The Anambra church killings

On the morning of Sunday August 6, 2017, parishioners of the St. Philip’s Catholic Church, Amakwa Ozubulu, Ekwusogo Local Government Area of Anambra State, trooped to church to attend the first Mass of the day. There was no electricity, but this was nothing unusual. The two standby power generators weren’t working either, so the parishioners decided to light candles. The early morning Mass was an unmissable daily ritual, and the villagers were not going to be deterred by the small matter of a power outage and two malfunctioning generators.

If only that was the end of their problems. At 6:45am, as the worshippers prepared to say the Prayer of the Faithful, a group of gunmen drove up to the church in a Lexus SUV. According to eyewitness accounts, one of the gunmen, in an all-black outfit entered the church and made straight for the front row, where he opened fire on Chief Cyprian Ikegwuono and his wife, Caroline, who was seated by his side. Parishioners who made for the exit ran straight into the volley of bullets unloaded by members of the gang who had remained behind in their vehicle.This is how Mr. Joel Obunadike, a survivor who reportedly lost his uncle, his brother’s wife, and a baby girl described the attack:“We were in the middle of the service when I noticed that a vehicle was parked outside. The car later moved from the spot and turned back few minutes later and parked at the same spot. A young man came into the church through the back door of the church and started shooting while backing the altar. Many people tried to escape through the two doors and to our surprise, the gunman started shooting at them on both doors. It was a terrible thing. I did not rush out like others immediately and it was most of the people who tried to escape that were either killed or wounded.”

When the gunmen finally drove away in their SUV, they left behind a scene of utter carnage.According to an official statement by the Catholic Church of Nnewi, 13 congregants were killed in the attack, while 22 people sustained various injuries from gunshot. While the motive of the gunmen remains unclear, the theory that the gunmen’s actual target was Chief Aloysius Ikegwuono, a South Africa-based businessman and a prominent son of the community who, according to reports, had arrived in the village the previous day, has enjoyed some media coverage.

Whether or not the attack was the fallout of a business transaction gone awry, as is widely speculated, what matters to us is its significance as a symbol of the deteriorating security situation across the country. After all, this is not the first time that such an attack would happen in a place of worship in the country. We find it deeply unsettling that a group of gunmen could muster the nerve to invade a church and mow down defenceless congregants without fear of apprehension.

In this regard, we are encouraged by the statement by the Commissioner of Police in Anambra, Garba Umar, that the police have arrested a number of suspects in connection with the killings. Worryingly, though, Mr. Umar neither named the arrestees nor disclosed their names, thereby giving fuel to the speculation that the police have merely acted to pour water on inflamed passions.

Both the State Governor, Willie Obiano, and the Minister of Interior, Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, have pledged that the killers will be found and brought to justice. It is important for the sake of the poor villagers of Amakwa Ozubulu and Nigerians as a whole that this pledge is kept. The police must conduct a thorough investigation, and the perpetrators of this grievous attack, no matter their social rank, must be brought to book. To sweep this under the carpet, as done on too many occasions, is to sow the seed of tomorrow’s evil.