Abuja — December 6, 2025 | Dalena Reporters
Calls are mounting for Senator Orji Kalu to produce detailed documentation supporting his recent claims that approximately 30,000 people have been killed in Nigeria’s South-East region in violence allegedly linked to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). The demand has come from lawmakers, civil-society figures and experts who warn that such figures if unsubstantiated risk fuelling fear, religious tension and communal suspicion in a volatile region.
Critics argue that no credible, independently verified record exists to confirm 30,000 deaths in the South-East — a number significantly higher than documented by rights groups or official security reports. They say that publishing such an unverified figure without names, dates, locations, or a verified casualty list undermines the credibility of any public-interest claim and may amount to reckless sensationalism.
Some observers also highlight that a recent report by an international rights-monitoring body cited approximately 1,844 confirmed deaths in the South-East between 2021 and mid-2023 a far cry from 30,000. They argue that if Kalu’s number is correct, the bulk of the alleged deaths remain undocumented, raising concerns about data reliability, evidence-collection standards, and possible double counting. (See earlier reporting November 2025.)
Activists are calling on Kalu as a senior public official to:
- Publish a full list of alleged victims including names, states, Local Government Areas (LGAs), dates and cause of death;
- Share any supporting evidence such as hospital records, police reports, autopsy findings, or eyewitness testimonies;
- Work with independent human-rights organisations and security agencies to authenticate claims.
Until such evidence is provided, many say, the claim should be treated as an unverified allegation incapable of forming the basis for policy action, and potentially harmful to inter-communal harmony in the region.