Why I Joined IPOB: The Elite Vis-à-Vis The “Crazy Youths”

By Nathaniel I. Ndiokwere

 Preamble

I was the senior prefect of Bishop Shanahan College (BSC) Orlu that final year and there was an important Mc’Nulty Soccer Final March between BSC and College of Immaculate Conception (C.I.C) Enugu, the two giant and prestigious colleges those days, East of the Niger. In the field of soccer competition BSC and CIC used to be great ‘enemies’. The Rev. Brother Lewis, the principal as well as the BSC soccer master or coach, just to demonstrate ‘holy disapproval’ of what was called those days ‘rough play’ and misconduct in the soccer field, did something students thought was an abomination. And on account of the principal’s action, BSC witnessed the biggest students’ riot in history.

*Msgr. Nathaniel Ndiokwere

Though not the referee, Rev. Brother Lewis decided to call for the expulsion of the BSC most important brilliant defense player, aka ‘Tiger’ from the field . BSC students and soccer fans could not understand the madness of the white Scottish principal! BSC continued the march with ‘minus one player!

Let me cut the long story short!

BSC was defeated by the visiting team and for the first time in the history of the College the students rioted, singing war songs and threatened to set buildings on fire. They went out of control and sang songs : “Lewis must go. Lewis in a criminal. Death to the Scottish pig!”

Mr. President, Pythons Do Not Dance!

By Obi Nwakanma

 In a badly worded press release announced last week, the Nigerian Army declared what it called “Operation Python Dance,” aimed, the Army says, at anticipating and curtailing violence in the South East through the Christmas period. The language of that press statement signed by Colonel Sagir Musa was only slightly better than the extremely poor and bombastic English of an earlier statement by the Army’s Public Relations Office signed by Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman, Army Director of Public Affairs, that challenged Amnesty International’s damning report about the Nigerian Army’s extrajudicial killings of unarmed Biafran activists and protesters. 

 

*President Buhari with Military Service Chiefs

The Army’s response and denial of Amnesty’s report was not only incompetent, in that it lied about the Biafrans, but it also seemed not to take into account that in this age of ubiquitous eyes, including the Eyes in the sky recording and capturing everything, the evidence of the killing of the Biafran protesters exist; the faces of the soldiers who took part in these killings exist, recorded and digitally preserved in real time, and are now public record. Did President Buhari order the killing of these unarmed Biafrans? This is a question that is now slowly gathering momentum internationally, and it is not going to go away. 

Colonel Usman’s statement claimed: “The evidence of MASSOB/IPOB violent secessionist agitations is widely known across the national and international domains. Their modus operandi has continued to relish violence that threatens national security. Indeed, between August 2015 and August 2016, the groups’ violent protests have manifested unimaginable atrocities to unhinge the reign of peace, security and stability in several parts of the South East Nigeria. A number of persons from the settler communities that hailed from other parts of the country were selected for attack, killed and burnt. Such reign of hate, terror and ethno-religious controversies that portend grave consequences for national security have been averted severally through the responsiveness of the Nigerian Army and members of the security agencies.”

Aside from the ineloquent bombast of this statement, I beg to note that MASSOB and IPOB are not known internationally as violent groups, and have consistently maintained their non-violent philosophy and methods, and have never armed themselves, unless Colonel Usman suggests that singing and praying and “signifying” constitute lethal ammunition. The Nigerian National Assembly which should investigate the uses or misuses of Nigeria’s National Security apparatus, and keep the use or misuse of executive power within bounds, have maintained a very stony silence on this matter even with the international release of this damning video of soldiers killing unarmed Igbo civilians whose only crime is public gathering to campaign for self-determination. 

Biafra And The Business Of Killing

By Okey Ndibe

Except in extremely isolated cases — for example, as an act of self-defense — it is morally indefensible for individuals to engage in extra-judicial killing. When a government makes it its business to slaughter unarmed citizens that government reveals itself as criminally thuggish and the state in whose behalf that government kills loses its moral legitimacy.

That, I am afraid, is the burden that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has placed on itself.

Last week, Amnesty International (AI), a human rights group, released a chilling report on the Buhari administration’s excessively brutal response to members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) who have been agitating for the rebirth of Biafra. The AI report is a thorough job, based on interviews of 193 people (most of them eyewitnesses), analysis of 87 videos and 122 photographs “showing IPOB assemblies, members of the security forces in the process of committing violations and victims of these violations.” Much of the 60-page report is devoted to offering painstaking accounts of how Nigeria’s security agencies, including the military, killed, maimed, and tortured pro-Biafra agitators.

For those who can’t stomach much gore and horror, I would recommend AI’s executive summary, which highlights the sad, sobering facts. That summary begins, “Since August 2015, the security forces have killed at least 150 members and supporters of the pro-Biafran organisation IPOB (Indigenous Peoples of Biafra) and injured hundreds during non-violent meetings, marches and other gatherings. Hundreds were also arbitrarily arrested.”

According to Amnesty International, “Video footage and eyewitness testimony consistently show that the military, which has been deployed instead of police to control pro-Biafran events, has dispersed peaceful gatherings by firing live ammunition with little or no warning. This report documents extra-judicial executions and the use of excessive force by military, police and other security agencies. It also shows a worrying pattern of arbitrary arrests and detentions, including soldiers arresting wounded victims in hospital, and of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees.”

As the head of the Nigerian state, President Buhari bears ultimate responsibility for the carnage committed by Nigeria’s security agents. He is not the first Nigerian ruler to oversee mindless mass killing. Under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerian troops went on a homicidal rampage in Odi, Bayelsa State, and Zaki Biam, in Benue State. The late President Umaru Yar’Adua was in control when Nigerian soldiers swept through Maiduguri and other cities in Borno State, killing hordes of men on mere suspicion that they belonged to the Islamist group, Boko Haram.

President Buhari has earned a place in the bloodlust. Under his watch, troops slashed and burned their way through a Shiite neighbourhood near Zaria, Kaduna State. His inflexible stance on the vexed issue of Biafra, marked by a dismissive tone, has helped to create a violent climate. Perhaps encouraged by the President’s hectoring style, heavily armed soldiers and other security personnel have gleefully mowed down agitators who dared hoist up IPOB banners.

The Mass Murder of Unarmed Civilians In Aba

 ...An Attack On Human Rights And Democracy

By Tochukwu EZEOKE (Maazi)

We the Igbo Ekunie Initiative, IEI, comprised of individuals in Nigeria and the Diaspora; for the umpteenth time unequivocally condemn the heinous, barbaric and shameful massacre once again of peaceful pro-Biafra protesters who were holding prayers in a school premises in Aba by agents of Nigeria’s infamous army and police force. Such cowardly killing of unarmed protesters exercising their fundamental rights to peaceful protests only goes to confirm the globally acclaimed notoriety of Nigeria’s disoriented security services that more often than not, turn their guns on the hapless and defenceless citizens they are trained and paid to protect.

That the Nigerian army and police that have not acquitted itself in the fight against Boko Haram and other security challenges will always so callously murder unarmed civilians under the watch and orders of President Buhari only validates the widely held notion that Nigeria has finally returned to full blown dictatorship and tyranny. Consequently, the nation is once again facing human rights violations, repression and tyranny at a scale that far supersedes what obtained under erstwhile military dictators. No nation whose security services murders unarmed innocent civilians who are engaged in peaceful protests and free expression both of which constitute some of the most basic attributes of democracy can still call itself by any definition a democracy.

We note that while Buhari campaigned on change; his idea of change has turned out to mean repression, extra judicial detentions, mass killing of unarmed civilians and other human rights abuses that characterise the dark past Nigerians laboured to escape from. It is even more shameful that while Buhari in the course of addressing the 26th AU summit in Addis Ababa urged “African nations to put down their guns and stop spending scarce resources killing our children and inflicting unspeakable horrors and unimaginable hardship on our brothers and sisters,” yet, under his watch, Nigeria has become a killing field where the guns are blazing, the army and police are killing peaceful protesters and inflicting the same unspeakable horrors and unimaginable hardship on fellow citizens that he condemned in his AU speech.

We submit that a president who has no inclination for peace or dialogue and who since inception of his administration has been busy widening the theatres of conflict with killings and extra judicial detentions goes abroad to preach peace only, in the vain hope of impressing and deceiving a global audience. But the world is wiser and the mounting human rights violations of the administration are increasingly subject to international scrutiny. We therefore, use this opportunity to again call on the International community; the United Nations, Human rights watch, AU, Amnesty international, the European Union, the US state department and others to take note of Buhari’s increasing human rights violations and decimation of democratic rights and principles. We warn that the constant killing of unarmed pro-Biafra protesters in cold blood is a recipe for disaster that could at some point force the Biafra groups to legitimately seek self defence and thus conflict/insurgency for which president Buhari, the COAS Tukur Buratai, the IGP Solomon Arase, the police commissioners and army commanders of respective units where such killings have taken place should be held responsible.

While we continue to pursue the indictment of all those implicated in such heinous crimes against humanity within International statutes, we urge governors of the respective states, the national assembly and state assembly members to uphold the tenets of democracy and speak out against tyranny and the egregious violation of the fundamental rights of their constituents by the army and police.

Signed:
Maazi Tochukwu Ezeoke
President Igbo Ekunie Initiative
Twitter: @MaaziEzeoke
+44 7748612933
Mr Lawrence Nwobu
Secretary Igbo Ekunie Initiative