The post-2020 South-East security crisis is the most contested attribution problem in current Nigerian security analysis. The headline facts are not in dispute: weekly Monday 'sit-at-home' orders have effectively shut down economic activity across Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo since August 2021; police stations, INEC offices, electoral materials warehouses and the homes of traditional rulers and politicians have been attacked across the five states; over 700 security personnel and civilians have been killed in attributed incidents between 2020 and 2024.
The contested question is who is responsible. The federal government and DSS attribute the attacks to the Eastern Security Network (ESN), the armed wing of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), proscribed as a terrorist organisation in September 2017. IPOB and its leader Nnamdi Kanu (in DSS custody since June 2021 following his extraordinary rendition from Kenya) deny responsibility for the attacks on civilians and claim that 'criminal elements and government agents' are using the IPOB name as cover.
Key dates:
- September 2017: Federal Government proscribes IPOB under the Terrorism Prevention Act 2013 (as amended) following Operation Python Dance in Aba and Umuahia, in which several IPOB members were killed.
- December 2020: IPOB announces the formation of the Eastern Security Network (ESN), nominally to confront Fulani herder attacks on Igbo farmers.
- June 2021: Nnamdi Kanu re-arrested in Kenya in disputed circumstances and rendered to Nigeria. The Federal High Court Abuja has held variously that the rendition was unlawful (Justice Binta Nyako, October 2022, ordering his release — overturned on appeal) and that he should remain in DSS custody pending trial.
- August 2021: IPOB announces weekly Monday sit-at-home orders to demand Kanu's release. Compliance has been near-total across the South-East since then, despite IPOB itself suspending the order in 2022 (compliance continued, enforced by armed groups).
- 2022–2024: A long catalogue of attacks on Igbo traditional rulers (including the killing of HRH Eze Ignatius Asor of Lokpa Ukwu, Abia, January 2024), INEC facilities (over 50 attacks during the 2023 election cycle), and the murder of police and military personnel.
- October 2024: Federal High Court Abuja begins the substantive trial of Kanu on terrorism and treasonable-felony charges. Trial ongoing as of 2026.
Independent observers — SBM Intelligence, the Igbo Mandate Congress, Human Rights Writers Association — have catalogued the difficulty of attribution: incidents are claimed by no group, security forces routinely describe perpetrators only as 'unknown gunmen', and credible reports document both ESN-aligned attacks and criminal banditry exploiting the sit-at-home environment. The economic cost to the South-East — estimated by NESG at $4.8 billion across 2021–2023 — is the largest non-war regional economic loss in post-1999 Nigeria. See also Biafra.