWILL).

After Friday’s exchange of gunshots, Maj.-Gen. Alphonsus Chukwu, Brigade Commander in-charge of Chari Maigugeri Barracks in Lokoja had told newsmen in Okene that nine Boko Haram members, a soldier and an official of the State Security Service (SSS) died while three SSS officials were wounded. He said that a combined team of the Army, SSS and Police tracked the suspects to their hideout and invaded it, killing some of them while others escaped, and recovering items such as hand grenade, two pistols, improvised explosive devices and five magazines of AK 47.

But the Ebira Unity Association (EUA) — the umbrella body of professionals in Kogi Central Senatorial District — on Tuesday debunked those claims during an interaction with THEWILL, maintaining that those who engaged in the shootout with military personnel around Obehira Idoma section of Ebira land were not members of the Boko Haram sect. It said that they were members of an armed robbery gang that operated from two jeeps.

Leader of the association, Engr. Haruna Ikotu condemned the Army for fishing out innocent people from their homes and killing them while the armed gang fled into nearby bushes and mountain.

“After the incident, which involved casualties from the security agents, the soldiers and the policemen entered houses to drag people out and shoot them at close range. This led to the murdering of six innocent Ebira people,” he wrote in a statement on behalf of the group.

Three of the people who were alleged to have been killed innocently are a certain Mr.  Salihu, a store owner who trades in educational items at Okene central market; a Hausa business man who ran a bread-making factory in Idoma-Obehira; and a pregnant woman who was hit by stray bullet.

EUA, therefore, demanded the conduct of an independent enquiry into the “heinous killing of innocent Ebira people by the security agents who are being paid to provide security for the people.”