A non-governmental organisation, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, has voiced the urgent need for Imo State to be rescued from political gangsters fomenting trouble.
The group stated this in a statement signed by its board chair, Emeka Umeagbalasi and other officials.
It condemned the heightening political banditry and brigandage in the State ahead of the Nov 11 Governorship Election.
“It shocks and saddens our heart that the State is dangerously or gravely going through political gangsterism, killings, abductions, disappearances, house burnings and other property violence, etc. We are also deeply concerned regarding the intensification of military and police terror in the State; to the extent that over half of the State’s 27 Local Government Areas and most of their ‘autonomous communities’ are under military and police siege and terror.
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“We are deeply alarmed that conventional security forces deployed to the State have fully transformed into terror squads and become more criminals than those they were deployed to lawfully checkmate,” it said.
The society further stated the security forces have been compromised and it has become difficult to differentiate them from non-state actors.
“The leaderships of leading parties like APGA, PDP and Labor must live above board, shun transactional/money politics and join hands to rescue Imo State. Political defections in Nigeria have rubbished and messed up the country’s leading political actors and ruined their characters and integrity,” the society advised.