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Despite the secessionist and other related propaganda by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the people of the South-East region of Nigeria actually seek a return of the military operation code-named Python Dance II to the region.
This comes on the heels of alleged persistent hostile activities by the group, and an atmosphere of fear and intimidation its members had allegedly hoisted on the region, despite their proscription by the governors of the five states in the South-East of Nigeria and declaration as a terrorist group by a federal court.
According to a report by a non-governmental organization, the Independent Human Rights And Crime Monitoring Group, tagged – ‘Report on Military Operation Python Dance II and Associated Concerns in The South-East and South-South,’ and released in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, June 20, 2018, the situation has grown into proportions that require concerted efforts to neutralize the threats resulting from it.
Presenting the report, executive director of the group, Barrister Zineke Werigbelegha, said that following the “unrelenting claims that the exercise should be revisited,” the Independent Human Rights and Crime Monitoring Group commissioned an assessment of Operation Python Dance II, “with a view to learning vital lessons that would help avoid any identified shortcoming.”
Werigbelegha said the assessment was restricted to the South-East geo-political zone of the country, where separatists of the defunct Biafra republic are active, and covered the period between 2016 and 2017 when the Nigerian Army conducted Operation Python Dance and Operation Python Dance II.
Noting that subsequent reports confirmed that Operation Python Dance II is the most successful military operation in the South-East to date, Werigbelegha maintained that claims by “a group affiliated to IPOB, known as Intersociety, on alleged massacre arising from the exercise, is totally false and aimed at rallying IPOB terrorists to regroup ahead of the 2019 general elections.”
He said the assessment involved interview with residents of the South East that were randomly selected according to in sex, age, geographical spread, education, income level and affiliation to socio-cultural organizations. “Researchers also spoke with survivors and victims of separatist harassment, military commanders, activists, and former members of separatist movements that have renounced their association with such group. Publicly available documents, news publications, press releases and statements, video and pictorial evidences, social media threads and public archives were content analysed.
“The assessment discovered that the Nigerian Army conducted Operation Python Dance in September 2016 as a training drill for troops, at a time the entire South-East was reeling from a wave of crimes like kidnap for ransom, banditry, extortion syndicates, and illicit drugs related crimes that were proving to be beyond the civil police.
“Separatist movements that were uncomfortable with what the operation can expose about their activities mounted a campaign to discredit the exercise with a strategy aimed at turning the populace against the Army. It was later discovered that separatist groups, like the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Biafra Independent Movement (BIM), Biafra Zionist Movement and their other variants were behind these crimes that they use to finance their secessionist bid,” Werigbelegha said.
He said the report noted that there was heavy build-up of illegal firearms and ammunition in the entire area while IPOB members had obtained military training facilitated by deserters from the military. These trained militia members formed themselves into brigades that regularly issue threats targeted at the political and military leadership in the country.
Also according to the report, “IPOB has instituted a parallel government that extorted the people in the name of taxes and regularly sabotaged the ability of law abiding citizens to earn their living by deliberately shutting down economic activities with sit-at home orders. Those who resisted are harassed, tortured or even killed.
“The situation became hostile to a point where Nigerians originally from the South-East became apprehensive of traveling to their ancestral homes because they fear for their safety. Persons of other ethnic extraction had become endangered as some were murdered and buried in shallow graves – the explanation ranged from them being victims of kidnap for ransom went awry or the casualty of targeted ethnic cleansing conducted by IPOB.
“The successful conduct of Operation Python Dance restored peace and sense of security to the states in the South-East with indigenes of these states being able to enjoy the Yuletide season at their towns and villages for the first time in a long time. The medical outreach that was bundled with the operation was a success as it allowed many low income residents of the areas to access care. These led the people to appeal for the Army to repeat the exercise in the following year.
“The Nigerian Army heeded the call by the populace with Operation Python Dance II, which incidentally came at a time when IPOB had become belligerent in its call for the break-up of Nigeria. However, Operation Python Dance II was able to dismantle the terror cells and infrastructure of IPOB and other groups that operated based on its ideology.
“In the course of the operation, it was found that IPOB terrorists have a strategy of shooting into crowds to randomly kill their own members of lower ranks so that the deaths can be blamed on the Army. The group also routinely executed defectors as a strategy for ensuring that members become too scared to leave. The bodies of such victims have been discovered at different time, which the groups then blame soldiers for.
“Residents of the South-East again asked that Operation Python Dance be sustained and turned into an annual exercise that will provide avenue to root out any criminality that might have been introduced since the preceding edition,” Werigbelegha said.
The report however noted that The cyber wing and the NGO wing of IPOB have however remained active with a sustained campaign of fake news and hate speech against the Nigerian state.
Werigbelegha said these groups, such as Intersociety, Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), Civil Liberty Organization (state chapters in the South-East), which are working with international NGOs that are committed to the break –up of Nigeria, have at various times issued reports or positions that are at variance with the reality and designed to weaken the Nigerian Army’s efforts against the Biafran separatists.
According to Werigbelegha, the report further noted that as retaliation for proscribing it, IPOB terrorist are shopping for justification to disrupt elections in the South-East. Since Operation Python Dance II, IPOB terrorists have infiltrated the ranks of political parties pretending to be thugs that will do the bidding of politicians. They are however embedded to be able to unleash mayhem that they will celebrate as actualization of their ‘no election in defunct Biafra.’ Many politicians have unwittingly recruited these IPOB militants into their campaign organizations.
The group therefore recommended that the Nigerian Army and the Federal Government must revert to treating IPOB and Biafra Zionist Movement as active terror organizations that have merely changed their tactics, efforts should be intensify to dismantle the propaganda arm of IPOB, led by its spokesperson, Emma Powerful, while military authorities should entertain the appeal of the people in the South-East that are requesting for Operation Python Dance to become an annual exercise because of the benefit to the entire geo-political zone where the exercise has been able to reverse the growing wave of crime.
Relevant agencies should, in the interim, request Intersociety, HURIWA and CLO as currently constituted to register as socio-cultural organizations, as opposed to their NGO-status, since their agenda are tailored towards promoting one ethnic group over the others in Nigeria, in addition to being used as the NGO wings of IPOB, the group said.
