CHIEF INNOCENT CHUKWUMA'S LOT COULD BE THAT OF ANY IGBO MAN HOWEVER WEALTHY OR HIGHLY PLACED:

Chief Innocent CHUKWUMA is one of the major banners of Igbo industrial ingenuity. He is a source of pride to the Igbo race.
However  from President Obasanjo's regime, the Federal government has consistently fought to bring him down with toments not deserving of any free citizen. I sympathize with Chief CHUKWUMA but I hold Igbo poltical and business elite responsible for the sordid trampling on Igbo rights. They live under the misconception that their wealth and/or position can exclude them from the sordid lot of Igbos in Nigeria - being treated as serfs by the oligarchy.
 Unfortunately they are mistaken and Chief Chukwuma's case confirms that. It is only a matter of time and convenience of the oligarchy and they will come for any Igbo man  however so highly placed.

In their characteristic individualism the Igbo wealthy and highly placed have refused to participate in the organised non-violent fight for Igbo rights in municipal and international Courts. They parrot meaningless "restructuring" and "true federalism" like infants in kindergarten classes without offering any meaningful mechanism for achieving such.

 Crimes against humanity are being committed daily by government agents against the Igbo and these people keep their distances from any effort to challenge the government, reasoning in their parochialism that it is confrontational. In some cases they even aid and abate these atrocities against their own Igbo people.

 The few cases where NGOs have organised and filed suits in Nigerian and overseas Courts these people starve these suits to death with total boycott of financial support. Until these folks break out of their self-centred defences and join in the organised struggle, Chief Chukwuma's lot could be the lot of any Igbo man, no matter how wealthy or highly placed.
Like they say, In a democracy, the people get the government the deserve.

PRINCE CHUKWUEMEKA ONYESOH

WELCOME ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC PRESENTATION OF THE BOOK, "TO THE RESCUE - the Right to Self Determination, The Pathway to a Genuine Federation of Peoples with No Shared Values."

Thanks to God in heaven that today this four- year work is being unveiled. I welcome you all from Houston Texas, Los Angeles, California, Lagos, Abuja, Aba, Owerri,  Onitsha, Nri, Anambra, Abia, Imo, Ebonyi and Enugu States, my editors and reviewers (pre- and post-publication).

Permit me to specifically welcome the doyen of political authorship and publishing and democracy activism, East of the Niger,  Dr. Chief Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo, Ikeogu Ndigbo, who many of my friends have continued to complain they neither recently see nor hear from. Ikeogu, Nwadiana Nri you are welcome. To Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) members and its founder and leader, Prof. Uzodinma Nwala, I say a special welcome. ADF, today is the only organization I know in today's Nigeria which has courageously shaken off the pervasive malleability of Nigerians, to openly challenge the arbitrariness and lawlessness of the almighty federal government of Nigeria. Example: Several Federal High Courts and Appeal Courts have repeatedly ruled that it is unlawful for the President of Nigeria to deploy the Armed Forces of Nigeria for internal security operations without the authority of the National Assembly. Presidents Obasanjo, Yardua and now, Buhari, have variously deployed them and they have routinely extra-judicially murdered citizens, as if they are rodents.
 For the resent south-East Python Dance deployments and killings in Aba and Umuahia, ADF sued the President and his Army Commanders before an Enugu Federal High Court. I was in court, as a member of ADF, with the leader and other members, as ADF lawyers closed its case this November. Kudos to ADF.

The Federal Republic of Nigeria stopped working with the pogroms of 1966. Nigeria has since then operated unitary systems dressed up as federation with military Ordinances, otherwise branded Federal Constitutions, completely disregarding the inherent rights of the 478 identified ethnic Nationalities of Nigeria to Self Determination entrenched in both Nigerian Laws and international multi-lateral treaties duly ratified by Nigeria.

This book is my humble effort to remind Nigeria, as U.S. President Woodrow Wilson did as far back as 18th Jan. 1918, after World War 1, that politicians and government leaders who ignore the federating peoples' right to Self Determination, do so at the risk of themselves and the federation.

The commotion on RESTRUCTURING in Nigeria, is misdirected. The security and welfare of citizens are the primary purposes of government, but security is precedent. One needs to be alive to be catered for.

Aburi Accord took above into account in conferring the command of the regional units of the Armed Forces on the Regional Governments. Former Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, now of blessed memory, expounded on the Aburi Accord in his proposals in the 1998 Abacha Conference. All I did in this work, is to emphasize  that in the restructuring debate, Ndigbo, who are more frequently and indiscriminately extra-judicially murdered  in Nigeria, must on account of the frequent massacre,put the security of Igbo lives and property before any form of marginalization.

You are all welcome. I hope you will find the time spent here worth the while.

OkpalaEzeNri Chukwuemeka Onyesoh,

 The Author,

Enugu.


14th Dec. 2017.