Anambra State critics at risk, says HRW

Several critics of the government of Anambra State in southeastern Nigeria have received death threats following the assassination of lawyer Barnabas Igwe and his wife on 1 September, the US-based Human Rights Watch reported on Thursday. "There is strong, credible evidence that Igwe and his wife were targeted for political reasons ­because of public criticism of the Anambra State government's performance," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa Division of HRW. "Their deaths highlight the risks faced by other critics of the government," he added. Igwe and close colleagues who denounced abuses by the state government had received direct threats from senior officials, both face to face and through telephone calls on personal mobile phones, according to Human Rights Watch. "The threats were linked to criticism of the government's failure to pay salaries of workers for several months," the rights organisation stated. "The lawyers had given the government a 21-day ultimatum to pay [the salaries] or resign; they had made these calls in public statements, widely broadcast through the media. State officials had previously made repeated attempts to silence them," it added. Calling for an independent probe into the incident, HRW said Igwe and his wife were killed by a group of assailants who attacked them with machetes and shot them several times, then ran them over with their vehicle. "We were alarmed to hear that people close to the victims have been receiving death threats ever since, including the very day after the killings, when at least one person was told that he would be next," Takirambudde said. "We are extremely worried for their safety." Human Rights Watch said that while Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju of Anambra State had denied any involvement in the killings and announced that he would establish a panel of inquiry, only "an independent investigation can reveal the truth and identify the real perpetrators." In May this year, HRW and the Lagos-based Centre for Law Enforcement Education documented several cases of politically motivated killings, arrests and torture by "the Bakassi Boys", a vigilante group allegedly used by the Anambra State government to intimidate its opponents. More details