Tiger Base – The Kidnapping and Disappearance Arena Behind the Anti-Kidnapping Mask: How a Police Unit Became a Disappearance Factory One of...
Tiger Base – The Kidnapping and Disappearance Arena
Behind the Anti-Kidnapping Mask: How a Police Unit Became a Disappearance Factory
One of the most disturbing revelations confronting the governments of the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and particularly the administration of Governor Hope Uzodimma in Imo State, is the growing exposure of the operations of the police unit known as Tiger Base, Owerri.
Officially, Tiger Base is a division of the Nigeria Police Force — an institution constitutionally mandated to protect lives and property. In reality, according to mounting testimonies and allegations, it has become synonymous with enforced disappearances.
For years, authorities across federal, state, and local levels claimed ignorance regarding the perpetrators of violent acts in the Southeast, branding them “Unknown Gunmen.” These acts were repeatedly attributed to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), despite IPOB’s longstanding claim of non-violent self-determination advocacy.
This narrative did not emerge in a vacuum.
It followed the controversial 2017 proscription of IPOB secured under former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami, through an ex parte order granted by Justice Abdul Kafarati of the Federal High Court. That order redefined the political terrain of the Southeast overnight, transforming civil agitation into a terrorism designation. What followed the midnight, so-called ex parte order obtained by Malami was a climate of unchecked power.
Under the banner of combating kidnapping in Imo State, Tiger Base was established as an Anti-Kidnapping Division. But the “anti-kidnapping” mandate became, in the words of victims’ families, a shield for arbitrary arrests, abductions, and detentions without trial.
Young men were reportedly picked up without warrants.
Some were never seen again.
Families searched police stations in vain.
Lawyers were denied access. Records vanished.
The most chilling element is the alleged internal nickname of one operative, “Kill and Bury” — a moniker that, whether symbolic or literal, captures the fear associated with the facility.
The structure of impunity followed a pattern:
Arrest without documentation
Incommunicado detention
Forced confessions
Transfer to unknown locations
Silence
In a democratic society governed by law, no security formation should operate beyond oversight.
Yet Tiger Base functioned in shadows — insulated by politics and shielded by the counter-terror narrative.
Part One raises a central question:
Was Tiger Base created to fight kidnapping — or to manufacture disappearances under the cover of counter-insurgency? The pattern suggests something far more sinister than routine policing.
And this is only the beginning.
(To be continued)
Written by
Mmadụ Awụchukwu
Edited by
Onyekachi Mboma
For
Lagos State Media Team
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