Mercenaries behind Abia cattle market attack, HURIWA claims

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, has alleged that the Tuesday attack on Abia State cattle market, which claimed eight people, was carried out by “members of the deep state and foreign mercenaries”.

This is as the group also alleged that the attackers are “members of the security forces or foreign mercenaries hired by Miyetti Allah Cattle Owners Association”, to resist the anti-open grazing legislations in the South-East.

The group made the allegations in a statement jointly signed by HURIWA National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and its National Media Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, on Thursday.

The group, in the statement titled, ‘Abia Cattle Market Attack Done to Inflict War on South-East: – Says HURIWA’, noted that the attack was aimed at “instigating killings of ndigbo living in the far North and to spread civil conflicts between Igbos and their Northern brethren”.

The statement read in part, “We urge the OHANAEZE NDI IGBO, Governors of the South East of Nigeria and the Igbo World’s congress to jointly hire forensic and security experts and investigators from any part of the world to uncover the exact identities of the so-called unknown gunmen who the Rights group believed are members of the security forces or foreign mercenaries hired by Miyetti Allah Cattle Owners Association angered by the anti-open grazing legislations in the South East.

“And are now on a mission to start off civil war by attacking peaceful cattle owners just so the North will boil in anger and to transfer the aggression and reprisals on peaceful Igbo citizens of Nigeria living legitimately with their Northern brothers/sisters.”

It added, “The South East of Nigeria is under attacks by outsiders who want to cash in on the nebulous anti-cow posture of IPOB to attack Northerners in the East so as to achieve their daredevil agenda and the silence and willful inability of Nigeria’s security forces to uncover who the unknown gunmen are points to larger conspiratorial plots against the South East of Nigeria by enemies of the Igbos”.

The group, however, urged the Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, to rally round South-East political leaders in launching an intensive manhunt for perpetrators of orchestrated violence, which it claimed, was aimed at destroying the region.

The rights group also appealed to all aggrieved persons in the region to consider the need to promote peaceful coexistence always.

Furthermore, HURIWA urged northern groups to stop “sensationalising the unfortunate attacks in the Abia State cattle market which it believed was executed not by Ignos but by those who hate Igbos”.

“The Igbo man and woman are the most peaceful and hospitable citizens and are not known for carrying out bloody violence on their visitors who live amongst them. The Northerners living in the East are like every Igbo person and so the Igbos respects the sanctity of life.”