HARIRA MURDER: How many arrests have been made, Questions arising 10 days after

By KEMI KASUMU

Questions are being asked to know how many arrests have been made on the gruesome murder of pregnant woman, Harira Jibril and her four children in Anambra State, South East Nigeria.

This was coming on the heels of cries by South Eastern Muslim Organisation of Nigeria (SEMON) for help as, according to the Islamic group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) terrorists have been telling Igbo Muslims that they do not want to see Islam in Igbo Land and want Federal Government to help since no single government in the region has come to their aid.

Harira Jibril, 32, and her four children the eldest being 9 years and the last 2 were murdered in Orunba North Local Government Area of Anambra State on Sunday May 22, 2022 by IPOB members in what was believed to be targeting her and children because they were wearing Hijab, a development described by many Muslims as capable of inciting ethno-religious violence across Nigeria if the perpetrators are not fished out, arrested and prosecuted.

Husband of the deceased, Ahmed Jibril, who gave his age as 45, had said the issue of IPOB has gotten to a stage that in carrying out their evil activities, they put the inscription of “unknown gunmen” on themselves, as they go about doing their killings.

He said, although they also kill Igbo but that, the fact that they are supported by some of their people plays a role in why the evil things they do continue, thus corroborating a video watched by The DEFENDER where, amidst community people cheering and clapping hands, some of these IPOB terrorists fully masked walked confidently.

It will be recalled that Jibril, who works as a security guard in Anambra State, said that his wife was nine months pregnant and the family was expecting a new baby within the week when they were killed.

He said, “They were coming back home after she visited her sister who was living in the nearby town. She and the four children were all wearing hijabs; that was why the gunmen targeted them.

The DEFENDER reports that ten days after the sad incident of the killing of the pregnant woman and her children, there is no action other than curfew declared by the governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, but without information as to whether any arrest has been made or not by the Anambra State Police Command.

Phone calls and text messages to the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Anthony Tochukwu Ikenganyia, for update on this has not for once been responded to although effort has been made as at the time of filing this report to speak directly to the Force Headquarters because of the pressure by Muslim Ummah to know what has been done.

In the meantime, the South Eastern Muslim Organisation of Nigeria (SEMON) has called for help as IPOB members and their sympathizers are asking fellow Igbo, who are Muslims to either remove their Islamic identity or their safety in Igbo Land will not be guaranteed.

In its latest statement sent to The DEFENDER, the South Easthern Muslim Organisation (SEMON), while calling on Federal Government and Muslim Ummah of Nigeria to come to the aid of Muslims in Igbo Land, also called for declaration of a State of Emergency in the region for restoration of peace.

SEMON, which condemned the killing of Harira and her four children in Anambra, on Sunday 22, 2022 condemned the selective condemnation on the part of those who are supposed to rise in support of the victims especially the media.

“As expected, it never made such headline in print media and with other media houses. Was the brutal killing of innocent children alongside their pregnant mother committed in any Muslim majority state, it would be tagged Islamic religious act and the media would have figuratively caught fire. The leadership of South Eastern Muslim Organization of Nigeria is amazed at the double standard and unjust umpiring of the media in Nigeria,” SEMON said.

It said: “The killing of Harira Jibril (Wrongly circulated as Fatimah) aged 32 and her four Children aged between 2 and 9 years old in cold blood without any provocation is one in a million killings the Igbo Muslim communities are faced with, often time swept the under carpet by the eastern media network. As usual, the killing is codified “Hausa woman” in other to pacify the anger of the indigenous Igbo Muslims in the state. This is a systematic genocide that need to be nipped off before it intensifies beyond control. We call on the relevant government agencies to come to our aid and stop this genocide against our people in the name of religion.”

Among anti-Islamic actions of the IPOB is the threat to the leader of Islamic Centre, Afikpo, who was banished that they must not see him anywhere in the South East for 10 years or he will be killed, except that he change from Islam. He has seen relocated to Northern Nigeria but what questions are still being asked about the fate of the Islamic Centre.

The attitude of the IPOB, which thrives on the support of virtually all the political elites of the region, to say there must be nobody identifying with Islam in Igbo Land has been described as one that spells danger to national security as the Muslim Ummah of Nigeria is beginning to imagine if all Igbo in Northern Nigeria and South West where Muslims are in the majority are suddenly thrown with this challenge of attack or stigma because they are Christians.

Some of the information available to us is that, “Each time the sympathizers of IPOB even within the media community speak, they talk about Boko Haram being pampered because the President is a Northerner but they fail, despite their education and being Journalists although from that part of the country, to realise there is no single member of Northern Nigeria or Muslim Ummah of Nigeria, who has come openly to support Boko Haram except that at all times they keep exposing the terrorists, who also have Christians as members, as having nothing in connection with Islam or Qur’an.

“But in the South East, you even have situation where their first eleven had to go meet the same President they accused in the media of pampering Boko Haram not only failing to say to his face what they said behind about him but were threw shame to the dustbin and asked the President to release leader of the terrorist IPOB if he wanted peace in Nigeria. This is the extent to which the terrorism in South East of Nigeria has gone for a people that have not been able to give one justification for their commitment to making Nigeria ungovernable for the Northerner in power since he came to office in 2015.

“I mean, if you say your fight is because you want to be President, this man had sympathy for you and wanted it to be possible to hand over to Igbo President in 2023. But how do you want that to happen when right from the election time you had shown wicked hate to the extent that, even in the entire East where hundreds of thousands of Northerners live and do business, INEC was unable to record 14,000 votes for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. Even, in Abia, one single voter they saw voted for Buhari was killed.

“You started out as attack dogs of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and it was the reason the day you were doing your first protest in Onitsha, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, had to come on ground solidarising with you and you have a sitting Governor of Ekiti, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, then both of them PDP chieftains, fully backing and celebrating IPOB and so you never allowed this President Buhari a breading space for once since that 2015. You then turned to manufacturing Fake News about things you know nothing about and your sympathizers, more disappointingly, in the mainstream media were helping you to publish and broadcast those falsehoods that have shaped the opposition to this administration for the past seven years.

“And you think there will be anyone outside South East who will be comfortable with you as President of Nigeria? It is impossible, not even with your killing of soldiers, Police, DSS officers and people of other religion and regions in a way that have almost caused inter-ethnic and inter-religious violence across the country but the quick intervention at all times of the same Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government and Muslim Ummah leadership of Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar while President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Pastor Samson Ayokunle, was always on your side,” he said.