Nigeria’s international human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe is trapped in Mexico but says he is safe and calm following the violence that broke out in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico after the government’s takedown, on Sunday, of that nation’s most violent drug warlord, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Ogebe said in an e-mail to News Express this Tuesday afternoon, February 24, 2026: “It’s an amazing coincidence that I happen to be trapped here at this significant moment in the life of Mexico. Everyone knows the notoriety of the powerful drug cartels here.

“What we’re hearing is that the cartels primarily funnel drugs into America so they’re not necessarily destroying their own communities in Mexico with addiction.

“Rather they run community projects with the illicit drug trafficking money from America so they have some sympathy amongst the populace. Nevertheless, their extortion of protection money from small businesses, kidnapping, assassinations and high handedness are some of their sticky points.

“This is in stark contrast to Nigeria where the Lakurawa terrorists who were imported and invited to protect communities from bandits became the worst bandits themselves. No one in northern Nigeria can point to any benefit or communal project sponsored by the terrorists. Rather they pay terrorists just to be able to farm and then pay taxes on top. Yet some will say their killers are their “brothers”.

“While Mexican cartels essentially import foreign exchange capital into the country, northerners are importing foreign terrorists to oppress them. There’s no basis for sympathy for people who slaughtered 170 Muslims and Christians in one day.”

“The U.S.-based lawyer who came to Mexico for the weekend says, “we’re now in day three of the lockdown and the total casualties from violence across 20 states is reportedly less than 50 with the majority being military personnel followed by cartel gangsters and only one civilian confirmed killed. It’s still less than the 170 killed in one day in Kwara in a random attack not even capture of a warlord.

“Incidentally the fatalities the first Sunday in Puerto Vallarta were less than the death toll of attacks in Benue, Plateau and Enugu states incidents that same day. Human life is too cheap in Nigeria.”

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