The Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy and Development (FENRAD) has condemned the operations of the Nigerian military in Orlu, Imo State, southeast Nigeria.

Troops, in a joint operation involving the army, air force and the police, sustained a raid operation in the area after the alleged killing of four soldiers.

The outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) members were said to have ambushed and killed the soldiers who were on the escort of a brigadier-general.

The military officer and his team were on inspection of the civil-military project at Nkwerre.

The IPOB members were said to have also taken away weapons and a vehicle belonging to the troops.

Governor Hope Uzodinma, according to the Imo government, had asked the military to assist the state in ‘flushing out’ IPOB and its Eastern Security Network (ESN) from the state.

‘The state government got intelligence that IPOB was planning an attack against the Orlu people and the government, under the pretext of looking for herders in the communities’, the Attorney General of Imo State, Cyprian Akaolisa, is quoted as saying.

FENRAD, in a statement, said the move by the state government was worrisome.

‘After studying the press briefing from the state government as issued by the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Cyprian Akaolisa, FENRAD wondered so much whether the state government is in the know of the dire and brutal consequences of its act of extending an invitation to the army as it claimed’, the statement read.

‘The targetless sporadic aerial shootings carried out by the army left the affected communities in panic and as well caused huge disruption of activities – economic and cultural’.

FENRAD advised the governor to make sure peace reigns in his charge or be willing to answer to international court.

Source: FENRAD

Photo source: Nigerian Army