Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy and Development, FENRAD, a human and environmental rights group is calling on the Military High Command to ensure that it's personnel drafted to the South East are called to order. This was contained in a statement made available to Nigerian Notch by the organization, through it's leader Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, reads in part "the unlawful 'detention' of some customers at Shoprite, Umuahia following a claim of vandalism and robbery by some men and/or officers of the Nigeria Army who had also gone to the grocery and household retail outlet for shopping as those who only became their victims is unacceptable."
According to sources and clips obtained online publications, the group said that, " the friction climaxed when upon returning to the car from the mall the military personnel raised an alarm to the effect that their car had been vandalised and their cash stolen. The tension was heightened further when the said personnel who had insisted on seeing a CCTV footage of the mall for investigation called their comrades who later besieged the mall and held other customers for long against their wish."
The statement said that "things got to a head with the people who nearly staged a protest."
FENRAD however condemns the incident in its entirety and regrets the fact that a mall which usually has numerous customers and patronisers on a daily could in peacetime be turned into a detention facility where people were denied their rights to freedom of movement and even of economic choice.
" What is more, the incident, which nearly triggered a protest and civil disobedience, FENRAD said, could only further worsen the relationship between the military and residents of Abia State capital.
The group however regrets that some personnel of the military could actually create a scene such as seen at the mall.
The group therefore called on the authorities to see to end of the unwholesome exercise of having travellers within the Southeast alight from vehicles and walk through military formations with their hands raised, in places like Ekwusigo LGA in Anambra State, Arondizuogu, Akokwa axis, Uturu and other areas, where the army subject travellers and commuters to this very horrible experience.
Continuing FENRAD wondered why so much of such a 'drills' and asked if it's part of the military operation in the region, while it stressed that repeating this Gestapo-like operation is capable of hindering economic activities within the region as the citizens are subjected to fear, torture and harassment as they will find it hard to move to some of these 'occupied' areas.
The group however called on the legislators from the region, governors and even traditional rulers, as well as the federal government to ensure that the region is not subjected to slow and undeclared war where the army uses citizens for target practice.
They therefore asked the military to call its personnel to order and ensure that they exhibit discipline and professionalism for which the military, all over the world, is known for, as the Southeast is still part of Nigeria's space and territory which should be protected and not an area under occupation of military forces it concluded.