The leadership of International Society for Civil Liberties
& the Rule of Law (Intersociety) is still deeply shocked and alarmed
concerning the continued detention under solitary or incommunicado
circumstances of key IPOB activists in Aba, Abia State and other parts of the
South-south and the Southeast Nigeria. To the extent that the authorities of
the DSS now go about riotously, abducting, shooting, torturing and detaining
IPOB activists outside processes and procedures laid down in the 1999
Constitution; further shocks and worries us.
We had two days, 26th of August 2016, raised
alarm concerning the renewed violent crackdown by DSS and ors against
IPOB activists and other Pro Biafran activists and supporters across the
country particularly in the Southeast and the South-south parts of Nigeria. We
had in our last statement under reference recalled that Citizen Chidiebere
Onwudiwe, who is Nigeria’s National Coordinator of IPOB and a trained
Mechanical Engineer with lawful means of livelihood, is still in solitary
detention without trial after 64 days of his late night arrest by the
authorities of DSS in Rivers State. Engineer Chidiebere Onwudiwe was trailed
and traced to his residence near Port Harcourt in the evening of 22nd June 2016; after which
his residence was violently attacked about seven hours later, leading to his
violent arrest and incarceration till date. He was also arrested in his sleep
and till date, he has not been put on trial in any court in Nigeria.
We recall further that the authorities of the DSS also trailed and
traced Citizen Justice O. Udeh (an official of IPOB in Aba, Abia State) to a
place he had gone to pass a night and violently arrested him in his sleep. The
raid took place in the late night of 13th of July 2016 near Port
Harcourt in Rivers State. Since his violent arrest; a period of 43 days
today, he is neither released nor put on trial. Again, the ordeal of
Citizen Sunday Chukwuka Obasi during his violent arrest is the crudest and most
shocking of it all. He is the Nnewi-Ichi Coordinator of IPOB. He was trailed by
the DSS from Port Harcourt where he had gone on a trip and in the late night of
16th of August 2016, his residence at Amuwo-Nnewi was violently
attacked while he was sleeping. It was in the process that the DSS operatives
that came on a marked Government vehicle opened fire on him and shattered his
two legs before he was whisked away. It has been technically established that
the DSS operatives that stormed his residence must have been composed of Rivers
and Anambra States Directorates. Till date, the condition of his gunshot wounds
has not been ascertained and he has remained in DSS custody without trial.
Amnesty International, based in UK, has already raised an international
advocacy alarm and launched an “urgent action appeal” on his behalf.
The latest of the DSS violent crackdown on unarmed and nonviolent
IPOB activists particularly in the Southeast and South-south was violent and
riotous attack on 12 passengers that boarded a commercial Hummer Bus belonging
to FG Onyenwe & Co in the morning of Thursday, 26th of August 2016 at about
7am. The attack by the authorities of DSS, Abia State Directorate, also
involved Army and Police operating under the “Abia State Joint Security
Taskforce”. The commercial bus was returning from Gwagwalada-Abuja via night
route when it was violently attacked and impounded at about 7am at Ugba
Junction near Aba in Abia State. The Bus was obviously trailed from its point
of departure and had on board a DSS informant as one of its passengers. The
trailing must have started from the Kuje Prison where the arrested IPOB
activists went to visit IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu (POC). The operation must have
also resulted from intelligence sharing between the FCT and Abia State DSS
authorities, who alerted other law enforcement agencies in Abia State.
Further updates gathered from our investigation show that the Bus
had on board a total of 12 passengers including the driver, four married women
(including a heavily pregnant woman) and seven men including a suspected DSS
informant, a Hausa indigene and five arrested IPOB activists. The names
of five arrested IPOB activists are Citizens Ikechukwu Ugwuoha (Abia State
Coordinator of IPOB), Asochukwu Ugochukwu, Sunday J. Okafor, Ekene Onuoha and
Joseph Okorie (Ogbuawa); among them were those released from Aba Prisons on 11th of August 2016
following the directive of the Attorney General of the Federation that charges
against them and other Pro Biafra activists in Nigeria should be dropped. They
were remanded in prison custody since February 2016 after they were spuriously
charged. The Nigerian Army and ors had on 9th of February 2016
massacred 22 of their members at a prayer procession held at the Premises of
the National High School at Aba.
After the impoundment of their Bus at Ugba Junction near Aba in
the morning of 26th of August 2016, leading to their torture and confiscation and
seizure of their mobile phones; they were taken to the Ngwa High School
temporary headquarters of the 144 Battalion of Nigerian Army, Aba where they
were held and tortured for over three hours (7.30am to 11am). One of the four
married women (Ugochi) was brutally tortured and bruised. The five IPOB
activists named above were also inflicted with bruises and beaten to a pulp
while the suspected DSS informant and a Hausa indigene were left untouched and
unharmed. Mrs Ugochi also received bruises and beatings in her neck, eyes and
ears regions and was labelled “wife of a Niger Delta Avenger, who keeps guns
for her Avenger husband”. All the five arrested IPOB activists were labelled
“Niger Delta Avengers” with a promise to parade them on the Nigerian Television
Authority (NTA).
The five arrested IPOB activists were later handcuffed and had
their eyes and faces tightly covered with their shirts before they were
transferred to the security trucks of the Abia State Joint Security Taskforce
and driven out of the Ngwa High School alongside the seven other passengers and
driver of the Bus. They were taken back to the point of their arrest where the
Hummer Bus, its driver and the remaining five passengers were released and
threatened with re-arrest if any of them discloses what happened to any third
party. To this effect, all their mobile phones were not returned or given back
to them. The suspected DSS informant was discharged at the Ngwa High School
headquarters of the 144 Battalion of the Nigerian Army while the arrested IPOB
activists were blind-folded, handcuffed and driven away. Family sources of some
of them later confirmed that “they have been traced to the Umuahia Directorate
of the DSS, near the Abia State Government House and that as at this morning,
28th of August 2016, they are still there”.
While we commend the authorities of the Amnesty International, UK,
for their efforts in drawing the global attention to indiscriminate arrest,
torture, killing, disappearance and detention without trial as well as criminal
stigmatization of IPOB activists and activism in Nigeria by DSS and other
security agencies, we appeal to them to go a step further by taking a global
and advocacy notice and action against the latest crack down on IPOB activists
and other innocent citizens who have never used or advocated violence against
the Federal Republic of Nigeria or any part thereof.
The “urgent action appeal” launched by the globally respected
organization against the shooting, wounding, abduction and disappearance of
Citizen Chukwuka Sunday Obasi by the DSS is globally appealing and commendable,
but we further appeal for inclusion in the global urgent appeal for immediate
and unconditional release from the DSS dungeon of Citizens Chidiebere Onwudiwe
(Nigeria’s National Coordinator of IPOB), Ikechukwu Ugwuoha, Ugochukwu
Asochukwu, Sunday J. Okafor, Ekene Onuoha and Joseph Okorie.
We also call on the authorities of the US based Human Rights
Watch, which has its Nigerian research team led by Ms Mausi Segun Segunm to
rise to the occasion. Till date, we are yet to see or read any report of the
HRW on systematic massacre of hundreds of unarmed and nonviolent IPOB activists
and other Pro Biafran agitators as well as torturing, wounding and
disappearance of hundreds of others by the Nigerian security forces
particularly the DSS, Army and Police. To the extent that human rights are
indivisible and universal without any discrimination as to sex, age, tribe or
religion, makes us worried the more as why some globally respected groups like
Human Rights Watch, likewise the United Nations have chosen to remain silence
despite having substantial presence in Nigeria and being in constant know of
the rampaging regime atrocities.
We therefore appeal to all well meaning international rights and
media organizations as well as international respected personalities to join us
in rising in strong condemnation of the escalating rampancy of State abduction,
arrest, torture, killing, disappearance and detention without trial of innocent
and unarmed citizens of Southeast and South-south extractions. We must insist
in collectivism that IPOB activists are not terrorists and common criminals and
that terrorists and common criminals in Nigeria are most respected and well
treated by the Nigerian State and its coercive agencies than those citizens who
never use or advocate violence.
The authorities of the DSS in Nigeria must not only release all
IPOB activists in their custody unconditionally, but must also stop all forms
of crackdown on other IPOB activists including married women. As we speak, the
likes of Mrs Ugochi Enyinnaya, Mrs Eunice Ada Omaka and numerous other married
women in Aba and other parts of the Southeast and South-south have since run
out of their marital homes and gone into hiding; abandoning their young
children and husbands, all because of DSS and Army renewed crack down on IPOB
activists and their families. We must collectively tell the DSS, Army and
Police to retrace their violent and unconstitutional steps.
Enough is enough!
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board
Chairman
Mobile Line:
+2348174090052
Obianuju Igboeli, Esq., (LLB, BL)
Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
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