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Between late 2020 and mid-2025, an estimated number of over 6,000 lives were lost as non-state actors, ESN and IPOB operatives, and security interventions turned the Orsu Local Government Area of Imo State into ground zero for Nigeria’s Southeast wave of insecurity. Entire villages fled into the surrounding bushes and neighbouring states, leaving behind empty ancestral ruins, homes, abandoned farmlands, and a heavy, suffocating silence.
As part of News Central‘s efforts to amplify the message of underreported communities, the Orsu story dissects a message of fear and violence that has been overlooked as the entire Nation moves on. In a special report for News Central television, Placidia Igboekulie delved into the nature of insecurity in Southeastern Nigeria that has quietly flown under the radar.
In 2019, Chukwunonso was living thousands of miles away in India, building a quiet life far removed from the red dust of his native Imo State. But his phone kept ringing with frantic updates from back home. The peaceful cluster of eight towns and twenty-six autonomous communities that made up Orsu Local Government Area was rapidly unravelling into violence.
Soon, the crisis struck his own family in the most devastating way when non-state gunmen abducted his brother.
When Chukwunonso managed to reach the kidnappers on the phone, pleading for his brother’s release or at least his body for burial, the response was cold and ruthless. The caller scoffed, asking where he got the audacity to ask for a body, reminding him that once they kill someone, nothing is ever returned.
That phone call shattered Chukwunonso’s world and fundamentally altered the course of his life. Abandoning his overseas plans and leaving his immediate family in Lagos, he returned to a home he barely recognised. Across Orsu, the once-vibrant commercial heartland famous across Nigeria for its sprawling Eke Ututu International Market, lucrative palm oil trade, and major Afia ekete- Basket Market had turned into a ghostly war zone.
Living in Orsu during the height of the unrest meant witnessing a complete collapse of civil society. As armed groups fortified themselves in deep-ravine hideouts called the Mother Valley, historically known as “Udeke valley” and widely referred to as the “Murder valley”, basic institutions ceased to exist. Primary and secondary schools closed down as gunfire regularly shattered classroom windows, throwing an entire generation of children out of school for years. Community healthcare fared no better; local hospitals were raided and burned to ruins, forcing pregnant women to rely on makeshift delivery wards set up in the living rooms of local midwives. Farmlands became inaccessible over fears of unexploded ordnance and ambush, causing the local economy to collapse almost overnight.
Realising that waiting indefinitely for external rescue was not enough, local residents took matters into their own hands. Grieving families, community leaders, and returned diaspora members united under the Odimma Orsu initiative to reclaim their ancestral land. Chukwunonso volunteered to become the Chief Security Officer of a local vigilante group, acting as a tactical ground guide for a Joint Task Force comprising the military, police, civil defence, and state security services. Working side by side with state forces, these local vigilantes undertook the dangerous task of flushing out entrenched insurgent camps, almost clearing deep forest ravines, and gradually restoring physical safety to key transport routes.
Reflecting on his sacrifice and the ongoing struggle for accountability in the region, the voices on the ground capture the depth of the crisis:
“Just imagine you are overseas in another man’s land helping in developing and making it better, and you come back home to your own land and there is no joy, only tears running down your eyes… So what I did was to sacrifice and offer myself. I left everything I was doing, came back.” – Chukwunonso, Chief Security Officer, Local Vigilante Group.
A Local Community Leader who refused to be named also spoke with News Central, commenting on the roots of the issue. He claimed that the Federal Government’s case against Nnamdi Kanu was the source of the problem, stating that “the greatest mistake I will even say Nigeria did is to give Nnamdi Kanu life jail…releasing him now will simply add grease to the burning fire.”
Today, Orsu is taking tentative steps toward recovery, though the emotional and physical scars remain deep. Through a culturally significant “Mass Return” campaign, displaced villagers and diaspora families are slowly returning home to clear bushy compounds and rebuild destroyed homes. Children are cautiously returning to rebuilt classrooms, and small roadside traders are setting up shops along the edges of former market grounds. Yet, true recovery remains a long journey.
For the people of Orsu, peace is not merely the absence of gunshots; it requires rebuilding health centres, restoring economic livelihoods, and confronting the heavy memory of thousands buried in unmarked graves across the valley.
Based on developments, it is understood that News Central continues to monitor the situation on the ground and offer media support to affected communities.
