Ebonyi State government vows to fight court judgement which declared Ebubeagu an illegal organisation

EBONYI State government has vowed to fight against a recent high court ruling that ordered the disbanding of the regional security outfit Ebubeagu put together by the five  governors of the southeast geo-political zone.

In April 2021, the South East Governors Forum announced plans to launch Ebubeagu, modelled similar to the Amotekun Corps in southwest Nigeria to provide security in the region. At a security meeting in Owerri, Imo State capital, the five southeast governors announced the establishment of the body, which will have its headquarters in Enugu and would be at the forefront of the fight against crime.

However, Ebubeagu has not been popular across the southeast, with the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) claiming that it was an anti-people organisation. Abia Onyike, the director of media and publicity of the Ebonyi PDP campaign council had filed a lawsuit against Ebubeagu after being arrested by operatives of the agency, challenging the outfit's legitimacy and yesterday a federal high court sitting in Abakaliki, declared it illegal.

Presiding judge, Riman Fatun said cases of human rights abuses, extortion and illegal arrests necessitated the disbandment of the security outfit. In addition, the court also ordered the Ebonyi government to pay the plaintiff the sum of N50m as damages for his abduction and torture by the Ebubeagu security outfit in November 2022.

Among other things, the court declared the activities of Ebubeagu in the state null and void and ordered the Department of States Services and the Nigerian Police Force to retrieve all the weapons in their possession. Reacting the Ebonyi State government has described the ruling as a miscarriage of justice, saying the order was dead on arrival.

Uchenna Orji, the Ebonyi State information commissioner and Stanley Okoro-Emegha, the special security consultant to the state government said there was no cause for alarm over the judgement. They described the judgement is a miscarriage of justice, abuse of court processes and misapplication of the law.

Mr Orji said: “Ebubeagu has legal backing to its existence and operations not only in Ebonyi but the entire southeast. We will not hesitate to go to the supreme court to know who is right in this circumstance.

For his part, Mr Okoro-Emegha noted the state government had begun moves to appeal the judgement. He expressed optimism that the appellate court will reverse the verdict in due course because the outfit had a firm legal backing to its existence and he urged politicians to stop playing with the security of society, irrespective of the party they belonged to.

Mr Okoro-Emegha added: “Ebubeagu is perfectly designed by law to complement the efforts of the security agencies in tackling insecurity. We will not listen to that federal high court ruling because we have a similar ruling previously, which we won in 2022.

“We will appeal the judgement and Ebubeagu will continue to function the way they have been functioning, so, we will not adhere to that judgement. Nothing will make Ebubeagu to jitter because there is a law backing its establishment."