Ebonyi: Jubilation as FHC Disbands  Umahi’s Witch-Hunting Tools

FROM OUR JUDICIARY DESK(ABAKALIKI)

There was jubilation all over Ebonyi state since yesterday when the news of banning the operations of the deadly Governor David Nweze Umahi’s militia operating under the name and style of the ‘South-East security outfit otherwise known as Ebubeagu by the Federal High Court sitting in Abakaliki, the State capital broke out.

Recall that a Peoples Democratic Party, PDP chieftain in the Salt State who doubles as the Director, Media and Publicity, Ebonyi PDP Governorship Campaign Organisation, High Chief Abia Onyeike had approached the Court of competent jurisdiction, paying among other things, the disbandment of Ebubeagu, paying him reasonable amount of money following his last November’s abduction, humiliation and unwanted torture by the trigger-happy untrained outfit.

Declaring the activities of the Ebubeagu illegal, the Court noted with dismay that the security outfit was notorious in human rights abuses, extortions, illegal arrests, and the abuse of firearms.

The court while delivering judgment in a suit brought before it by the one time Vice President, Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Southeast (Abia Onyeike), ordered Ebonyi State Government to pay the veteran media chief the sum of N50 million as damage(s) over his abduction and torture by the Ebubeagu Security Outfit in Abakaliki in November 2022.

The court however the DSS and Police to take into possession all the fireman and other logistics the now illegal security network uses for its operations. 

The judge declared the Ebubeagu outfit an illegal one and therefore, ceases to exist as the Ebonyi State House of Assembly doesn’t have the powers to approve their existence.

Recall also that the defunct outfit has been fingered as being used as Witch-Hunting tools by the state government against opposition political i parties and their members in the state.