A guest on Prime Time, a public affairs programme on ARISE NEWS, Nigeria’s top television station, this Wednesday, August 20, 2025, Chukwuma Charles Soludo strove strenuously to explain the government side of the disgraceful and utterly grisly and abominable treatment meted out to Jennifer Elobor, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), in Oba, Idemili South Local Government Area of Anambra State.

He laboured to give the impression that neither the Operation Udo Ga Achi, the security programme commanding the henchmen of Agunechemba force, responsible for the eerie behaviour, nor the state government under whose authority they operated, had a hand in the sordid affair, feigning anger and regret to boot!

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Nothing could be farther to the truth. Even with all his efforts, it was clear he was being economical with the truth. His countenance betrayed his obvious insincerity, while his commentary on the issue was far less convincing.

Only the non-initiate or the completely bereft, would have been swayed by the governor’s play-acting suggesting a high dose of piety, innocence or even anger over the development. Nobody conversant with the reality would otherwise be convinced.

There was no way the governor could lay claim to any sort of confusion about that episode. So, his open show of empathy to the victims or display of remorse about the outlandish act of those beasts, amount to nothing than an elaborately crafted façade. Nothing more, nothing less. He has no way of exculpating himself from complicity. He could not have been because what the public saw in that video, which exposed the entire ghoulish episode is a child’s play to the modus operandi of the outfit.

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They had in the past, inflicted far worse treatments to other unfortunate victims and therefore have in store, many more where the experience of Lady Elobor came. In other words, Soludo could not have been surprised because the brutality displayed in that video is a minus in their capacity.

If they had gone full throttle on that lady, many of those who watched that video, would either not have been able to go full-length or would have been rushed to the hospital to get resuscitated from the mental and psychological impact they would have suffered.

This is why we can not condemn the entire development enough from the outset. There is a popular local saying that a man that steals and denies, has committed a double crime. Soludo is guilty of this crime. Yes, he may not have been at the scene of the crime. But by vicarious responsibility, he is guilty as much as those evil men, if not guiltier.

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Though not physically at the crime scene, but Soludo’s hand vicariously held and drove the koboko that landed those lashes on the bare back of that young lady. Each slap she received came from him. His imprimatur was quite visible as her garment was shredded and in the exposure of her female anatomy. He was complicit in the degradation of her human person and the consistent and constant opprobrium that would forever trail her in the market places, churches and other public gatherings.

Henceforth, each time people point fingers at her either in mockery or pity, Soludo has a hand in it. Indeed, if she eventually ends up a physiological or psychological wreck or meets a more sinister, more damning or even fatal fate in future due to her inability to handle the situation, Soludo will take the lion share as the harbinger of that outcome and not those who actually committed the act.

Why do we say so? The answer is simple. Much as the governor tried to give the impression that it was an isolated case, it is completely the opposite. There is a surfeit of cases to support our assertion that this is the rule rather than an exception. While scores of such cases are in the public space, hundreds of them are covered in secrecy.

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But for the obvious overexcitement of the ARISE NEWS, he would have caught the governor pants-down by mere interrogation of facts. For instance, had he not been overly too eager to please his guest, for whatever reasons and applied himself more diligently, he would have asked his guest the whereabouts of the operatives of the selfsame Agunechemba, who killed Kosisochukwu Okoye, an indigene of Isuofia, in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State.

A wielder at Ekwulobia, the young man in company of Malachy Chimaobi Iwuanyanwu and Odinkalu Chinonso, were mowed down in a volley of bullets while at work on January 29 by the outfit and labelled members of Unknown Gunmen (UGM) “terrorising” the state.

It turned out that on the fateful day Okoye’s boss had dropped him and the two others off at the site of a new building they were constructing and fitting with wrought irons. They were at work when the operatives arrived and reportedly opened fire without warning that eventually sent them to the world beyond through a hail of bullets.

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Thereafter, they went to town to celebrate on how they decimated a group of UGM in the Owere Ezukala forest. To add salt to the story, they displayed the gas cylinder that powered the plant with which the wielders worked, was shown as a “bomb” found in the camp of the supposed UGM killers, while another set of half-naked men, stripped to their underpants were driven around as further evidence of their uncommon feat.

But it did not take long before the ululations that accompanied the display to die down, as evidence, based on testimonies began to be suggest that the entire enterprise was a ruse. Not only that the village folks properly identified the victims as innocent workers, but corroborated that those arrested and claimed to be UGM captured alive were equally innocent, many of them picked from the streets instead of the supposed forest camps.

Today, not only that mum is the word about Okoye, the only son of a widow, whose completely distraught mother was seen in another video pleading for his body and justice, the entire episode, has since been wrapped in official deafening silence that has become the signature of the Soludo government.

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Nobody knows what has happened to the distraught mother, who incidentally is from the same community with Soludo and those of the two others who were killed in that gory episode. Nothing has equally been heard about those responsible for it either in form of arrest or prosecution.

To underscore their unrestrained and unrepentant posture, many other cases have since been added. Chiamaka Okeke, shares the same fate. She was said to have been hit by stray bullets at Ibeto Junction, Nnewi North Local Government Area. Police account claims that the operatives, apparently impatient opened fire and started shooting indiscriminately, while traffic officers were still trying to clear road for them.

The family of another 12-year-old boy, who was reportedly killed on June 12, 2025, while the nation was in celebration of the Democracy Day, has since been thrown into mourning and to nurse their eternal wound. The lad was said to be sitting quietly on a culvert near a gutter in Nwangene when he was shot without provocation, an incident that nearly caused a riot as traders within the vicinity were said to have confronted the operatives who wanted to flee the scene after the incident and forced them to carry the corpse of the little boy.

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Outside the killings, there have been many reported cases of extortions either at checkpoints or in various detention camps they have set up by the operatives with tales of illegal detentions, torture and other forms of arbitrariness, many of them in public space and others hidden from public attention. In fact, the prayer on the lips of most people outside the corridors of power is never to have anything to do with them, particularly in terms of being their victims.

Take the case of Okechukwu Akanaeme. On October 11, 2024, it was the turn of this former Chairman of the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (OCCIMA) to test the new phenomenon in the state. This time it was in the hands of the Anambra State Waste Management Agency (ASWMA), who accosted him in his home over revenue issues. By the time they left, the once vibrant journalist and businessman was lying on the floor, prostrate.

For the rest of his life, he was in a vegetative state as he was being tossed from his home to one hospital  and the other till he finally died at the Park Lane Hospital Enugu, a few weeks ago, leaving behind his wife, a professor at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) and his children completely drained and in debt after exhausting virtually all their resources on his treatment.

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Today, Anambra has found a new use for Aka-Odo – pestles. It has become not an instrument for grinding pepper, but a symbol of extreme terror, brutality and pain. Videos are everywhere of officials using the device to deliver deadly blows to the ankle-bones, knee-caps and other vital spots of the human person cause the maximum pains needed to achieve their goals faster than any other torture practices, employ it to the maximum. The practiced and dexterous application of the device have left many victims either permanently crippled or eternally traumatised.

Yet, there are no consequences despite that most of these cases are in the public domain. Soludo cannot therefore vitiate this fact by putting a sombre, prudent and mournful expression. It is not only deceitful but totally annoying for the major reason of his complicity.

But for the fact that the video of that NYSC lady escaped into the public domain, it would have been another fait accompli. That case was already sealed. That it attracted official response from Kenneth Emeakayi, the Chairman of that dreaded outfit and later the governor is a function of the public outrage and the status of the lady in question. It would have been a different kettle of fish if it was purely an Anambra matter.

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In fact, the lawyer had concluded that she and her colleagues, had actually fled the state for fear of greater consequences. After handing out a misery N10,000 cash each, they were reportedly forbidden not to speak about the matter, of course, laced with subtle and open threats.

That the current frenzy to an incident that happened on July 23, a month after, when all the facts were on the table, underscores the obvious pretence and hypocrisy of Soludo and his men. The talk about the victim and her parents not wanting to press charges, is a lame excuse an infant will laugh at. It is an obtuse and childish attempt at a coverup.

Assuming, but not conceding, for the sake of argument that the government is so bereft not to recognise that the attack on Lady Elobor, constituted a criminal offence that required handing the culprits over to the police immediately, could such excuse suffice for the moral burden as well?

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Could they not have been outrightly dismissed ab initio? Why did it have to take the public outrage for such a measure to be taken on Wednesday? Even now, that Wednesday public show could be an attempt to buy time.

Only the non-initiate would be surprised to see them tomorrow, if not at their duty posts, somewhere in the seat of power. Yes, because contrary to what is being sold to the public many believe the outfit has already been assigned a role to ensure Soludo’s re-election.

That underscores the level of distrust. To many, the tree that bears the killer fruit, is already blooming with flowers in readiness for future harvests. This indicates the greater dangers ahead. That is the tragedy!

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