Should The Massacre Of Pro-Biafra Activists Be Overlooked?

By Emmanuel Onwubiko

The Nigeria Army is once more in the eye of the storm due to the indiscretions and unprofessional conducts of some of her operatives   and officers with regards to internal military operations. Under the current dispensation the Nigerian Army has had several   face offs with International humanitarian groups over alleged   widespread killings of civilians.

The latest challenge to the public and corporate image of the   Nigerian Army is the alleged mass killings of over 150 unarmed   protesters thought to be members or sympathizers of the Europe   registered group known as the INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF BIAFRA (IPOB).

IPOB has for two years now waged global wide peaceful advocacy   campaigns for self-determination of the people of South-East of   Nigeria.

The members of the Indigenous People of Biafra are absolutely   unarmed and are some of the most peaceful and peaceable advocates of   self determination Worldwide.

The British founded global human rights body known as AMNESTY   INTERNATIONAL has recently issued damaging but extensively   verifiable reports of the killing spree conducted by the Nigerian   Army in the South East of Nigeria in the last one year leading to   the slaughter through extra-legal means of unarmed civilians   belonging or exercising their sympathy for the messages of   self-determination being spread peacefully by IPOB.

This report has understandably generated considerable volumes of   reactions with the Army hurriedly denying any involvement but in   another breath said it was only defending her operatives from   violence. Which violence? One may ask.

The killings of civilians by the Army go against everything that   constitutional democracy stands for because extra-legal execution of   civilians is absolutely antithetical to civility and democracy.

For the better part of the last two decades, Nigeria embraced   civilian democracy and an essential ingredient of this system of   government is the constitutionally guaranteed right to peaceful   protests the citizens are entitled to.

Importantly, the attempt to sweep under the carpets these senseless   killings captured in audiovisuals and which are watched globally,   offends everything that make us rational and thinking beings.

The killings if tolerated would amount to overturning all the   efforts we have genuinely made to build a Nigerian nation whereby   the Rule of Law would become our national ethos.

Buhari’s Speech: A Nut Bereft Of Kernel

By Chuks Iloegbunam

Two things leap disa­greeably out of Presi­dent Muhammadu Buhari’s first-year-in-office anniversary speech of May 29, 2016. In the broadcast’s 2624 words, not once did he mention the words Fulani herdsmen, let alone address the real and pre­sent danger they constitute to Nigeria’s continued existence as one political entity. Was this unfortunate omission because he is himself of the Fulani eth­nic group? Or was it because he considers a final stop to have been put to the herdsmen’s mur­derous rampaging throughout the country? Or is it because the destructive army is a law unto itself, above censure and sanc­tion?

*President Buhari

And this: “We are fully aware that those vested interests who have held Nigeria back for so long will not give up without a fight. They will sow divisions, sponsor vile press criticisms at home and abroad, incite the public in an effort to create chaos rather than relinquish the vice-like grip they have held on Nigeria.” In rendering the above two sentences in the present continuous tense, wasn’t Presi­dent Buhari suggesting his gov­ernment’s lack of total control, much in the manner of a mon­arch unable to hold his goblet?

Sidelining the connotative meaning of these sentences as down to clumsiness by presi­dential speechwriters, and also not minding the grammati­cal mistakes in the speech, a fundamental worry is evident. Consider this: “They will sow divisions, sponsor vile press crit­icisms at home and abroad, in­cite the public in an effort to cre­ate chaos…” If you interpreted this official attribution of trea­sonous quality to a robust media as the first decisive step to the systematic emasculation of pub­lic opinion, your apprehension would sit on a solid foundation. Is it not often said that truth – read an unfettered media – is in­variably the first casualty in any dispensation’s charted course to a repressive bastion? Suddenly, a government that rode straight to power on the wings of the re­lentless and remorseless media battering and badgering of the Jonathan administration is talk­ing about a “vile press”!

The “vile press” must, of course, have no future in this democratic march, must not fea­ture in the dynamics of change. So, let’s take a more detailed look at the President’s broadcast, em­ploying the instrument of con­tent analysis. “By age, instinct and experience, my preference is to look forward, to prepare for the challenges that lie ahead and rededicate the administration to the task of fixing Nigeria,” said Buhari. Yet, about half the speech was on the past, rather than an expatiating on the “tri­umph”, “consolidation”, and “achievements!” he vaunted. He moaned about Boko Haram’s devastations. He moaned about the collapse in oil prices. He moaned about decayed infra­structures. He moaned about the preceding government that did not live up to expectation. You would expect the elaborate exercise in threnody to be fol­lowed by his administration’s rectifying “achievements!” That turned out to be a fatuous dream.