​​​​​Biafra 50 Years After -

   Reconciliation: What have we learned?

      Paper presented at The Conference -

MEMORY AND NATION BUILDING: BIAFRA 50 YEARS AFTER:

​A SOBER REFLECTION.  

By

PROF. T. UZODIMA NWALA

President

Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF).

1. Introduction.

Before I thank the organisers of this Conference and pay my tribute to the Memory of my friend, late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, in whose Foundation Centerthis historic event is being organised, let me quickly dismiss certain lingering pernicious fallacies that have dominated all discussion about the coup of January 15, 1966 and the Biafra War.

First, the Chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Ahmed Joda, has alluded to the January 15, 1966 coup as an Igbo coup that, according to him, was replied by a Northern coup of July 29 1966.

Let it be said loud and clear that that coup, namely January 15, 1966 coup, was not an Igbo coup. It was a coup led by certain Igbo and Yoruba Officers, involving the active participation of soldiers from the North. The aim, as has been stated again and again, by the leaders of the coup was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was in detention at the time and install him the Prime Minister of Nigeria.

That coup was foiled by Igbo military officers. Igbo political leaders and activists knew nothing about the coup.

Again the Incursion into the Mid-West by the Biafran troops was not a quest for territorial grabbing by the Igbos. Ojukwu sent troops under the Command of Col, banjo in response to Chief Awolowo’s request for troops to help liberate Yoruba land from the occupation of soldiers from the North. By the time Col Banjo got to Ore, the British had gotten Gowon to offer Chief Awolowo Vice Chairmanship of the Nigerian Government. Awolowo, therefore, asked Banjo not to proceed on his mission.

General Yakubu Gowon knows the truth of all these things. And that is why the Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) had written him and asked him to tell Nigerians and the whole world the truth about the January 15, 1966 coup and the Biafra incursion into the Mid-West.to stop all the lies against Ndigbo, which havebeen the basis of the burden they carry as a nation within the Nigerian Federation.

Secondly, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Head of State and a frontline commander on the Federal side during the war, said that they (the Federal military leaders) conducted the war without any hate or vengeance because it was a quarrel between brothers.

To this one is constrained to ask a few pertinent questions

i. How did the world come to describe the conduct of the war as POGROM?

ii. What about the policy that hunger was a legitimate weapon of war and so was justified in its application against the Biafrans?

iii. What about bombing of refugee camps, market places, churches, etc?

Again, when Chief Obasanjo said that they, the victorious side, have been more magnanimous than the victors in the American civil war, where, according to him, those who lost the war never had a chance to be President of America until several decades if not a century later, I would ask him WHAT ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA? WHAT ABOUT NELSON MANDELLA?

Such assertions rather than heal the wounds of the war, keep the wounds aglow, rather than reconcile pour raw paper of unjustified arrogance on the wounded hearts of the Biafrans. How can you genuinely talk about reconciliation with that kind omind-set. The truth is that for General Obasanjo, the Biafrans are defeated people. Period!

Indeed, before we can talk about reconciliation, we must accept that grave wrongs were done to the Biafrans, Before, During and Since the end of the war. 

2. Tribute to General Yar’Adua.

NOW, Mr Chairman, Ladies and \Gentlemen, let me go on to thank the organisers of this Conference  - the Yar’Adua Foundation and the six Nigerian Universitiespartnering with the Foundation; the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa who have provided support for this Conference - Biafra: 50 Years After.

What is more, I would like to pay tribute to the memory of my late friend, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. I met him for the first time during the 1994-5 National Constitutional Conference. There we struck a friendship that would have born great fruits but for his untimely death. I personally escaped being arrested with him. 

General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, became a great democrat after the war despite his aristocratic background. He genuinely believed that this wobbly Federation could be given a dependable foundation. Consequently, he set out to recruit gifted compatriots to work with him for that purpose. What a great hunter of talent Shehu was!

I remember two memorable moments in our interaction. One afternoon, after lunch in his house, we sat down on the sofa. I asked him 

“General why is it that when you are not smoking cigar (cigarette), you are chewing kola nut?

He answered me. I will not tell you his answer today. Wait for my Memoire that should be ready by my next birthday.

At another moment, also after lunch with him and late Prof. Aborisade, we sat down on the sofa. Shehu said to me “Dr Nwala, let me show you why we Northerners are reluctant to relinquish political power”.

He brought out two volumes of strategic studies which he had commissioned some intellectuals to produce in preparation for the Constitutional Conference of 1994-5. I glanced through volume 1 which deals with the indices of power in Nigeria. I read the discussion, looked at the statistics and the graph, and shook my head, and said to myself this guy is a great political actor. I also reserve the details of what I read in that volume as well as our discussion for the sake of my forthcoming memoire.

I saw those two volumes of strategic studies at the Library of the Yar’Adua Centerwhen I visited there about two week ago.

What is important in this narrative is that General Yar’Adua was avery sincere leader, he always spoke to me and to anyone in his political company from the bottom of his heart. He was sincerely in search of a genuine way forward. He was a man who knew that all is not well with the Nigerian Federation and genuinely sough the correct path to its healing!

The point of the story is to reveal a bit of the life of this great political strategist, who if he had lived after that Conference, he and the powerful circle of comrades he had built at the Conference would have helped to see to a more liberal accommodating political order in Nigeria. Shehu was the darling of a liberal democratic movement that was emerging in Nigeria before he died. He was equally hated by what many of us call the hegemonist who have consistently aborted every opportunity to create ademocratic political culture. It is the later who have consistently made it difficult to achieve a genuine reconciliation in Nigeria. It is these forces that have insisted on aFederation founded on the peace of the grave yard.

Yes, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua along with the compatriots he had worked to put together would have constitute an authentic force for reconciliation and national integration. He was a victim of the forces of hegemony.

3. Post –Biafra Reconciliation – What Lessons?

​

During the trial of Adolf Hitler after Germany and her allies lost the war to the Allied Forces, the following exchange took place between Hitler and his interlocutor –

Interlocutor to Hitler:​You were responsible for the Second World War?

Hitler:​​​​No! The Versailles Treaties was.

I believe this Conference has been provoked by the renewed agitation for Biafra. In that case, a similar question can be posed to the Biafra Self-determination Agitators in Nigeria today as to whether they are responsible for the renewed Agitation for Biafra.

I imagine that the Biafra Freedom Agitators, just like Adolf Hitler, would emphatically respond NO! They would rather blame the present upsurge for Self-determination and Biafra and all its fallouts on all those leaders on the victorious side who, rather than pursuing the path of genuine Reconciliation, pursued the path of punitive retributions against those who lost the war. 

Unfortunately, as it was in the case of the defeated Germany that was neither pacifiednor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened, so do we find in the case of Biafra, that despite all the retributive measures against her people, Biafra and the Biafrans, have neither been pacified, nor conciliated, nor have they been permanently weakened.

Unlike the Treaty of Versailles that exerted bloody pound of flesh on the side that lost the First World War, the victorious side in the Second World War padded their retributive actions with the Marshall Plan. And thus unlike the intended Carthagenian peace of the Versailles Treaty of 28 June 1919, the Marshall Plan brought a relatively permanent peace to Europe that withstood the shock waves of the cold war including the Cuban Missile crises.   

In pursuing the lessons of the retributive post-war treatment of the Biafrans, I would ask the leaders on the victorious side –

When you took all their financial deposits in the banks and paid them only £20 (twenty pounds), what did you expect the result to be – pacification, conciliation or to have them permanently weakened?

When you allowed massacre of unarmed soldiers and leaders even when they had declared their return to Nigeria, what did you expect? I mean when you murdered Prof. Kalu Ezera or when you killed unarmed Col Onwuatuegwu in cold blood, what did you expect?  

When you killed and also buried alive thousands of innocent civilians in Asaba, was that a circus show?   

I escaped being killed at the end of the war through the mysterious intervention of my college mate, Mr Nwogugbe from Asa in Abia State who was a member of the Nigerian battalion that overran my area on that fateful day of January 8, 1970. The solders had sent for me and when I arrived at Nkwo Mbaise their base, Nwoguegbeinstantly recognised me and shouted Nkume! I responded Nwoguegbe! Despite being introduced to his commander, Captain Jibowu, the later took him to one corner,asking to be  convinced why I should not be treated in accordance with the official instructions, namely to waste any such able-bodied young-man who may have been an actual or potential Biafra soldier. I was lucky. Nwoguegbe saved me, but several of my mates from my community were not.  Cornellius Oguikpe, Michael Osuagwu, Efriam Chukwunoyerem, Echewodo Onwunali, all were murdered at the end of the war by the Nigerian soldiers. 

Yes, post-Biafra was not attended by any genuine efforts to seek reconciliation noreven to find out what led to the war. Rather, what we have witnessed is decades of vengeance, arrogance and conspiracy against Alaigbo and Ndigbo –

Yes these are on record -

• Immediate post-war punitive massacre,

• Dismissal of some officers on the losing side, reduction in rank of others

• Dismissal of civil servants.

• Secret Execution of some officers (Col. Onwuatuegwu, Prof, Kalu Ezera) 

• Abandoned property seizure of Igbo property.

• Punitive boundary adjustment.

• Closure of the Eastern Sea Port and Railway lines.

• Deliberate policy of encirclement of Alaigbo, inciting Igbo outside Igbo heartland to reject their Igbo identity.

• Deliberate policy of exclusion from the governance and power equation iNigeria..

• Deliberate policy of destroying Igbo businesses. 

• Continued massacre, lynching of Igbos in many places in the North

• Insensitivity to the plight of the IDPs of Igbo extraction who were initially the major targets of Boko Harm bombings and killings.

• No serious effort at post-war reconstruction and reconciliation

I strongly recommend to all those who care to understand how the Igbos view their predicament in the Federation to read the Petition of Ohanaeze ndigbo to the Human Rights Violations Investigating Committee of 1999. It is captioned

The Violations of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndigbo in the Federation of Nigeria (1966-1999).

President Obasanjo should speak to the nation now about why and how that initiative of his was aborted. A Truth and Reconciliation was a great idea, but just like all National Conference decisions meant to deal with the resolution of the injustices of the system. It was arrogantly dismissed and nothing happened.   

4. Biafra : A Collective Guilt

• Have we forgotten that Biafra was a collective guilt and that those who created the Nigerian Federation did so to satisfy their own agenda Theydesigned a local a local agenda for the same purpose?

• Have we forgotten the cause of Biafra and the war? Have we ever cometogether to examine why Biafra?

• Obasanjo’s Truth Commission and the Justice Oputa Commission were arrogantly dismissed and nothing happened.

• Who was the aggressor in that war?

5. Aborted Efforts to Solve the Nigerian Problem

What about several efforts to sit down and dispassionately examine the fate of the Federation and how to heal the wounds of the past.  Several aborted historical opportunities for peace and stability, or a genuine democratic system include -

- Ibadan Conference of Sept/Oct 1966

- Aburi Accord.

- Abiola’s election that wuld have set a precedent.

- 1994-5 Constitutional Conference and the 1995 Draft Constitution, the best Constitutional Draft in the history of Nigeria.

- Conferences organised by Obasanjos regime.

- President Jonathan’s 2014 Conference.

- Current Ferocious opposition to restructuring.

-  

6. Laying the Foundations for Genuine Reconciliation – The Biafra Initiative

The Birth of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) – A child of the post-war East Central State Youth Volunteer Services Corps (ECSYVSC) whose memo to General Gowon led to the establishment of the NYSC by the Federal Government.

I led the delegation, as Chairman of the ECSYVSC, that delivered the Memoradum to the Federal Government on the eve of the first post-war independence anniversary, precisely on30th September, 1970.

In response General Gowon had given Dr Ukpabi Asika’s Government £75,000 (Seventy-five thousand pounds) in appreciation of that historical initiative of the youth of Alaigbo. 

The great objective of that historical initiative as conceived by us, the youth of Alaigbo, was to forge a genuine instrument of national reconciliation and national integration.  

What has happened to the NYSC? Any credit to the initiators? Several attempts have been made by the chaps in the NYSC Foundation in Abuja to interview me in order to draw inspiration from the original mind that conceived the NYSC; each time they were discouraged from a follow-up.

It was the same way that a former Governor had advised the Federal Government to create an institution to house the Biafra scientist. The answer was no!, because doing so would give credit to the Biafrans.

7. The Road to Reconciliation. 

Not Restructuring but Renegotiation of the basis of the Nigerian Federation.

Nigeria is a multi-national Federation. The task is to agree on the terms for a form of political union among these nations and mini-nations.

Unless this is done, there would never be any stable Federation uniting all these peoples who are culturally, religiously and philosophically separate nations and mini-nations. 

Prof. Uzodinma Nwala

President 

Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF)

6

  

  NIGERIA: DECLINE IN DERIVATION FORMULA 1953-1999 

 It is important to note that between 1953 and 1959, under the British Colonial Government, oil revenue allocation was 100% to the region from which it was derived; but it was understandably reduced to 50% at independence, 1960-67. There was a further minor cut to 45% in 1967-75 during General Yakubu Gowon’s regime.

 General Murtala/Obasanjo in 1976-79 precipitated a drastic decline to 20%. Alhaji Shehu Shagari, in 1979-83, instituted more far-reaching reduction to the derivation formula to a mere 2%. General Muhammadu Buhari in 1984-85, perhaps, relying on North’s spurious contention that by virtue of its funding of oil exploration in Nigeria and its right of ownership of 72% of Nigeria’s land mass which entitles it to the entire continental shelf of Nigeria, thus giving the North right to Nigeria’s oil (on-shore and off-shore), cut derivation to its lowest ever, 1.5%. General Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1999) appeared to have harkened to Niger Delta agitations and “generously” doubled Buhari’s 1.5% to 3%. Generals Sanni Abacha/Abdulsalami Abubakar provided for a minimum of 13% in the 1999 Constitution; and General Obasanjo in his second coming in 1999, implimented that minimum and no more.¹¹    

It does appear that as soon as the uncivil war was over, Niger Delta got “rewarded” for their loyalty to the Federal government with frequent downward review of the derivation formula.

THE SHAME OF THE IGBO NATION & DISHONOUR TO THE MEMORY OF H.E .RT. HON. DR. NNAMDI AZIKIWE            

Early in Nov. 2016 the Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Ganduje directed his Attorney General and Nnolle prosequi was entered in court on the case of five Islamic zealots who murdered a 74-year old Igbo trader, Mrs. Bridget Agbahime from Imo State on spurious grounds of Blasphemy. The killers were thereupon discharged.That was after Alhaji Ganduje had earlier held meetings with Igbo leaders in Kano and the husband of victim, apologizing and assuring them that Justice shall be done to the victim.
The Nnolle prosequi entered amounted travesty of justice and Injustice to the victim, Ndigbo and Nigeria!

 In page 4 of Vanguard Newspaper of 30th March, 2017 it was reported that the same Kano State Governor, Alhaji Ganduje, had been nominated, first among three State Governors, for the 2016 Zik Prize for Leadership in Good Governance.

Earlier the husband of Bridget, Elder Agbahime, a Pastor, who started protesting the travesty, was threatened and forced to re-locate from Kano back to the South-East for fear for his own safety. I met the embittered Pastor Agbahime in Enugu after his relocation.

The question to ask by awarding Zik's Leadership to Alhaji Ganduje,mwho freed murderers is:
Are we now rewarding Governor Ganduje for collaboration, conspiracy and approval of the  extra-judicial murder of Bridget in Kano.?

In 1953, 150 Igbos were murdered in rioting in Kano for a political dispute between the Yoruba and the Hausa/Fulani.
In 1995 an Igbo trader, Mr, Gideon Akaluka, was abducted from so- called protective custody in a Police Station in Kano and extra-judicially beheaded by a Jihadists mob, claiming he committed blasphemy by defiling the Quran. A blood-chilling celebration of the license of impunity to the rest of Nigeria in their treatment of Igbo citizens was the confident action of the mob who hoisted the head of murdered Akaluka on a pole in a macabre street procession of triumph right in the presence of Law enforcement agents in Kano, during an orgy of days of Igbo racial bating and massacre. Akaluka's body was buried headless in his home state, Imo (abomination in Igbo trdition). Months after, Akaluka was cleared by the Police of any anti-Moslem act.

Several other riots in Kano had taken several thousand Igbo lives. It is not easy to forget over 3,000 slaughtered during the September/October pogrom of 1966.

Igbo elite has been very docile, not initiating and sustaining any lawful re-action to repeated  extra-judicial killings of Ndigbo in Nigeria.

 BUT DO THEY HVE TO ADD A BADGE  OF HONOUR FOR THOSE WHO WANTONLY KILL IGBO AND IN THE PROCESS  DISHONOUR ZIK BY AWARDING A PRIZE NAMED AFTER OUR HIGHLY REVERED AZIKIWE, TO THE MURDERERS?

Current Nigerian Igbo so-called Nigerian nationalists would give anything for relevance in Nigeria!
Prof. Anya O. Anya was known to be Chairman of Zik's Prize Council. Prof. Pat. Utomi is a current member.
                     
In Nri cosmology Umuada/Umuokkpu (kindred daughters) are feared and respected. Their brothers are bound by custom to protect them . If not, it is feared, should anything untoward happen to any of them from acts of neglect by their brother, they would wreck vengeance on the family from the spirit world.

 Bridget Agbahime was an elderly Igbo daughter. I have done my own by speaking out! The rest is up to anyone who knows about this award.

The Kano Governor must not receive Zik's Prize. That would dishonour Zik and humiliate the Igbo.

The 2016 Zik award should, instead,  be cancelled.                  

Okpala-Eze-Nri Emeka Onyesoh.
    31/3/17

TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF PROF. BEN EBELE OBUMSELU - NYIM OF OBA

Nyim of Obam, as I normally address you, we spoke last towards the end of February 2017 and you informed me that the end was around the corner and that you were ready, having lived life to its fullest. That was one of the bravest thing I have ever heard anyone say at the point of departure. 
But that is not anything new in your life whose path is strewn with exploits in courage. 

I heard and read of you from the 1950s but our paths never crossed until the late 1990s in Enugu whilst battling to set Ohanaeze Ndigbo on the path of restitution. 
The 2002/3 Ohanaeze Transition Committee, which I served as Secretary wound up with election of a new Ohanaeze national leadership at Owerri. Despite the manifold intrusion of Governors in the election process, we were glad you agreed to serve as Deputy President General and got elected as such.

In 2004, you demonstrated rectitude as a value inherent in you when you quit the Ohanaeze national executive committee as soon as other Ohanaeze leaders in the Committee  began to manipulate their 2-year tenure into four-year term. We all joined forces to fight the sit-tights until they surrendered and Dr. Dozie Ikedife was elected President General at Umuahia in 2007. 
From 2009 you always offered to join in the litigations against erring Ohanaeze leadership but you took my counsel to stay in the background and offer advice and support, as a more elderly elder.

On the Anambra State front, we again joined forces in setting up the Anambra Elders' Council in a bid to focalize government activities to service of the people. I served as the founding Secretary of the Anambra State Elders Forum; and when the Forum crystallized into Anambra State Elders Council, you consulted extensively, like the natural democrat you are, before accepting to serve as the Council Secretary.

I cannot forget the several nights we spent time worrying, researching and thinking out solutions to Igbo for-ever-multiplying problems in Nigeria. From these sessions, one thing became obvious to me. We were soul-brothers in identifying the issues and their solutions.

Consequently, I was over-joyed when in spite of your increasing health challenges, you accepted to preview my 450-page manuscript - "THE UNCIVIL WAR" - an effort to correctly depict the Nigerian Civil war (1967-70) for what it really was - an aspect of forever Jihad pursued by the Nigerian oligarchy; and the lapses on the part the Igbos to see the war for what it really was, both during the war and even 47 years after. I concluded in the manuscript that until Igbos repel the Jihad with the intellectual arsenal abundantly available among them, the Jihad, which is continuing in all of its eight forms, will consume the Igbos.

Nothing has ever gladdened my heart when on  September 22, 2016, you returned your verdict on the manuscript in the following over-flowing words of praise:

"Agbalanze, 'Okpu adirom nisi' (in recognition of the place of an NRI Prince in Igbo Cultural History). You have undertaken a great and monumental task, that of summing up a theme of Nigerian history and delivering a carefully considered final judgment after the lapse of fifty years. You have clearly done the research, assembled the evidence, unearthed hidden documents from unknown sources, reflected deeply about the issues.  Congratulations for a job well done. It is revealing, very informative and impressive."

Thereafter you descended into an analytical dissection of the work in nine numbered paragraphs, counseling on some excesses in language and speed. That manuscript was intended for release in 2016 but after reading your advice that "Scripts usually have to be revised several times even by the most experienced writers. . ." and that I should consider to "re-conceptualize, re-arrange and re-phrase," it became obvious to me that I had a lot of work to do in the three areas advised as above before going to press. I am still working on the script.

You never forgot to ask about that manuscript each time I talked to you since after your review. I got the message that you would have liked to read the published work before your departure, but the pressures of daily life and an effort to perfect the work as advised by, could not allow any hastening of publishing. I assure you that 2017 would get the work out with excerpts of your review in some prominent corner.

I need not delve into your life as an Oxford trained Doctor of Philosophy in English language. Your fellow Professors are in better position to evaluate you. I can only say you are one of the very bests.

You have written and published very many brilliant papers and manuscripts but the one that touches me most and, in my view, serves eternally Igbo future, is the publication of "The Report of the Justice G.C. M. Onyiuke Tribunal - MASSACRE OF NDIGBO IN 1966," which, in your own words, "dedicated to all victims of ethnic and political violence in Nigeria in 1966/67". 
I give you an undertaking:
After the commencement of the proceedings on remedies for IPOB (Independent People of Biafra) victims of extra-judicial killings and torture, which is in very advanced stage, I will mobilize, using your documentation and others from international writers, to seek remedy from the Nigerian authorities, in the appropriate international arena, for all victims of the Genocide, committed against the Igbo, 1966-1970. 
I will promise to dedicate that effort to the memory principles we both share on eradicating impunity for serious human rights violations, like Genocide.

"That lack of accountability encourages repetition of crimes, as perpetrators and others feel free to commit further offences without fear of punishment; that impunity must be fought as a matter of justice for the victims, as a deterrent to prevent new violations, and to uphold the rule of law and public trust in the justice system, including where there is a legacy of serious human rights violations."

Iconic principled Igbo leader, Scholar extra-ordinary, Wordsmith, Democrat, Philosopher King and NYIM of OBA, good Bye, till we meet to part no more.

Oba Agbalanze na NRI.
EZE NRIENWELANI II PALACE,
NRI, ANAMBRA STATE.

17th May 2017.




Sent from my iPad

SUBVERSION OF JUSTICE  APO SIX CONVICTION OF TWO CONSTABLES

  

Section 33(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guarantees life to all citizens and all within the abode of Nigeria in these words:

      “Every person has a right to life and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria.”

 Section 215(3) of the Constitution gives the Nigeria Police the responsibility for “maintenance and securing of public safety and public order…”

    Yet on 8th June 2005 Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) in charge of FCT Abuja, Danjuma Ibrahim and Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), Othman Abdusalam who was the  Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Garki Police Station along with other junior officers of the Nigeria Police, executed 6 young persons extra-judicially inAbuja  - the nation’s capital just because the DCP Danjuma  saw one his girl friends with five Igbo young boys.

The six persons extra-judicially murdered by the Police were five traders in Apo Mechanics’ village and a girlfriend, namely:

Chinedu Meniru, from Enugu State (Igbo) – 22years old; 

Paulinus Ogbonna, 23 years old from Isiagu LGA, Ebonyi State (Igbo); 

Ifeanyi Ozor, 23 years old from Ezeagu, Enugu State (Igbo); 

Ekene Isaac, 22 years old form Enugu State (Igbo); 

Anthony Nwokike, 22 years old from Awka in Anambra State (Igbo) & 

Augustina Arebum, 24 yaers old girl from Edo State (Bini) - girl friend to Mr. Ifeanyi Ozor. 

 

DCP Danjuma Ibrahim shot and killed three of the six victims and for the fourth victim,  his girl friend, he drove into her a six inches nail between her nostrils and when she refused to die, strangled her to death. 

        CSP Othman Abdulsalam shot and killed two. The offence to the nation is not only that these innocent victims were gruesomely murdered by the Nigerian Police, kitted and paid to protect them, but that the investigation and prosecution was deliberately bungled; & police witness impudently murdered in police custody in a cover-up effort, even when it was glaring that the police men extra-judicially executed the Apo Six. 

      The office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Judiciary seem to have added salt to injury by joining the Nigerian Police in their manifest lack of interest in bringing the murderous officers to justice. Twelve years after this assault on the psyche of Nigerians by Nigerian Police and despite indictment by a Government-appointed Judicial Commission of Inquiry, the kingpins of this outrage were left unpunished and two scapegoats were condemned for gruesome murders they, at best, merely assisted in executing. 

One of the killer police officers, who was indicted by the judicial commission of enquiry to have killed 2 of the victims, is still at large, having been conveniently released from a CID headquarters detention cell by his colleagues . The killer of 4 of the victims was throughout the trial out on unprecedented bail in a first degree murder indictment on very spurious grounds; and the 5thaccused also out on bail for merely being HIV positive, again in a criminal trial that carries capital punishment on conviction.

Details of the Police violations of Nigerians’ right to life and outrageous cover-ups are detailed as follows: 

On 25th of June 2005 the police officers involved, extra-judicially killed the six victims because they refused to offer gratification to them in cash or kind. 

They tried to cover up their nefarious act by branding the six, armed robbers; had guns planted on their dead bodies & had photographs taken to make them look like robbers. Thereafter, they proceeded to desecrate their dead bodies by burying them in a shallow mass grave without coffins. 

(ii)Without checking the information, the Commissioner of Police (CoP) FCT, Abuja, Mr. Emmanuel Adebayo, issued a statement branding the Apo Six armed robbers cut down whilst trying to escape. 

(iii)When the traders in Apo Mechanic Village protested the innocence of the Apo Six, Commissioner Police - Adebayo did not care to listen probably because the victims were mainly Igbo, 5th Class citizens. A demonstration and riot ensued on 9th June and 54 persons were detained.

(iv). The then Acting Inspector General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, when the public & press roused him from sleeping on duty, set up a police inquiry panel headed by then Deputy Inspector General of Police – Mr. Mike Okiro - a week after the hideous killings. Yet, the Acting Inspector General brazenly failed protect police officer- Mr. Anthony Idam - who witnessed the killing and was already revealing to the panel how the Apo Six were actually executed by the accused police officers. On 21st June, over 13 days after the killing and 5 days after the police panel started investigating the horrific murder, police officer, Anthony Idam, was killed by poisoning with pesticide in police detention. Why he was detained at all and had to die in Police custody is yet to be explained by the Police.  Autopsy report later confirmed the poisoning by pesticide. 

The public called for the  resignation or sack of Acting IG Mr.Sunday Ehindero, but nothing happened. Not even the officer in charge of the Station where police witness - Anthony Idam – was killed, was sacked or known to have been punished in any way.

(v) On 27th June 05, the Federal Government, under pressure by the press and public, inaugurated a judicial probe under Jusice Olasumbo Goodluck. The Commission found the Nigeria Police guilty of extra-judicial killings and outrageous & and monumental criminal cover-ups.

  Ten police officers, including CSP Othman Abdulsalam - the DPO who was alleged to have executed 2 of the Apo Six, were detained in CID head quarters. On 28th June CSP Othman Abdulsalam was reported to have conveniently escaped from the topmost floor Police cell where he was detained with others. Till date, he is at large despite the fact that he had notable guarantors, like all citizens who join the Police. He is indicted of the horrendous killing but the police claim they cannot find him till date!

 South East members of the House of Representative called for the resignation of Mr. Sunday Ehindero as Inspector General of Police. Nothing happened. Not even the Commissioner or AIG in charge of the CID was disciplined. Mr.Sunday Ehindero was rather confirmed as Inspector General of Police. It would be no surprise if Mr. Abdulsalam who is supposed to be at large since 28th June 2005, is till date, drawing his monthly emoluments.

(vi)  On 27th June, Mr. Chukwudi Chukwu - a photographer who had worked with the Police for over 7 years, made it public that he had a video recording of the police cover-up of the extra- judicial killing of the six young persons. By 6th July 05, the Inspector General of Police, Mr.Ehindero, issued a statement accepting police liability for the extra-judicial killings. 

It took President Obasanjo up to August 18 – 2months &ten days after the killing - to make a comment that “the culprits will pay.”  It took 12 years after that belated Presidential bravado, to convict two scapegoats, leaving out two kingpins of this crime against humanity.

          DCP Danjuma Ibrahim, on account of overwhelming evidence, had made a confessional statement admitting guilt. But lawyers sent by powerful forces in the Federal Government, made him to change his self confession. It was arranged & his confessional statement was stolen from Police file. A photo-copy of the statement was, however, reported to have been found.  The most horrendous aspect of this apparent Nollywood movie playing out in real life was when a Minister, (now Governor of State in the North and paying herdsmen to massacre Christians at will) in President Obasanjo’s government was publicly accused of arranging unusual & unprecedented bail for DCP Danjuma in a first degree murder case. DCP Danjuma, was until discharged of charges, was on bail & lived in the comfort of his ‘posh officers’ housing estate located in Wuse 2, Abuja’; the other four police officers charged with him were in police custody. In 2006 the trial Judge seemed to have enhanced the comedy in this criminal trial by granting bail to the 5th accused - Mr. Ezekiel Acheneje - on the flimsy ground that Mr. Acheneje is HIV positive & would infect other detainees if not granted bail. Yet Nigerians know that HIV-positive persons live with their families without infecting such members. But Justice Isaq was just being consistent in his anomalous rulings. If he could grant & sustain bail to DCP Danjuma Ibrahim on grounds of diabetes, ulcer & heart problem, why not to Mr. Acheneje for being HIV positive. Mr. Acheneje, got maximum mileage from his bail in a capital offence. He hired & fired counsels indiscriminately to forestall trial. As at last count, Mr. Achenje had fired six counsels. Why should an accused who may be condemned to capital punishment at the end of trial, hurry to his conviction to death?

  Mr.President Obasanjo left office and no police officer was ever reported to have been punished for this reign of impunity, violation of the most fundamental of Nigerians’ right by security agents, the flagrant cover-ups and pervasion of justice. 

           CSP Othman Abdusalam who shot two of the Apo Six, is still at large, yet he has a family and someone stood as guarantor for him before he joined the police. The killer of 4 of the 6 victims, DCP Danjuma Ibrahim, not detained for long and free on bail for the 12 years of the trial has been discharged for insufficient evidence. Mr.Sunday Ehindero who sat on top of this revolting killings & cover-ups as Inspector General of Police was confirmed and he served out his term and retired and is enjoying the fruits of his horrendous cover ups and bungling. Commissioner of Police FCT – Mr. Emmanuel Adebayo - who started the cover up may have been promoted Assistant Inspector of General of Police or even Deputy. The AIG or DIG in charge of Criminal Investigation Department of Police (CID) under whose watch CSP Othman Abdulsalam “escaped” from detention may have been promoted Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) or may have retired. 

          It is not enough that the family of the victims have been compensated with three million naira each and that the Inspector-General of Police has apologised to the families of the victims. 

Condemning PCs Ezekiel Echeneje and Baba Emmanuel who participated peripherally in the murders and allowing the two kingpins to get away with murder is MURDERING NIGERIA.

  It is the failure or lack of will to try & punish police officers who kill at will that has encouraged the Nigeria Police to continue to kill at will. The country is today paying dearly for the 2009 extra-judicial killing of Mallam Ustaz Mohammed Yesufu, the founder of Boko Haram in police custody.

As the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe rightly proposed and the Council of Europe accepted as part of its preamble to the Guidelines on Eradicating Impunity for Serious Human Rights Violations: 

“ Considering that a lack of accountability encourages repetition of crimes, as perpetrators and others feel free to commit further offences without fear of punishment; . . . impunity must be fought as a matter of justice for victims, as deterrent to prevent violations, and to uphold the rule of law and public trust in the justice system, including rampant circumstances in which there is a legacy of mass murder of unarmed civilians by security agencies.”

Allowing the Nigerian Police top hierarchy to get away with Extra-Judicial killings has forever haunted Nigeria with humongous price in loss of lives.

The 2009 extra-judicial killing of Mallam Ustaz Mohammed Yesufu, the founder of Boko Haram in police custody magnified the Boko Haram militancy into 21015 world’s deadliest terrorist organization by number of people killed in 2014.

In December 2012, Mr. Mohammed Adoki, Attorney General of the Federation confessed in a Human Rights Day lecture that the Nigerian Police had extra-judicially killed 7,195 people (2,500 detainees0 between 2009 and 2012, and the government of Nigeria did nothing about it.

In January 2013, 19 corpses were found floating in Ezu River, Anambra State, Separatist group IPOB alleged that the corpses were that of their members detained and executed by Police unit SARS at Awkuzu. Till date no effort has been made to prove or disprove that.

IPOB and Shiites indiscriminate killings by the military and Police has exceeded 1,500 to date. 

Cattle Fulani Herdsmen Islamic militants have between 2015 and today killed over 5,000 over Southern and Central Nigeria. No show of outrage by Nigerians.   

Above are few reported cases. There are thousands. Citizens are killed everyday by security agencies.

 It seems Nigeria would forever will live in military dictatorship branded democracy, since Nigerians are not willing to defend democracy.

 Poor Nigeriens victims of former ruler of Niger Republic, Hissen Habre, banded together against him and pursued him for 19 years until UN and  AU were forced to set up a special court in Senegal which tried Habre for crimes against Humanity and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Poor women whom  Habra raped whilst in office and families of victims he killed went to court and testified against him.

Nigerians are happy to be one of the noisiest nations on earth in religiosity (certainly not being religious) the same time it is the most corrupt ( the clerk, messenger, police, pastor, Imam, customs, police, market trader etc. included). 

In the midst of the Government taking and/or allowing our lives to be taken as it pleases our rulers and no one really challenges government, Nigerians are reported to be one of the happiest nations on earth. 

That means Nigerians are happy to be on of the poorest nations on earth with very low human development and very low life expectancy at birth.

Imbeciles have no business with being sad.

Alexis Tocqueville: In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.

REQUEST:

If the any one who knows the families of the six victims or their lawyer/lawyers would get in touch, they could be connected with international NGOs which would compel the Police and the federal Government of Nigeria to pay very high price for this crime against humanity and or complicity.

OkpalaEzeNri Emeka Onyesoh,

30/3/17