The Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) has urged Anambra State Governor, Charles Chukwuma Soludo, to immediately declared a state of emergency on insecurity in the State.
The CLO, in a statement on Sunday morning, also “decried with great disdain gruesome, insensate, despicable and barbaric murder” of Pharmacist Reverend Father Tobias Chukwujekwu Okonkwo by yet to be unidentified gunmen at Ihiala axis of Onitsha-Owerri expressway.
Reverend Father Okonkwo, who was a cleric with the Catholic Diocese of Nnewi, is the Manager/Director of Schools of Nursing, Midwifery, Medical Laboratory of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Ihiala.
They also “most passionately” appealed to the “abductors of revered Archbishop Prof. Godwin Okpala and Hon.Justus Azuka, member Anambra State House of Assembly, to unconditionally release them as a respect to God and dignity of human persons.”
The CLO, in a statement by Evangelist Comrade Vincent Ezekwueme and Comrade Chidi Mbah (Chairman and Secretary respectively) urged Governor Soludo to “declare state of emergency on insecurity in the State and devise marshal and strategic plans to tackle it.”
They also restated their earlier appeal on the Governor “to drastically overhaul security architecture of the State and discards services of sycophants that usually tells him that all is well Anambra is safe and secured.”
The CLO described the late Father Okonkwo as an “outspoken outstanding preacher of word of God, hardworking, dedicated and devoted towards propagating, preaching and spreading of gospel. Fr.Tobias was humble, selfless, humane and generous.
“We pray to God to forgives his shortcomings and accept his humble and gentle soul in paradise.
“May our merciful God give Okonkwo family, his loved ones, Ekwulumili Community and entire Catholic faithfuls the grace and fortitude to bear and endure the irreparable loss.
The human rights group appealed to the perpetrators of insecurity and killings: “Let us respect sanctity and sacredness of human persons.
“We most passionately appeals to abductors of revered Archbishop Prof. Godwin Okpala and Hon.Justus Azuka, member Anambra State House of Assembly, to unconditionally release them as a respect to God and dignity of human persons.
“We equally restate our patriotic appeal to our religious leaders in State to declare three days fasting and praying for Anambra State security crisis for God’s intervention in the unprecedented security challenges bedeviling the State.”