Chukwuma Soludo, the governor of Anambra State, revealed the identities of the gunmen terrorising several areas of the state on Sunday, claiming that everyone who was apprehended is Igbo.
Recent terror attacks by gunmen in the South-East targeted locals, security personnel, and public infrastructure.
Members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its paramilitary Eastern Security Network have been implicated in the majority of the attacks (ESN).
In an interview on a Channels TV programme, Soludo responded to the attacks by claiming that Anambra's current government had been effective in reducing the state's security challenges to the barest minimum.
“Let me be clear about it; 100% of the people we have caught are Igbos. It is not about some people invading from somewhere; it is 100% Igbos on Igbos, that is the fact,” the governor said.
“The first set of people we caught were 100 per cent Igbos from other south-east states and none from Anambra.
“But as we went on, we then discovered that a whole lot of the youths who have been taken to these bushes that got indoctrinated and initiated into all these kinds of things also happen to be citizens of Anambra state or indigenes of Anambra.”
Before Professor Soludo took over the leadership mantle in the state, residents of Anambra have been living in fear as hardly would a week pass by without the report of an attack.
He said on Sunday that the security situation has greatly improved, and attributed the feat to the efforts of the security forces.
“Giving where things were when we came, we are not saying that Anambra is 100% secured … but everybody in Anambra – the 8.5 million residents of Anambra can testify to you that insecurity in Anambra has come down to the barest minimum.
“Fifteen camps (run by gunmen) here (have been) decimated. Even yesterday (Saturday), some other places (where) they were gathering were decimated; we have degraded their infrastructure and I don’t think they have the capacity again to come with the kind of ferocity they had in the past,” he added.