Operatives of the newly formed Anambra Vigilante Service, popularly known as Agunechemba, are extorting road users across the state, a civil rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Intersociety, has claimed.
This is coming days after the organisation also accused the security outfit of killing no less than 40 persons extra-judicially since its establishment.
In a statement made available to DAILY POST on Thursday, the group claimed that its field officers discovered operatives of the Agunechemba extorting N200 from motorists at various checkpoints.
The statement was signed by Chinwe Umeche, Head, Democracy and Good Governance Program, Intersociety, Chidinma Evangeline Udegbunam, Head, Campaign and Publicity, Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Head, Civil Liberties and Rule of Law and Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chair.
The organisation claimed in the report that “the incurable bane of the personnel of the Nigeria Police force and the Armed Forces (military) on Nigerian roads, particularly across the South-East and the South-South have been spotted and identified as one of the modus operandi of the operatives of the newly renamed Agunaechemba Vigilante Group, to the extent that such were recently spotted by the Intersociety field volunteers in at least five different locations along Nnobi, Ichida, Awka-Etiti, Igboukwu, Uga and Umuchu road axis.
“The checks specifically took place between January 30 and 31, 2025, during which the operatives of the new dreaded outfit were sighted mounting roadblocks and forcing motorists to part with N200 notes per motorist/per trip.
“The security implications of such corrupt practices on crime detection and apprehension of suspected criminals and their criminal properties are very far-reaching.
“Apart from exposing Government inadequate welfare packages for members of the new outfit and glaring lack of discipline and command and control accountability, they can also facilitate an escape route for persons of under-world as it is anything goes once each motorist is forced to part with N200 note, not minding who or what the motorist is plying on the road with.”
Also questioning the modus operandi of the group, Intersociety said “apart from demolishing buildings which has no place in the country’s Criminal Code Act of 2004, the Administration of Criminal Justice Act of 2015 and the country’s 1999 Constitution, their operations have also been mired in guesswork, false labeling, hearsay conclusions, indiscriminate killings such as killing of unarmed and defenseless persons; abductions and disappearances of those arrested alive and hale and hearty and those critically shot and wounded.”
“A typical case in point was the February 6, 2025-killing of the trio of defenseless Artisan-Citizens Malachy Chimaobi Iwuanyanwu and Odinkalu Chinonso of Umueze in Ehime-
Mbano of Imo State and Citizen Kosisochukwu of Isuofia, Gov Soludo’s hometown in Aguata, Anambra State.
“Their killing took place in Owerre-Ezukala in Orumba South of Anambra State, during which not less than 12 others were abducted, stripped half naked and falsely labeled or accused of ‘being involved in kidnappings and ritual killings’.
“Among the abducted defenseless citizens in the community were three NYSC Corpers abducted at the Community’s NYSC Camp and a deformed, later freed after having been threatened and traumatized following outcries by their colleagues and locals,” it further alleged.
The organisation declared that the re-enacted Anambra State Vigilante Group (AVG) Law 2025 “is a clear replication of the barbaric AVG Law of July 2000 (Bakassi Boys Law) under which the butchery eras of ‘OTA and Bakassi Boys’ existed and later used in 2002 to gruesomely murder then Onitsha NBA Chairman, Barr Barnabas Igwe and his wife, Barr Mrs. Amaka Igwe and other notable political figures and thousands of other innocent and defenseless citizens, from September 1998 to September 2002.”
“The re-enacted AVG Law 2025 is clearly abusive of fundamental human rights, due process and rule of law and repugnant to natural justice and good conscience.
“In practice, therefore, it is most likely correct to say that the referenced Law is targeted at victimizing innocent and defenseless citizens and shielding and protecting members of the violent criminal class including perpetrators and their sponsors and suspected criminal properties.
“The above is to say that no troublesome billionaires, circumstantially investigated and found to be sponsoring kidnappings ravaging Anambra State in recent times have been identified, investigated and prosecuted; meaning that it is either that they are politically connected to the State Government or are roundly protected by the conventional security agencies within and beyond the State.
“The above also strongly suggests, if not clearly confirms that 90% of those indiscriminately shot and killed or abducted and detained outside the law or disappeared across the State by the new dreaded outfit, the police crack squads and the military are members of the innocent and defenseless civilian population,” Intersociety alleged.
CREDIT: DAILY POST