The high handedness of the Nigeria Police Anti-Kidnapping Unit at the Imo State Command of the Force, which now adopts the sobriquet, “Tiger Base” and runs a torture camp in the capital city Owerri, resurrects the bitter memories of the excesses of the disbanded Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) which illegal activities ignited violent protests from the Nigerian youths in 2020
By Our Correspondent
On Thursday, October 8, 2020, violent protests carried out by the Nigerian youths across the country had devastated the government of immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari. Countless youths had organised themselves into groups of protesters in different locations starting from Lagos down to Abuja and in most major towns and cities in mostly Southern parts of the country.
Most major roads were blocked to traffic as both motorists and commuters went through hell in their quest to move about their legitimate businesses. The protests turned violent when many of the youths started looting shops and vandalizing other people’s property. There was confrontation between the violent youths and the police which resulted in numerous casualties on both sides.
The climax of the #EndSARS protests was the occupation of the Lekki Toll Gates in Lagos State by the angry youths, and the alleged shooting of the protesters at Lekki Toll Gate by the military. Again, countless youths were alleged to have lost their lives in the night shooting. In retaliation, hundreds of the angry youths went berserk and destroyed billions of naira worth properties in Lagos.
What ignited the 2020 protests was what the youths tagged unlawful activities of the Nigeria Police Special Anti -Robbery Squad (SARS) which became a thorn in the flesh of mostly unemployed young Nigerians. SARS had become a metaphor for torture, extortion, brutality and illegal killings. Most of their victims were hapless, innocent young Nigerians who were mowed down by the SARS operatives without any established offenses against them. SARS operatives were a terror. The mere mention of SARS sent chilled blood down the spine of the Nigerian youths. For the youths, living in Nigeria had become hell on earth, and numerous promising youths were forced to flee the country.
What constituted SARS illegal activities? Its operatives adorned fearful black vests and wielded the AK-47 riffles with multiple magazines. SARS went into the streets across the country to arrest, intimidate and torture innocent youths to death at its various torture camps. SARS operatives were alleged to have adopted the habit of seizing and searching citizens’ phones and houses without official warrant. SARS operatives allegedly extorted their victims and seized their possessions. SARS allegedly engaged in illegal and extra judicial killing of their suspects who could not cough out the bribes they demanded. In the SARS torture camps operatives allegedly became the prosecutor and the judge, giving their victims no room for defence. SARS was evil. SARS camps allegedly became killing fields where most innocent people were sent to early graves without trial. To SARS operatives, the law courts were an aberration.
Upon these numerous accusations which the government of Buhari failed to investigate, the youths were compelled to embark upon the protests which were hijacked by some hoodlums. The government was forced to disband SARS in 2020.
Currently, the Police Anti-Kidnapping Unit at the Imo State Police Command has become another SARS in town. The Unit now operates with a terror name known as “Tiger Base”. Tiger Base is actually the torture camp of the Imo State Police Command’s Anti-Kidnapping Unit where the operatives are alleged to be the law and law courts themselves, where they detain and torture their victims till some passed out or on, where all kinds of extortion are practised just as with the disbanded SARS.
Thus, due to the terror Tiger Base represents in the psyche of Imo State indigenes, they decided to adopt the sobriquet for the Imo State Police Command’s Anti-Kidnapping Unit.
The name Tiger Base is synonyms with all kinds of evil, fear, extortion, intimidation, torture, jungle justice, terror, sporadic shootings that scare citizens, extra judicial killings and high handedness. To an average Imolite, Tiger Base simply means “torture and death”, hence no one dares an operative of the Tiger Base which like SARS wears fearful black bullet proof jackets. They never wear police uniform.
The Tiger Base operatives, as with the disbanded SARS, are alleged to be too powerful, extremely powerful and rich. Just as with SARS operatives, Tiger Base operatives can allegedly boast of choice properties in Owerri, the Imo State capital which they acquired with their ill-gotten wealth. Most irritating among the Tiger Base operatives’ alleged excesses is that the team can shoot sporadically for minutes whenever they entered any community in the state just to announce their presence and to scare and intimidate their victims.
For example, on Wednesday, December 27, 2023, hell was let loose at the Obibi Junction off Shangarila Hotel Aba Road in the Naze area of the Owerri metropolis when the Tiger Base operatives blocked the busy highway in search of suspected yahoo yahoo boys and kidnappers. The Aba-Owerri Expressway was completely blocked against traffic on the said day by the Police Anti-Kidnapping operatives. There were sporadic shootings by the operatives that caused the strongest of hearts to panic. Virtually all vehicles were parked and searched as travellers for the festive season kept swearing against the Tiger Base team.
On that day, The fearful-looking operatives searched numerous phones of travellers, especially those of the young men and women, many of which they allegedly confiscated and dragged their owners forcefully to their Tiger Base slaughter house. Many innocent, harmless young men and women were forcefully packed inside the Toyota Sienna bus and another mini bus the team operates with, and at the end of the siege which lasted for several hours, those apprehended who were unable to prove their innocence before the warlords were driven to the Tiger Base for further action. Till date, Tentacle learned that the fate of those victims has remained uncertain.
This medium learned further that the Tiger Base team operates in the Sienna bus and mini bus most of the times, especially in Owerri and is often led by an officer identified simply as Ola, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) who is alleged to be operating with another hit man of the Unit. It was gathered that in the evenings, the operatives would usually retire at the Remo Guest House located at the Obibi Junction in the Naze area of the Owerri metropolis where they will share their loot, and at times sleep for the night. Tentacle’s investigation indicates that a single room at the guest house goes for between N25,000 and N35,000 for one night. It was gathered that the Unit’s hit man is as ruthless as the devil, and has allegedly murdered many citizens of Imo who never appeared in court or tried by any competent court. CSP Ola’s hit man is alleged to be a sharp shooter who deploys intimidation and torture of various forms to cow his victims. And many who passed through his torturous arms alleged that the hit man boasts that nobody can remove Tiger Base officers from Owerri, not even the Inspector General of Police (IGP) because according to Ola they are in Imo to accomplish a specific mission to support the Imo government to exterminate crime in the state.
Indeed, it was alleged by various sources that it was CSP Ola who led the team that attacked Athan Acholonu, the governorship candidate of the Labour Party at the November 2023 gubernatorial election in Imo State. According to the politician, he and his campaign team were on their way to a thanksgiving service at Saint Peters Anglican Church, Obibiezena, Naze Junction early November before the governorship election of November 11 when Tiger Base operatives allegedly led by Ola blocked them and shot sporadically. Acholonu alleged that even the calls he made to the police high command could not deter the team which continued shooting to scare his sympathizers.
Acholonu said, “Myself and my supporters were attacked when we were attending a church service at the Saint Peters Anglican Church, Obibiezena, Owerri North Local Government Area on invitation from the church Synold. Surprisingly, some thugs with policemen attacked us shooting at us as if we’re criminals”. Acholonu alleged that officer Ola, the leader of the team disobeyed the Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Barde because Hope Uzodinma, the governor of Imo State is allegedly backing the Tiger Base operatives.
It was also at the Imo Police Tiger Base killing fields where the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Joe Ajaero was brutalized on November 1, 2023 when he went on a solidarity visit to Owerri in sympathy with the Imo State workers who had scores to settle with the governor. Ajaero alleged that he was brutalized by the Tiger Base on the orders of the governor of Imo State, Uzodinma. This brings to the fore the allegation that Uzodinma is allegedly deploying the Tiger Base operatives to witch hunt political opponents.
Investigation revealed that the mode of operation of the Tiger Base operatives leaves many question marks trailing them. Tiger Base operatives have turned themselves to alleged debt collectors. They are also allegedly used by some Imo citizens who are close to them to intimidate and harass their perceived enemies. A source alleged that all it takes to invite operatives of Tiger Base to brutalize an enemy is to pay them the sum of N100,000. The alleged suspect will promptly be labeled a member or informant of the unknown gunmen terrorizing the South East. To bail himself or herself out of the torture house, the suspect will cough out between N150,000 and N250,000 and write an understanding never to have any more issues with whoever reported them to the Tiger Base. All Tiger Base operatives wear plain clothes with roughly coiled hair and tattoos all over their body which make them easily identifiable anywhere they are operating, a credible source volunteered.
Chief Superintendent of Police Ola is the controversial Commander of the Tiger Base operatives. He is alleged to be ruthless, a corrupt super rich cop who never spares sympathy for his alleged suspects whenever they enter his dragnet. He is also alleged not to be subject to the orders and directives of the Imo State Police Commissioner, Aboki Danjuma. According to dependable sources, CSP Ola allegedly has three identifiable choice properties in Imo State located in Nekede Owerri, Umuguma Owerri near World Bank area and yet another one located on the MCC Road by Egbu Road in Owerri.
Commenting on CSP Ola’s corrupt tendencies, a Civil Society Organization (CSO), the Concerned Owerri Citizens, on September 22, 2023, alleged in a statement that the Imo State Tiger Base under CSP Ola has murdered many innocent souls. It alleged further that the Tiger Base Commander is a highly corrupt cop who should be investigated by the authorities just as it happened to the detained Abba Kyari. The CSO further alleged that the Tiger Base detention center is a base of killing innocent citizens.
For these alleged heinous crimes being committed against the Imo State citizens, the Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), a CSO early January 2024 called on the Federal Government to investigate the activities of the Imo State Police Command’s Anti -Kidnapping Unit. In a statement by Okechukwu Nwanguma, RULAAC Executive Director, the CSO said, “The anti-kidnapping Unit, Imo State Police Command, is doing every single thing that the disbanded F-SARS was doing that led to the ENDSARS uprising in 2020.
“Last December (2022), RULAAC received information concerning a case of two young men who were arrested one evening and taken to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit at Tiger Base, Owerri and detained without being told what their offenses were.
“Their statements were not obtained until the next day when they were brought out and asked to make statements.
“They stated that they didn’t know what offence they committed that warranted their arrest. They stated that they drove to an ATM stand along Wetheral Road, Owerri, in the evening of the previous day to draw some cash and found themselves rounded up by two armed police officers who were part of a convoy.
“The officers searched them and their vehicles thoroughly and found nothing incriminating and then ordered them into one of their vehicles and drove them to Tiger Base. Other officers drove in their own car.
“After reading their statements, the officer interrogating them asked them to write that they belong to a cult group but they objected and said they don’t belong to any cult group.
“One of the young men told the officer that he’s a fresh graduate of law from Imo State University awaiting law school, and the other, his electrician who came and repaired some electrical fault in his house, and they both drove to the ATM stand for him to withdraw cash to pay him for the work he did for him.
“The officer insisted and used different objects to brutalise them, including using machetes to flog them at their back, inflicting injuries on them, in order to intimidate and compel them to admit to a crime they did not commit.
“Meanwhile, the officers had seized their phones and never allowed them to contact anyone.
“The law graduate said he was lucky to have sighted a former school mate who turned out to be an officer at the station and he beckoned on him and he came, and he told him his story. He then gave him his elder brother’s number and he called and informed his elder brother of his whereabouts and ordeal.
“His elder brother contacted RULAAC and RULAAC called the O/C Anti-Kidnapping, Supol Ola and inquired about the case. Ola said he will check to find out and revert.”
Nwanguma also said the two men were asked to pay the sum of N500,000 for their release.
“When RULAAC spoke with the young men after they were released, they informed us that many people they met in the cell are being held incommunicado without any of their relatives knowing their whereabouts.
“Some had spent weeks and months with gunshot injuries festering and smelling and in bad state of health. They live in starvation. They are never charged to court.”
The RULAAC director further said Barde, the Commissioner of Police in the state, has not responded to complaints on the activities of the Unit.
Nwanguma, therefore, urged the inspector-general of police (IGP) to probe the activities of the Unit in order to “urgently end the atrocities going on”.
Last October, the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) also raised the alarm against what it referred to as the “nefarious activities going on at the slaughter house of the Nigeria Police Force called Tiger Base in Owerri Imo State”.
In a statement by the IPOB Secretary for Media and Publicity, Emma Powerful, the group said, “The murderous policemen hired by Hope Uzodinma move around the State and randomly abduct people to their slaughterhouse called Tiger Base where they torture their victims, force them to pay huge sums of money, and extra judicially execute some to put fear in the minds of the rest and all Imo State indigenes”.
He added, “They witnessed the daily wasting of innocent Biafran’s lives like chickens.
“Some of the detainees are deliberately starved to death by the Police as a show of force to other abductees whose relatives have not paid for their release.
“The criminals and murderous policemen at the slaughterhouse (Tiger Base Owerri) demand millions from the relatives of those they abduct on the road before they could be released, or they will be labeled ESN member and executed.
“The saving grace for anyone abducted by these murderous policemen and taken to Tiger Base is either that their relatives pay hundreds of thousands or millions as the case may be to buy their freedom or they are identified by APC party leaders as an APC party member.
“The policemen at the slaughterhouse (Tiger Base) are APC party butchers and terrorist instigating fear in the minds of people.
“As it is today, almost all opposition parties and their supporters have been intimidated using Ebubeagu and these murderous policemen from Tiger Base in Owerri.
“This development is unfortunate and dangerous to Imo people and the entire Alaigbo.”
