By Elochukwu Ohagi
Where do I start? How do I tell this story? As the story was being narrated, I felt goosebumps. I kept asking myself why are innocent people treated this way. It is horror and inhuman.
The truth is that under President Muhammadu Buhari, Igbo youths were treated like animals. They suffered and were treated lesser than animals.
Have you heard of Kanji Wawa Prison? The first time I heard that name, I thought it is a prison in Aba, Abia State. But I was wrong. Totally wrong. It was a prison in faraway North, in Niger State. I was reliably informed that the surrounding villages where the prison was located has been taken over by the terrorists, so cars don’t normally go there again. Rather, the military go there using military jet. Oh, I have remembered. I did not tell you it was a military prison, run by the military. So the prison is for terrorists.
So almost all Igbo youths taken from Igbo land during the time of Buhari, that’s from 2015 to 2023, was moved to Kanji Wawa Prison. Lots of Igbo youths were taken under him. Remember when Buhari threatened Igbo youths in his Twitter (X) handle? In a June 2021 tweet, Buhari warned that those who went through the civil war “will treat them in the language they understand.” Twitter deleted the tweet, calling it abusive, and it eventually led to a nationwide Twitter ban in Nigeria. Of course, he fulfilled his threat.
A lot of Igbo people were traced to their homes and shops and arrested. Some were taken while they were travelling. When I say a lot, they are many. They were tagged IPOB members and taken from the South East where they were arrested to Wawa military prison in Niger State, Northern Nigeria. There are also hundreds of them taken from Obigbo, Rivers State during the EndSARS protest. They were also tagged IPOB and sent to the same prison. Nothing can describe that place better than hell.
On arrival at Wawa Prison, you are demonised. Stripped naked, with the soldiers there using clogs of wood to flog you until you run into the prison cell. Then reluctantly they will bring your prison uniform. There you are simply not a human being. Boko Haram terrorists are also imprisoned there. So the Nigerian government, having designated IPOB, a flag waving youth movement demanding a referendum, as terrorists, now puts them side by side with Boko Haram terrorists just to deal with them, according to the promise of Muhammadu Buhari to the Igbo people.
One of the victims of that prison narrated how he was taken from DSS detention center in Abuja to Wawa Military Prison. He was taken to a dark cell. According to him, the aim of taking him there was for him to go blind. He was fed counted beans numbering 19, once a day. They always come back to check if he has died, but they will see him coming up from where he is lying down to go take the beans. He continued to speak to himself, telling himself I will not die. After 65 days in that dark room, he was brought out. When Amnesty International started mentioning his name, he was airlifted again back to Abuja.
There are more than a thousand Igbo youths in Wawa Prison according to information I got. There might be more or less. The skin of the prisoners there has been destroyed by the millions of flies that beset them. The soldiers will threaten them and tell them corpses mean nothing to them anymore, that they should be lucky they no longer cultivate things, if not,they will be regarded and used as manure. I think Wawa Military Prison is worse than the Christian biblical hellfire. Forgive me. I actually made a mistake attributing it to hellfire. It is worse.
Many Igbo youths stayed in Wawa Prison for 5 years without their relatives knowing they are alive. Many more are diseased. These youths were never terrorists. They were never arrested with guns. They have not seen guns before, not to talk of touching them, but they were arrested and imprisoned. They were arrested in a country where Fulani herdsmen carry AK47, slaughtering people without anyone arresting them. They were arrested and thrown into prison in the North, in a country where after the slaughter of villages, Miyetti Allah takes responsibility without any of them being arrested.
Nigeria is a terrible place to be. We are not safe in Nigeria. Recently, these youths, after staying in Kanji for years without seeing the inside of a court, were flown to Abuja and arraigned in court without a lawyer to represent them. The information I got stated that they were told to plead guilty so that they will be given a lesser sentence. They agreed because the prison alone has broken them. Some of them no longer remember things. They knew they are Igbo but they can no longer remember their state or village.
They pleaded guilty, and as they were pleading guilty the judge kept sentencing them between 40 years and 25 years imprisonment. Not until it reached the turn of the man that kept telling himself in a dark cell that he will not die. He looked at the judge and pleaded not guilty. The judge asked again and he pleaded not guilty. He looked at him and said he should be remanded in Kuje Prison. That was how those that followed after him continued to plead not guilty. Those that pleaded not guilty were taken to Kuje Prison, while those that pleaded guilty were flown back to Wawa Prison, probably to go and die. They were played.
What I am writing here is not the ordeal of animals. These guys are humans taken from their homes and shops. They committed no crime but are being treated like animals. Their crime is asking for a referendum. Their crime is being in a country where they are hated for being Igbo. A country where Elochukwu Ohagi, who is a teacher and a writer, is viewed as dangerous while nothing is done to Fulani herdsmen terrorists wiping off villages.
At this juncture I ask the Nigerian president, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to look into the cases of Igbo youths languishing in Wawa Prison in Niger State. I call on the United Nations Human Rights and Amnesty International to look into the cases of these Igbo youths languishing in prison in Northern Nigeria. Prison is not for innocent people asking for a referendum. Prison is for criminals and terrorists. Dearest President Donald J. Trump, we call on you to come to the rescue of the Igbo people. Even I, as a teacher and activist in Nigeria, am not safe. We are being hunted for writing and speaking up.
To you reading me, never say it doesn’t concern me. Do not forget that whatever goes around comes around. It might be innocent IPOB members today, it might be you tomorrow. No one deserves what these Igbo youths are passing through. No, no one. It is 3 years after President Buhari left power, it is time for these Igbo youths to be set free.
Let the targeting of Igbo youths end.
Elochukwu Ohagi is a philosopher, teacher, and activist,
