The Southeast Based
Coalition of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs), coordinated by Intersociety
and comprising: International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety), Anambra State
Branch of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Center for Human Rights &
Peace Advocacy (CHRPA), Human Rights Club (a project of LRRDC)(HRC), Forum for
Justice, Equity & Defense of Human Rights (FJEDHR), Society Advocacy Watch
Project (SPAW), Anambra Human Rights Forum (AHRF), Southeast Good Governance
Forum (SGGF), International Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights Initiative
(ITERSOLIDARITY) and Igbo Ekunie Initiative (pan Igbo rights advocacy group), are
alarmed and shocked by immoral activities of “political traders” and other
merchandizing groups concerning pro Biafra agitation in Nigeria, which gathered
currency in October 2015.
Particularly alarming
and shocking are the immoral roles of political traders (including sitting
governors and political appointees), hired community and market based
associations and religious bodies as well as socio-cultural organizations of
Igbo extraction. We have observed that these conscientiously mortgaged groups
and individuals have since October 2015 when Prince Nnamdi Kanu (POC:
prisoner-of-conscience)) was arrested and detained over pro Biafra struggle;
turned themselves into “merchants of the dead and butchers of conscience”; by
criminally enriching themselves and engaging in sundry immoral politics at the
expense of the blood of dozens of their murdered fellow Igbo citizens and
liberties of hundreds of others maimed and incarcerated till date. Others found
to have maintained till date “silence of the graveyard” over the burning issue,
for reasons best known to them, are majority of the civil rights leaders or
frontline activists of Igbo or Southeast extraction, who are dominant in
Southwest zone particularly in Lagos State. It is on indisputable record that
half of the civil rights and pro democracy organizations in the area are
founded or led by citizens of the Southeast extraction. These “docile comrades”
and their groups are quickly followed by the National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC), which had maintained the same “silence of the graveyard” on the issue
since October 2015.
Combined effects (negative)
of the foregoing have emboldened President Muhammadu Buhari and his
killer-security forces; resulting in entrenchment of culture of impunity in
their use of State terror against unarmed and nonviolent pro Biafra agitators
and criminalization of the country’s international and regional treaty rights
and obligations particularly rights to self determination, ethnic identity,
existence and development. The central purpose of the Vienna Declaration &
Program of Action, adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights on 25th of June 1993, which led
to setting up of the National Human Rights Commission in Nigeria in 1995, is
for the advancement and protection of all human rights contained in the
treaties of the UN, the AU and the 1999 Constitution. The same rules and
regulations also govern all Nigerian based civil and other human rights
organizations including those concentrated in the Southwest Zone, dominated or
led by citizens of the Southeast extraction. The worst of it all are the open
hostile and chronic hate attitudes of other rights and media advocacy groups
run by Nigerians of other sectional or regional extractions towards the safety,
security and rights of Igbo citizens in Nigeria.
To them, “Igbo citizens do not deserve living and protection in Nigeria
or any part thereof”. To them, also, “Killing, maiming and incarceration
and torture of Igbo citizens in Nigeria do not constitute rights abuses”; while
same elsewhere do and warrant prompt advocacy responses including wide media
campaigns and condemnations, litigations, protests and petition writings.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the
chief brain behind the pro Biafra agitation; by law, convention and conducts.
By international conventions and customary international law, the Federal
Republic of Nigeria, now governed by APC and Retired Gen Muhammadu Buhari, with
a professor of law as his vice; willingly submitted its instruments of
ratification to be a member of the United Nations and African Union. On the
same premise, the country willingly acceded to be a State-Party to a number of
strategic international and regional human rights norms particularly the
International Covenants on Civil & Political Rights and Economic, Social
& Cultural Rights (UNO) and the African Charter on Human & Peoples’
Rights (AU), which it ratified in 1993 and 1983 respectively. In the same 1983,
Nigeria’s National Assembly domesticated the African Rights Charter and in the
year 2000, its validity and enforceability was sealed by the Supreme Court of
Nigeria; whereupon it ruled that “African Rights Charter is subject to the 1999
Constitution, but superior to any other legislation in Nigeria”. Till
date, the Federal Republic of Nigeria under Gen Muhammadu Buhari is still a
State Party to all the international and regional rights treaties under
reference and has not backed out of any of them.
By law, the pro Biafra agitation is in accordance with the
provisions of the 1999 Constitution by virtue of its Chapter Four or
Fundamental Human Rights. It is also partly protected by the Chapter Two of the
same Constitution under “Fundamental Objectives & Directive Principles of
the State Policy”. Section 14 (2) (a) of the Constitution, for instance, raises
“sovereignty as a responsibility” or “citizens’ sovereignty”, by stating that
“sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government, through
this Constitution derives all its powers and authority”.
By its ill-conducts, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the chief
architect of pro Biafra agitation. It has over the years, till date, refused to
restructure Nigeria to accommodate, protect and prosper all ethnic
nationalities and sexes irrespective of size, colour, religion or origin. The
Federal Government had continuously created a culture of “two-in-one country”
or “first class and third class citizenship” and chronically planted seeds of
discord among ethnic nationalities; leading to a country of socio-cultural
divisiveness and enslavement, where, for instance, teenage girls of Christian
religion are recklessly and brazenly abducted and converted to Islam with
police IGP doing nothing; where Fulani herdsmen (terrorists) armed themselves
and massacred and still massacre thousands of innocent and unarmed rural
Christians with police IGP doing nothing; where Igbo citizens are massacred in
thousands by malicious State and non State actors in different parts of the
country with police IGP and federal authorities doing nothing; where innocent
and unarmed citizens in their hundreds who gathered in a school premises to
ventilate their social angers peacefully and verbally are massacred by security
forces with their corpses dumped and burnt to ashes in burrow pits with federal
authorities saying and doing nothing; where up to 1000 unarmed citizens have
been massacred by security forces in Zaria, Onitsha, Aba and Ogoni since June
2015 with federal authorities doing nothing; and where over 2000 unarmed and
innocent citizens have been butchered by the Boko Haram and the Islamist Fulani
terror groups since June 2015 with federal authorities doing nothing till date.
In spite of the foregoing tragedies that have befallen Nigeria and
Igbo Ethnic Nationality; leading to nonviolent and peaceful pro Biafra
agitation under reference, the struggle has also thrown up “merchants of the
dead” and “butchers of conscience”, who go about defrauding federal authorities
by claiming to have potentials and capacities, ”if bribed”, to end or “kill”
the agitation. These elements are conspicuously present in “Ohanaeze”, and
other conjectured and government controlled market associations and religious
bodies. Among them also are sitting governors, legislators and political
appointees in the Southeast Zone as well as harlotry and habitual politicians
in the zone.
Devilish of it all is resort by politicians of conscienceless
morality to use pro Biafra agitation as political campaign tools for the
purpose of gaining cheap popularity or waging vendetta war against their
opponents. The recent arrest of Chief Victor Umeh by the DSS; strongly
condemned by our lead-coordinating group (Intersociety), alongside this
coalition, is a clear case in point. While it has been established that Chief
Victor Umeh was arrested over his alleged hostile open campaign comments or
attacks against the Buhari administration (and not over sponsorship of IPOB or
pro Biafra agitation), indented by DSS operatives attached or deployed to the
campaign arena, he expressly pointed accusing fingers at his political
opponents and claimed, till date that “he was accused by them of sponsoring
IPOB/pro Biafra agitation”. Rather than critically examine the “social
realities” associated with pro Biafra agitation for the purpose of getting the
federal government to address them, politicians of the above description have
now turned the well founded agitation into political weaponry and stigmatized
same as “crimes against the State and people of the Southeast”.
The unforgivable of it all is merchandizing with innocent blood of
the murdered pro Biafra agitators, numbering at least 80 and the injured or
maimed, numbering over 170 since August 2015. Apart from “collective silence of
the graveyard” maintained by these political traders during and after the
Onitsha and Aba pro Biafra peaceful protest massacres and shootings as well as dumping
and burning or destruction of 16 of their corpses in burrow pits in Abia State,
they have also resorted to criminal enrichment per federal authorities and
their host State Governors as well as giving of false and scripted opinions to
visiting international observers. We are aware that in the course of arranged
meetings facilitated by federal authorities and host State Governors, those
political traders were influenced to give false opinions over the social state
of things in the Southeast Zone, warranting the agitation under reference.
In the course of our meeting with a delegation from government of
one of the EU countries recently, for instance, we were reliably informed that
“other than our coalition and very insignificant others, the rest they met with
gave them scripted and indoctrinated opinions”. Till date, these political
traders are strongly believed to remain under the payroll of federal
authorities and host State Governors for the purpose of destroying rather than
critically addressing the social realities of the pro Biafra agitation (i.e.
age-long and chronic personal and structural violence unleashed on Igbo
citizens and Southeast Geopolitical Zone). The height of this personal and
structural violence against the Igbo race got spiraled since Retired Gen
Muhammadu Buhari became President on 29th of May 2015.
That of structural imbalance or violence has risen to an apogee.
Till date, for instance, no senior police officer of Southeast extraction is
among the 12 Police Zonal Commands in Nigeria headed by AIGs and we are not
aware, too, of any of such officers from the Southeast Zone presently serving
as AIGs among the country’s 22 serving AIGs. The number of them serving as
State and non State CPs is provocatively insignificant and till date, no
efforts are on the ground to address such violent geopolitical lopsidedness or
imbalance.
Finally, the main purpose of this joint statement is to expose the
immoral, despicable and condemnable roles of political traders and other money
mongers towards the systematic ethnic cleansing and extermination of the Igbo
race in Nigeria, condoned and sanctioned by federal authorities, and to call on
politicians of Igbo extraction to desist from using pro Biafra struggle for
their dirty political games or campaigns. We also advise such dirty politicians
to desist from raising false alarm and instigating murderous security agencies
into harassing and arresting arbitrarily their opponents or dissenting forces
using nonexistent allegation of “sponsorship of IPOB or pro Biafra agitation”
Those who go about collecting bribes and defrauding federal
authorities and host State Governors for the purpose of “killing Southeast or
pro Biafra legitimate and nonviolent self determination rights agitation” must
stop such generationally calamitous habits of trafficking in the dead or
merchandizing in human and material miseries of their Southeast citizens and
the zone. Politicians engaging in election campaigns must stay away from
politicizing and criminalizing pro Biafra agitation and concentrate on real
campaign issues such as how they can contribute immensely towards societal
transformation and betterment of the downtrodden if elected as legislators,
governors or LGA chairmen or councilors.
On the other hand, we call on the IPOB leadership worldwide to
steadily beam its searchlights at its local officers in Nigeria for the purpose
of ensuring that they are not hijacked and polluted by the political traders
and desperate government agents or apologists. They must also be barred
at all times from accepting or collecting any monetary or material support from
any government official or politician. Our resolve to pricelessly lend ongoing
humanitarian and human rights advocacy assistance to the IPOB worldwide will be
discontinued any time it comes to our credible knowledge that IPOB is partly or
wholly hijacked or funded by political traders, politicians or government
agents.
At the level of IPOB worldwide, it is our strong advice that it
should watch itself, back and forth, at all times and resist any attempt by
federal authorities to possibly plot divisions within its ranks by inducements
and other nocturnal means. The discordant sounds witnessed recently among its
ranks and Prince Nnamdi Kanu’s former legal team when Prince Kanu (POC) was in
DSS captivity is a clear case in point and must not be allowed to repeat
itself. Any official of the IPOB in Diaspora found to be a mole,
conscientiously immoral and yielding, must be removed. Because our
contributions (human rights and humanitarian assistance) to the struggle are
priceless and beyond what money can buy, we shall not associate ourselves with
merchants masquerading as “international indigenous rights activists”.
Signed:
For: The Southeast Based Coalition of
Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs)
1. Emeka
Umeagbalasi (+2348174090052)
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of
Law (Intersociety)
2.
Comrade
Aloysius Attah (+2348035090548)
For:
Anambra State Branch of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO)
3.
Comrade
Peter Onyegiri (+2347036892777)
For: Center for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy (CHRPA)
4.
Comrade
Samuel Njoku (+2348039444628)
For: Human Rights Club (a project of LRRDC) (HRC)
5.
Comrade
Justus Uche Ijeoma(+2348037114869)
For: Forum for Justice, Equity & Defense of Human Rights
(FJEDHR)
6.
Comrade
Chike Umeh ( +2348064869601)
For: Society Advocacy Watch Project (SPAW)
7.
Obianuju
Joy Igboeli, Esq. (+2348034186332)
For: Anambra Human Rights Forum AHRF)
8.
Comrade
Alex Olisa(+2348034090410)
For: Southeast Good Governance Forum (SGGF)
9.
Jerry
Chukwuokolo, PhD (+2348035372962)
For: International Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights
Initiative (ITERSOLIDARITY)
10.
Maazi
Tochukwu Ezeoke (+447748612933)
For: Igbo Ekunie Initiative (pan Igbo rights advocacy group)
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