*TVPA Suit In US & FG’s Celebration of Impunity:*

 Our attention is again drawn to brazen misrepresentation of facts and celebration of impunity by agents of the present Federal Government of Nigeria involving Case No.: 17-cv-01033-ESH (John & Jane Does 1-10 v. Buratai & ors). The civil claimant suit instituted in June 2017 in US District Court for the District of Columbia suffered a temporary setback on 19th July 2018 when the Presiding Judge Dabney L. Friedrich errantly, feebly and flimsily dismissed the suit citing lack of personal and subject matter jurisdiction based on foreign official-immunity.
Victoriously, apart from the Court’s denial of defendants’ application for the matter to be struck out, the matter was never heard on its own merit. Ownership of accountability or responsibility for shooting and killing or torturing the unarmed and defenseless citizens of old Eastern Nigeria many of whom pro Biafra activists including the ten plaintiffs in the case was indisputably admitted or established by the defendants who presently serve as key political and security actors in Nigeria. The case is expeditiously and expertly receiving appellate attention either through a motion for reconsideration or substantive appeal.
Good a thing the US Law under which sixteen Nigerian security and political officials were sued (Torture Victims Protection Act 1992) was principally drafted and worked on for six years by Bruce Fein (the attorney handling the case on behalf of ten Nigerian victims) before its passage by the US Congress on 12th March 1991. He was a former Assistant Attorney General of USA. The TVPA Act enacted on March 12, 1992 is a statute that allows for the filing of civil suits in the United States against individuals who, acting in an official capacity for any foreign nation, committed torture and/or extrajudicial killing.
The statute requires a plaintiff to show exhaustion of local remedies in the location of the crime, to the extent that such remedies are "adequate and available." Plaintiffs may be U.S. citizens or non-U.S. citizens. The TVPA Act is therefore designed to fight impunity in foreign countries including Nigeria. All local remedies had long been exhausted all to no avail warranting resort to US courts.
The central purpose of TVPA Act is to compel foreign governments including Nigeria to comply with customary international law’s obligations and prohibitions and put an end to culture of lawless savagery. Importantly, the universal crimes against mankind such as extra judicial killings and torture perpetrated under the color of foreign law can be prosecuted or redressed in any jurisdiction in the world in consonance with with due process. Such heinous and horrendous crimes threaten the humanity of the species and are enemies of mankind!
Sadly, since the filing of the suit, there have been panics and desperations on the part of agents of the Federal Government including shielding and defending the perpetrators and brazen misrepresentation of facts. Such facts misrepresentation include tagging the case “IPOB suit against Federal Government”, “continuation of Nigeria-Biafra Civil War” and tagging of the law firm of Fein & Delvalle PLLC as “IPOB Lawyers hired against Government of Nigeria (GON)”.
The Government’s misrepresentation of facts also includes using the cover of “terrorism” for the purpose of making it to look like a legally impermissible suit by relatives of dead combatants arising from a warlike situation involving violent conflict or war between a symmetric sovereign territory and asymmetric armed opposition group over violent territorial dispute. Part of the desperation too was deliberate muddling of the suit and importation into same of a so called suit seeking for “40% cuts” or non-repatriation of the “Abacha’s loots”.
It must be restated clearly and unambiguously here that the TVPA suit pending before the United States Court for the District of Columbia is on its own and has nothing whatsoever to do with the so called “IPOB suit against Federal Government of Nigeria in USA” or “dismissed Abacha’s loots case in US Court”. Going by raging panics and desperations from political quarters in Nigeria over the TVPA case, we now have every reason to strongly suspect possible involvement of “double agents” in the matter. The strongly suspected clandestine role may most likely involve using “lobbying” (foreign version of bribery and corruption) by suspected double agents to lure and possibly rip off desperate government agents especially the defendants and at the same pretending to be “friends of the victims”.
Totality of these may most likely have been directed towards perverting the course of justice and scuttling reparative same for the victims. If our suspicion is true, then those involved have failed. Apostles of justice and lovers of human rights shall never let go or allow impunity to continuously thrive. Assertion of right to self determination using nonviolence is a universally recognized principle. It is fundamentally a human right embedded in democratic free speeches and can be asserted for purposes of territorial autonomy, self governance, confederacy, union of federating units, or political reforms including restructuring, regionalism or for advancement of ethnic identity, cultural and economic emancipation including resource control. The fundamental odd to it is resort to armed resistance or insurrection.
For purpose of clarity, therefore, the suit (John & Jane Does 1-10 v. Buratai & ors) has absolutely nothing to do with “Biafra sovereignty judicial contest” as issue of “sovereignty or territorial judicial contest” can never be entertained by foreign municipal court including the US Court for the District of Columbia. The matter under reference is strictly about gross human rights abuse civil claimant suit using the instrument of TVPA Act of March 12, 1991 (USA). The principal aims of the suit are to internationalize the ongoing persecution including killing, maiming and torturing of innocent and defenseless citizens of Nigeria mostly of Igbo Ethnic Nationality; seek an end to perpetrators’ impunity by way of facilitating reparative justice making the perpetrators to pay heavily or in heavy reparative manner to serve as deterrent to others. 
Therefore, IPOB as a group or corporate legal personality is not legally responsible for the case and does not retain professional services of the named Law Firm in the named case. The name of the group is involved only at the background of the case such as when, where, how, why and who killed the victims’ relatives or maimed surviving others. Some of the slain victims whose relatives filed the suit have also been found to be “non IPOB members” or ordinary members of the public shot and killed in their places of work during government violent crackdown on pro Biafra activists and their peaceful assemblies.

Informatively and importantly, the TPVA suit (Case No.: 17-cv-01033-ESH (John & Jane Does 1-10 v. Buratai & ors) is a hybrid arrangement involving several human rights, socio-cultural and justice groups principally led by EKWENCHE Group in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The highly respected and lettered EKWENCHE Group is an assemblage of accomplished Igbo experts living in USA and other western countries. As at May 2018, the EKWENCHE Group, as principal funder of the case had committed tens of thousands of dollars to retain the services of the Law Firm of Bruce & Delvalle PLLC.  As a matter of fact, the Law Firm of Fein & Delvalle PLLC (USA) shall speak publicly on the matter and related others in coming days. 
Commending IPOB for Its Continued Nonviolence Stance: IPOB is hereby commended for remaining steadfast and nonviolent despite the Government of Nigeria’s violent policy against it in particular and extended policies of physical, structural and cultural violence against the citizens of old Eastern Nigeria in general. The Group is also commended for being helpful in the course of gathering of evidence pertaining to killing, maiming and torturing of some of their supporters profiled by Intersociety and Amnesty Int’l. This is more so when a saying goes in the principle of evidence that: when a crime is committed without any documentation, then no crime has been committed.
The verdict of 19th July 2018, described by Bruce Fein (a former Assistant Attorney Gen of US) as “errantly and egregiously flawed in reasoning” marks the beginning of all the beginnings in our solemn quest for justice for the victims of crimes against humanity and war crimes or genocide in Nigeria. The zeal and determination to pursue the case with vigor and courage will hopefully open a floodgate of further civil and criminal suits against perpetrators of the named heinous and horrendous crimes in Nigeria; using the instrumentalities of local judicial processes (when appropriate and safe), Int’l Criminal Court (ICC) and the Universal, the Passive Personality and the Active Personality Jurisdictions. These shall be used or resorted to whenever, wherever and however possible!
Our quest for justice for the victims of crimes against humanity and war crimes or genocide can never be overturned by perpetrators’ resort to hide under the cleavages of office or official foreign-immunity because nothing including political office holding lasts forever. We call on apostles of justice and lovers of human rights across Nigeria and beyond including the authorities of Civitas Maxima, Geneva, Switzerland to pay special attention to Nigeria and adopt or designate same as one of their “focus areas” hit by industrial-scale abuses and violations of human rights especially crimes against humanity and war crimes or genocide.

Signed
For: Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law

Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman

Mobile Line: +2348174090052                                                                                                                   

Email: botchairman@intersociety-ng.org

Barr Chinwe Umeche

Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program

Email:chinwe.englewood@gmail.com