Nigerians from the North are scrambling to register in Owerri to distinguish themselves from the blood lust elements in Boko Haram who are suicide bombers.
Some Northern communities have existed peacefully in the state and other parts of the South for over a century.
Owelle Rocha Okorocha
There is controversy as to whether it was the Imo State government that ordered the registration or the initiative of Northerners resident in Owerri.
Northerners in the city told TheNiche they want themselves to be identified by all security agencies to avoid molestation as they go about their legitimate businesses.
They said the present security situation calls for registration and possession of an identity card.
Saidu Suleman, leader of the Northern community in Owerri, who welcomed the registration, explained that “we have lived here more than 100 years and these are better times. All the people we know have left and there are many unknown faces, some of them are criminals.
“We are determined to arrange our community to enable everybody to be properly identified and get ourselves properly secured”.
He wondered why anyone would oppose filling forms and submitting passport photographs for easy identification in the face of national insecurity caused mainly by Northern youths.
“We are well organised in this community. Each state in Northern Nigeria has a chairman within our community here in Owerri. So any person who visits or wants to live in Imo State, upon reporting to me, I will hand him over to the chairman of his state of origin,” Suleman stated.
A human rights lawyer, Kissinger Ikeokwu, clarified that there is nothing wrong if members of a group like the Hausa community wants to register for identity cards, but it is not constitutional to compel any Nigerian to register as a resident in any part of the federation.
“If they want to do it to get themselves properly identified before security operatives or concerned persons, they are free to do so as long as it is coming from them and such exercise should not be government induced,” Ikeokwu stressed.
However, the Senate has berated Okorocha over the registration, saying it is unconstitutional.