NIGERIA LET MY PEOPLE, THE IGBO, GO!

(76^th Birth Day Message of OkpalaEzeNRI Chukwuemeka Ifeanacho Onyesoh)

The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. He frees himself and shows the way to others. Freedom and slavery are mental states. (Mahatma Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)     

                                      

Igbo problem in Nigeria predates independence. First of all, while Igbo pathfinders, like The Right Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the pan-Africanist, were busy fighting for the emancipation of the black of the world from any form of colonialism and/or abridgement of fundamental human rights, Northern Nigeria leaders on the contrary were busy plotting how to enslave the Igbo and the rest of Nigeria. They were very open about their intention to conquer and dominate Nigeria.

 As far back as 1947, Hausa/Fulani leaders were already boasting of their intension to enslave Southern Nigeria including the Igbo people in the East. And the mechanism usually adopted was and is Jihad – a struggle in which the non-Moslem either got killed or converted into Islam and slavery.

Marginalisation of the Igbo in Nigeria, which the Ohanaeze Ndigbo and South-East Governors’ tout as the main grouse of the Igbo against Nigeria, is indeed less than 25% of Igbo grudge. It therefore appears that there is a world of disconnect between the Igbo man on the street and the position of South-East Governors and Ohanaeze Ndigbo. If the issue was merely marginalisation, restructuring would have been the solution. The most worrisome issue for the Igbo is indeed, genocide and the permanent threat to genocide. 

Life is the ultimate gift of the Almighty God to man. It is irreplaceable once taken, no matter the circumstances. All modern civilizations are in place, primarily, to protect and preserve life before any other thing. Land is God’s number two gift to mankind. Land boundaries, in municipal and international law, define the territorial limits of nation states, regions, cities, communities, estates and homes. Disputes over land and other property are civil matters, whereas issues involving threat to or extinguishing of life, are criminal offenses against society. Section 14.-(2) (b) of the extant Constitution of Nigeria provides that ‘the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government;”whereas Section 33.-(1) guarantees every citizen the right to life.  Section 34.-(1) protects the right to the dignity of the human person. Multi-lateral treaties of UN, AU and ECOWAS, which Nigeria ratified and therefore is subject to, guarantee these rights as fundamental to the existence of all humans in planet earth. The present government of President Buhari exists in denial in its role as protector and defender of all fundamental human rights and goes out of its way to abridge. At the appropriate time full documented incontrovertible disclosure will be made to the world.

It is the violation of these precious intrinsic and extrinsic God’s gifts of life to the Igbo by the oligarchy of Nigeria through the instrumentality of President Buhari’s government that engineers the agitation for separation from a republic which Igbo man on the street has come to regard as evil, indeed, an animal farm.

The drive to compel the Igbo to accept their domination and probably conversion to the oligarchy’s religion or face death has not been hidden by the Hausa-Fulani leaders, even before independence. 

Concluding his address to the first session of the Nigerian Legislative Council in Lagos in March 1947, Mallam Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who later became Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister, had declared:

“We shall demand our rights when the time is ripe. If the British quitted Nigeria now at this stage, the northern people would continue their uninterrupted conquest to the sea.” (Ref:Trevor Clark: A Right Honourable Gentleman, Hudhuda Publishing Co., Zaria, 1991, p.99). 

  In Jihads, the non-Moslem has a choice to submit and convert to Islam or get killed. Either way, the non-Moslem gets conquered and enslaved, if he survives. Sheik Othman Dan Fodio successfully concluded his Jihad in Hausa land in 1810, occupied Hausa land and set up the Sokoto Caliphate which till date, rules all Hausas of Nigeria. Mallam Abubakar’s 1947 address to the Legislative Council in Lagos was therefore a threat of Jihad on Southern Nigeria. Pursuit of ‘un-interrupted conquest to the sea’ was therefore Sir Abubakar’s dogma in the various forms of Jihadwhich he surreptitiously executed vigorously throughout his regime as Prime Minister of Nigeria, until he was killed on Jan 15, 1966. All the crises that dominated his tenure as Prime Minister of Nigeria, 1959-66, were engineered and executed with the mindset of his above 1947 Jihadist declaration. He was the Deputy Leader of the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC), the party that controlled the Federal government of Nigeria from independence till the demise of the First Republic on 15^th January 1966. In brazen efforts to completely emasculate and dominate Nigeria, he recklessly drove Nigeria from the 1962/63 Census fraud and crisis; the Tiv resistance/massacres of the 1960s; the Western Nigeria Crises – Coker’s Commission of enquiry, Police unprecedented violation of the immunity of Western Regional House of Assembly, the back-dating of the amendment of Western Nigeria Constitution in order to re-install the properly dismissed Western Nigeria Premier, Chief S L Akintola, which illegal back-dating Sir Abubakar justified on grounds of “expediency;”  the arrest, treasonable felony trial and conviction of Chief Obafemi Awolowo including the criminal machinations of the Judiciary through the shameful shenanigans of Chief Justice of Nigeria, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola; the decimation of the Nigerian army by an outrageous northernisation policy which included commissioning of northern cadets rejected and back-loaded to Nigeria as unqualified for training in Canada, as if they had been trained, and thus putting them, years ahead of those who actually completed the training (mainly southerners); the desperation in the outrageous rigging of the 1964 general elections despite all the desperate warnings of the sinecure President – HE Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe;  and the 1965 Western Nigeria regional election heist.

Sir Abubakar’s boss, party leader, and premier of the North, summarised Northern leaders’ morbid drive for the enslavement of all non-Moslems of Nigeria in his declaration which was published in the Lagos-based newspaper, now extinct, The Parrot of 12^thOctober 1960.

“The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate from our great grand- father, Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools, and the South as conquered territories and never allow them to have control of their future.”

 Alhaji Ahmadu Bello’s politics all his political life, simply displayed the atavistic ambition of one strong man with his lieutenants and hangers on, to turn the Nigerian Nation into a glorious dynastic fiefdom for himself and his family through the instrumentality of Islamic faith, a perverse ambition which came close to realisation and has so persuasive that even in 2017, under President Buhari, the spirit of his goal continues to haunt the Nigeria and misdirect its affairs fifty years after his death. His ghost is obvious in President Buhari’s fixation on tyrannical exercise of primitive power, blind and brutal; totally ignorant of enlightened ideas of open multi-ethnic rainbow unions of free peoples; and contemptuous of any democratic tenets and the rule of law. 

Massacres of unarmed pro-Biafra agitators for the right to self-determination, his complicity in the Cattle-Fulani herdsmen Islamic militancy and indiscriminate slaughter of Igbo people all over Nigeria are unabashed aspects of that common goal – Islamisation and domination of Nigeria.

 Indigenous People of Nigeria (IPOB) and THE Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) see through and understand it. Given the opportunity, President Buhari’s regime would wipe out all of the peoples of the South East and South-South zones and flood it with Hausa-Fulanis. Both South-East Governors and Ohanaeze Ndigbo do not get it and thus go on talking about marginalisation; and with cap in hand, go on pleading for restructuring. Or if they do, some other considerations, including the fear of the unabashed military dictatorship which Nigeria has been subjected to since 2015, distract their focus on the genocidal threat Nigeria poses to the survival/existence of the Igbo as a race in its present land space. They have not thought it wise, or better if they do, are afraid they would offend the Caliphate, to build memorials for millions of their fellow Igbo killed in the genocide that Nigeria has executed and continued to execute on the Igbo to date. 

Politicians are indeed prostitutes of conscience! I owe this apt characterisation of government and Ohanaeze leaders to Ronald Reagan’s( 40^th US President, 1981-1989) popular folksy quote from a 1977 address:

 “Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to understand that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”

President John Kennedy (35^th President of USA, 1961-1963), seems to have validated Reagan in his ruminations over initiating the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 (enacted by US Congress as a way of honouring him after his 1963 assassination), which he knew was popular and in the public interest but was unpopular with his fellow whites. 

“Politics is a jungle: torn between doing the right thing and staying in office – between local interest and the national interest – between the private good of the politician and the general good.” 

(Jilly Hunt: Ethics of Politics-Leaders, Raintree Publishers, Basingstoke Hampshire, UK, 2013, pp. 36 & 37).

As per world’s best practice, no meaningful restricting has ever been accepted by any majority in any polity in the world without, the minority and the oppressed first, having to agitate by act of open rebellion in armed conflict or persistent peaceful protest for independence - Ireland, Quebec province of Canada, Scotland, etc.

In the Nigeria peculiar case in which extremist religious flavour, no amount of restructuring would extinguish the carnivorous thirst of an Islamic fundamentalist oligarchy for blood of people they regard as the kafir’s (unbeliever) blood. As it is known world-wide, Islamic fundamentalists uphold and owe their first loyalty to Islamic Law - the Sharia - before any national Constitution.

Sharia, the moral code and religious law of Islam which guides all aspects of Muslim life including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings, deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics, and economics, as well as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer, every day etiquette and fasting. Sharia Law is derived primarily from precepts set forth in the Quranic verses (ayahs) and the examples set by the Islamic prophet in the Sunnah (Hadith – the sayings, practices, and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad). 

The introduction of Sharia is the long-standing goal for Islamic movements globally. Moderate Moslems, like Yoruba Moslems, are not so minded. World-wide, attempts to impose Sharia, particularly in multi-religious societies, is usually accompanied by controversy, violence, and even warfare. Nigeria is not in any way different.

It would therefore surprise no one who is conversant with Islamic law, why mainly Christian Igbo people are indiscriminately massacred by fundamentalist Hausa/ Fulanis and no one is held account by a government dominated by Islamists. Verses in the Quran and the Sunnah/Hadith issue following injunctions to all fundamentalist Moslems:

 Quran Surah (Chapter) 8.39: “And fight them (the unbeliever) until there is no more persecution (fitnah) (tumult or oppression), and religion should be only for Allah; . . .”

Surah 2: 191-193: “And kill them (the unbeliever) wherever you find them and turn them out from where they have turned you out.”

Hadith Vol. 9:50: “No Muslim should be killed for killing a kafir.” 

Sharia Law, a product of fundamentalist Islamic injunctions, quite often imprecise and leaving a lot of discretions to ulamas that are frequently not so well grounded in Civil and Common Laws (or if they are, put Quranic injunctions over any other Law), is antithetical to Civil and Common Laws; and therefore inconsistent with secular democracy. In most secular democracies of the world, particularly multi-religious federations, Sharia has proved unmanageable with Common Law. Controversies in managing the two have resulted in Muslims being involved in over 90% of all the wars/violence in the today’s world.  

 Riots and Massacres of Igbo People of Nigeria:

 In Nigeria ethnic massacres directed at forcing other ethnic groups, the Igbo in particular, to accept religious/political viewpoints of the oligarchy, found first expression in the Jos riots of 1945 in which over 200 Igbos were slaughtered and no one was held accountable. 

The licence of reward to the northern hordes for killing the Igbo was certified in 1959, when Mallam Inua Wada was appointed Federal Minister of Works in the 1959-1966 federal government of Sir Abubakar. Inua Wada was the Kano Organising Secretary of Northern People’s Congress (NPC – the political party which controlled both the Northern Regional government and the Federal Government of Nigeria) who admitted he organised the Kano riot of 1953 in which 150 Igbo people were massacred for a political quarrel between the Hausa/Fulani and the Yoruba, over the motion for early independence for Nigeria, which was moved in the Nigeria’s Legislative Council, the same year, by Chief Anthony Enahoro.

One unpunished act of impunity breeds many. Consequently other unpunished massacres followed to date, in the interminable sequence of riots in northern Nigeria: 

1966 May riots (3,000 Igbo dead); Sept/Oct. 1966 (27,939 Igbo deaths); Sept. /Oct. 1967Asaba Massacre (4,665 deaths); 1967-70 Genocide branded Civil War (3.5 million dead, including 2million children, women, the old and infirmed); and multiplicities of riots in Kano 1980 and 1982; Buluta, Maiduguri 1982; Yola 1984; Gombe 1985; Kaduna March 1987; Zaru, May 1988; Ahmadu Bello University, 1988; Bauchi, 1992; June 12, 1993 crisis; 1994, Kano Beheading of Gideon Akaluka; 1999, Katsina Riots; 2000, Sharia riots in Kaduna and Zamfara (2,000 to 5,000 deaths); 2001, 7^th to 17^th September, Jos riots (500 to 5,000 deaths); 2002, November 22 Miss World Riots, Kaduna (approximate deaths 200; 2004 Feb. to May - Massacre in Yelwa, Shandam and Kano massacres (approximate deaths – 975); 2005, June 8, Apo Six Killing of 5 Igbo boys and their Bini girl friend by highly placed Hausa/Fulani Police officers; 2006, 18^th February, Danish Cartoon Crisis in Maiduguri (over 50 deaths); 2008, November 28 to29, Jos Local Government election riots (500 deaths, [120 Igbo deaths]); 2009 July, Boko Haram Uprising in Maiduguri, Bauchi, Potiskum and Wudi (over 1,000 deaths); 2010 Jos massacre (over 992 deaths mainly Christians including the Igbo); 2011 December Mandalla bombing of a Catholic Church ( 41dead and 73 injured); 2012, Jan. 20, Kano – Boko Haram attacks of Churches and Christian businesses – over 185 dead; 2015-17, Shooting of unarmed pro-Biafra Agitators for the Right to Self-Determination (including September invasion of Nnamdi Kanu’s home in Umuahia - over 400 dead, 400 terminally wounded and thousands arrested and detained indefinitely in undisclosed locations without charge); and 2015 to date several hundred killed, women raped, farms and homes overrun and/or violated in Igbo ancestral homeland in the South- East in which property worth millions of US Dollars were destroyed; 2016, April: Kano - the gruesome murder of Mrs. Janet Agbahime and the decline of prosecution by Kano State Governor, and eventual discharge of five accused; plus various indiscriminate killings of Igbo people even in the nation’s capital, Abuja.

 Between 2015 and 2017 in the nation’s capital, Abuja:

 “On September 23, 2015, Arinze Chukwem from Enugu State was stabbed 47 times in day time before public view and he died on the spot by a wild group of Hausa/Fulani and the police has done nothing about the known murderers.

In September 2015, Maduabuchi Ezenwa, from Imo State was lynched following an argument with an Hausa trader.

 On March 25, 2016, Ikechukwu Ogbo from Enugu State after barbing entered a “keke” (motorised tricycle) and paid money and asked for balance that was refused. He was accused of being a“barawo” (thief) and was lynched. Police claimed it was a mob action.

On November 26, Ndubisi Ogbuka from Abia State was beheaded in his farm in Abuja; his head was not found until two weeks later.

 In May this year (2017), a young man pressed to urinate, urinated in a gutter close to a mosque in an area in Abuja called Gwagwa. He was lynched and nobody has been arrested or prosecuted.”

(Chief Nnia Nwodo, President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo -page 42 of Vanguard newspaper of Tuesday, June 13, 2017).

What kind of national (except Nigeria) would allow constituents to be so indiscriminately murdered in its capital without question? If Igbo people are so easily killed in the federal capital, it is easy to imagine what happens to them in the remote corners and centres of the 12 Islamic Republics of the North of Nigeria!

Modern Day Slavery is an accepted practice of Islamic fundamentalists among who infant marriage is also accepted norm. The present extension of this modern day slavery to Igbo people, among whom it anathema, is repugnant to Igbo values.

 The abduction and forced conversion to Islam, of 14-year old Ifesinachi Ani, from Umunachi Ngene, Amaechi, Awkunanaw, Enugu State, SS-2 female student of Government Secondary School, Apo Settlement, in Abuja on April 2, 2016, for 6 months until she was rescued; and Lucy Ejeh, 15-year old female student of Senior Secondary School One in Government Secondary School, Talata, Mafara, Zamfara State on October 31, 2009 and the refusal of the Law enforcement agencies to arrest, detain and arraign the known suspects exposes how much the Constitution of Nigeria is trampled upon in the 12 ‘Islamic Republics of Nigeria’, otherwise still branded states of Nigeria majorly for the convenience of economic benefits derivable from remaining Nigeria. Ifesinachi was lucky to have been identified and freed, though defiled, after 6 months in captivity, against her wish and that of her parents, following the commotion that followed Ese Oruru’s abduction to Kano from Yenegoa. To date, Miss Ejeh has been in over 5-year captivity despite her captors having been reported to relevant authorities. Ifeoma Odugisi, another 14-year old Igbo student from Ebonyi state, captured on September 14, 2014 by one identified Alhaji Shehu Abdullahi in Zaria, is still a vassal of her abductor despite her parents’ petitions to Zaria High Court 3. Charity Uzoechina (now Aisha), daughter of a pastor of Redeemed Church of God from Anambra State, and then a student of the Federal Polytechnic, Bida, since 2013 when she was kidnapped from the College, has been condemned to a life as a harem woman of an Emir in Niger State, isolated from her family.

Irreconcilable Differences between the Fulanis and the Igbo:

Sir Ahmadu Bello’s oft-quoted riposte with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in a conversation in the 1950s, during which Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the incredible optimist on the future of Nigeria and indeed Africa, had urged the Sarduana (Sultan of Sokoto’s “leader of war – Jihad”), to join him in building a new Nigeria by forgetting the differences between the Igbo and the Fulani, highlights the gulf between the Igbo and the Fulani. Sir Ahmadu Bello’s blunt response is generally noted as witty and apt. It said more than what Dr. Azikiwe perhaps understood in the Sarduna’s School teacher’s simple language, stripped of any sophistry.

 “No, we cannot forget our differences. We will rather recognize them. I am a Moslem. You are a Christian. I am Fulani. You are Igbo. It is only in recognizing these differences that we can manage being together.” 

Dr. Azikiwe ignored that wise advice from the Sultan’s Chief Jihadist and since then to date, the Igbo, and indeed Nigeria, has paying for daring to constitute a country whose ethnic constituents share no values, worse still, whose contradictory values are ideological based extremities of faith.  

Most of these differences are indeed unbridgeable, and if Dr. Azikiwe had rightly understood Sir Ahmadu Bello, he would have appreciated Bello’s earlier insistence that both deserve to belong to separate entities, to peacefully co-exist, perhaps as neighbours, like Pakistan separated from India at independence in 1947.

The differences between the Igbo and the Fulani are so inherently profound not to have been overlooked: 

1. Religion is a personal issue among the Igbo; unlike with the Fulani among whom religion is everything. In Islam change of faith is Apostacy, and in Islamic states, punishable with death.
2. With the Igbo, God’s vengeance is His, whereas the Fulanis kill for God.
3. Hospitality to guests and strangers is sacrosanct to the Igbos; and to hurt any is anathema. To the Fulanis, strangers, particularly unbelievers, are indeed expendable and must be isolated in their own enclaves from the word go, perhaps for easy preying.                .
4. Leadership among the Igbo is accountable to the people; whereas among the Fulanis, it is conferred by Allah and therefore not accountable to any human.
5. To the Igbo the dignity of every human is respected; whereas to the Fulani, the unbeliever has not as much as a right to life, not to talk about decency of his person.
6. There is no limit to human aspiration among the Igbo. Among the Fulanis, Allah ordains everyone’s future.
7. Oppression is repugnant to Igbo values; whereas feudalism among the Fulanis thrives on, and is anchored on oppression.
8. The Igbo would rather self-immolate for freedom and are therefore freedom fighters, even for others. These values found expression in the 1803 Igbo landing episode of Igbo slaves at Dunbar Creek, St. Simons Island, Georgia, USA; the liberation of Haiti and Dominican Republic by Igbo slaves and ex-slaves; the anti-slavery efforts of Igbo ex-slaves like Olaudah Equiano and Edward Wilmot Blyden; the fight for independence of Nigeria and other African countries by Igbo pan-Africanist Igbo leaders like Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe; and the declaration of Biafra and the unarmed fight to protect the young republic   The Fulanis are typically enslavers – the Fulani wars by Sheik Othman Dan Fodio and the ongoing struggle to totally Islamise and enslave Nigeria.  Dominion and enslavement are the fundamental basis of Jihad.
9. Igbo people are modernisation and development agents.  As duly confessed in 2000 by Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, now Emir of Kano, “The Fulbes (Fulanis) are present-day zealots, not for “modernisation,” but for the “Islamisation” of Nigeria and West Africa.” This explains why the oligarchy of Nigeria is sponsoring the waste of thousands of lives and billions of US Dollars worth in property destroyed in support of anachronistic and out-moded pastoralism in cattle breeding, in spite of Saudi Arabia, the citadel of Islam and Arabism, having found pastoralism wasteful and uneconomic and therefore, replaced it with modern day hi-tech dairy farming; and thus became one of the biggest source of dairy products in the Middle East. It is estimated that over 99% of Saudi Arabia’s land mass of 2.149 million sq. kilometres (829,195 sq. miles) is desert. STPD.
10. Value on Life: Igbo people traditionally and even before Christianity, place so much value on life that the traditional separation of the dead from the living, involves so much elongated and overburdened process, regardless of status of the individual. To the Fulani, the life of the unbeliever is as expendable as the lives of rodents. Their attitude to the dead among themselves appears to the Igbo very dismissive. The Fulanis also indiscriminately kill themselves to settle common disputes. 
11.  Igbo people attach so much value to their daughters that the spirit of dead married ones used to be represented in family altars (of traditional worship) with the cylindrically shaped dumb-bells (okponsi). The body of married daughters also used to be taken back to their fathers home for proper internment. These days of Christianity, livestock is given in place of the body, for the performance of final rites of such daughters. Once modern day Igbo realised that mothers were advancement agents for their children’s development they extended that same value they attach to their daughters to their wives. That has driven monogamous marriages into the culture of the present day Igbo. In contradistinction, the Fulanis are proud with polygamy and the very extreme limits which Islam has imposed on the rights of women, even in open violation of basic fundamental human rights.
    The Fulanis do not seem satisfied with keeping a lid on their women only. They have now crossed the Igbo red line by abducting Igbo under-aged girls, raping them and forcing them to conversion to Islam and marriage, without parental consent. To the Igbo, the indiscriminate raping of Igbo women found alone in farms and even homes by Cattle Fulani herdsmen militants is yet another outrage.

Conclusion:

Upholding those core values and resistance to any violation are in the Igbo DNA and cannot be subdued or wished away. Other ethnic nationalities of Nigeria might have resolved to live with what the Igbo consider intolerable and repugnant to their values. They might have devised ways and means of accommodation of what the Igbo inherently regard as the over-bearing attitude of the Fulanis; and might even have eaten their humble pie. But, not the Igbo!  Igbo elders who fought and lost the civil war and the political cum business elite Igbo, might tolerate dominion, enslavement and Islamisation out of expediency; but the wandering spirit of generations of the Igbo born after the civil war and yet to be born, will rise against dominion and tyranny. It is in-born in the Igbo to strive to unshackle the fetters of tyranny. The political and business elite constitute less that 15% of Igbo population. 85% population of the Igbo would always rise against tyranny, oppression, inequity and injustice.  

 Other Nigerians might find it difficult to understand the complexities of the Igbo spirit and have offhandedly dismissed it as foolishness and/or lack of diplomacy.

The unfortunate revolting attitude of Lagos elite on Igbo quest for freedom is 100% shown in the editorial opinion of Tuesday, September 19, 2017 edition of Vanguard newspaper (my most favourite newspaper) in which the paper equated Igbo quest for separation to the threat to commit genocide involved in the AREWA Quit Notice to over 11 million Igbo people who live in the North.

“. . . We agree that the calls for secession on one hand, and quit notices to specified ethnic groups to leave the Federal Republic of Nigeria, accompanied with hate songs the other, went way overboard on the scale of free speech.”

Vanguard newspaper, like most Lagos elite was deceiving itself for the quit notice on a group, particularly people on whom the same predators had before executed genocide upon, constitutes threat to commit genocide, an international crime punishable under genocide convention; whereas a call for secession under the right for self determination is protected by Nigerian law, AU and UN multi-lateral treaties, which Nigeria is bound to. If Vanguard newspaper failed to see the difference, I believe it is its choice, just like most Nigerians who have neither experienced genocide nor total exclusion from Nigerians.

The Nigerian State, no doubt, reasons the same way with Vanguard newspaper editorial, when Nigeria awarded an open licence to Cattle Fulani herdsmen Islamic militants to kill, maim, rape, destroy and over-run farms and homes, the same time it wishes to regulate the airing of hate speeches from victims of above atrocities on the culprits of those atrocities. What an animal farm Nigeria has turned into under President Buhari?   

 Lions never father pussy cats. Igbo people owe no apology to above type of hare-brained elite. And merely would seek their understanding that every group is entitled to express values implanted in them by God, the Creator. Lions and tigers are never kept in one cage. Every zoo in the world keeps them in separate cage mesh/fence or enclosure. Put in one cage would generate perpetual and permanent stress between with the two, until one wipes out the less over-bearing one. In the circumstances, the Fulanis are more overbearing and the present circumstances pose a grave of extinction of the Igbo race.

Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) are already at the struggle howsoever disorderly. More groups are bound to spring up and as they sprout, they get more idealistically sophisticated. There will never be an end to the agitation for freedom and liberty among the Igbo, until such freedoms are accomplished.

 Unfortunately, the oligarchy historically in turn is never known to have given up on its quest for dominion and tyranny. They have now corruptly branded agitation for the right to self determination, terrorism and proscribed it after murdering hundreds at Umuahia and Aba. Nigerian courts and courts beyond the shores of Nigeria will determine in course of time whether unarmed rights agitators can rightly be proclaimed terrorists and banned by the same government which has by default licensed Cattle Fulani Islamic militants and sometimes assisted them in murdering thousands of Nigerians and destroying property worth billion US Dollars annually.

 Meanwhile investigators have recovered over 88 corpses of Igbo youths from in and around Mr. Nnamdi Kanu’s residence in Afara, Umuahia, Abia State reportedly executed by Nigerian security agencies in the night of 14^th Sept 2017, when the invaded Mr. Kanu’s village home. The agents reportedly removed 35 dead bodies. Investigators hope to recover more decomposing bodies from combing the bushes for those youths who dropped dead as they ran to escape the Nigerian Army’s killing machine. Information on Aba massacre the same night of 14^th September is being compiled by field investigators.

It is indeed one of the most sadistic ironies of contradiction that five days after the Nigerian Army converged on sleeping Igbo families in Aba and Umuahia and mowed down with exploding bullets, hundreds of family members including pregnant women, nursing mothers and babies at the ungodly hour of 03.00am, the Commander-in-Chief of that same Army of infamy, President Muhammadu Buhari, stood unfazed before the United Nations General Assembly and condemned, in his own very strong words, “the horrendous suffering caused by what, from all indications is a state-backed programme of brutal depopulation of the Rohingya inhabited areas in Myanmar on the basis of ethnicity and religion.” One is left to wonder where the difference lies between the brutalities Nigerian troops, under President Buhari command, have been dishing out to ethnic Igbo Christians of the South-East of Nigeria since he took power in May 2015 and the faith of ethnic Rohingya Moslems of Myanmar. Could it be that the President of Nigeria, being a fundamentalist Moslem shares the agony and pains of fellow Moslems of Myanmar, but least cares about the horrors being dished out to ethnic Igbo Christians of Nigeria?      

 Nigeria under the dominating influence of the Fulanis, indeed will never know peace until the wandering spirits of Igbo people massacred by the Nigerian oligarchy’s machinations are rested by Igbo people being granted the liberty to mind their own affairs internally and internationally.

 The contradictions in Nigeria are too obvious for even the blind to perceive. When Biafra was declared in 1967, all Nigerians conspired and joined hands in crushing the unarmed Republic. In 1999/2000, twelve states of northern Nigeria revolted against the Constitution of the Federation and proclaimed 12 Islamic Republics by pledging their first loyalty to Shariah Law before the Constitution of Nigeria, if at all. Gullible Nigerians declared the revolt as political Sharia which would fizzle out in time, as if Sharia has ever been anything other than the political code of Islam. The government of Nigeria has not found it fit to defend the Constitution of Nigeria in those 12 Islamic Republics inside Nigeria. Nigeria therefore operates two systems of Laws and citizenship rights in order to accommodate the 12 Islamic Republics – one group (the oligarchy) above the Law, except Sharia Law; and the rest including the Igbo, under the Constitution and Common Law.

And therefore for merely expressing dissatisfaction with the Nigerian fraudulent system and inviting Nigeria to verify the wish of the Igbos to leave the duplicitous Republic of Nigeria, the Federal Government of Nigeria proclaimed the agitators for rights guaranteed by Nigeria’s Laws and international Laws, as terrorists. The government even went beyond the agitators for an omnibus clause which includes “any person or group of persons from participating in any manner whatsoever in any form of activities involving or concerning the prosecution of the collective intention or otherwise of IPOB under any other name of platform called or described. . .” This is kind of omnibus decrees the Nigerian Army used to issue in the dark days of military rule, which is now being resurrected under General Buhari’s civilian dictatorship. 

Yet the same Nigeria which has killed and maimed thousands of the unarmed pro-Biafra agitators, who they now brand terrorists, has in obvious complicity, left the world’s 4^th ranked terrorist organisation, by the high number of Nigerians they kill annually, to range freely all over Nigeria killing indiscriminately and committing various atrocities, thus causing damages to property estimated with estimated value of several billions of US Dollars every year.

No wonder when representatives of the 12 Islamic Republics in Nigeria felt their cash cow (Nigeria) threatened by rights agitation of IPOB and issued a threat of genocide, their ‘Quit Notice’ of 6^thJune 2017, on over 11 million Igbo people living in Northern Nigeria, the Federal Government of Nigeria buckled under by failing to arrest and charge the issuers of that genocidal threat and therefore became complicit to that plot to commit Genocide. The same government has now come out in the open and shamelessly endorsed AREWA Youths’ branding of unarmed rights Agitators as terrorists. The government of Nigeria has never been brought so low in bigotry! The Federal government of Nigeria has descended to being directed and run by AREWA Youths – a genocidal group!!

It is worthy of note that the case for independence of Igbo people under their own sovereignty meets all parameters of world’s best practices and international law namely:

1. The Igbo are denied representation by a UN member State’s government,  are systematically disenfranchised by the government of the state they live in by virtue of grave under representation Igbo in both the structure, composition and membership of Nigeria’s government;
2. Igbo people have suffered injustices - worst of all genocide, deportation of 67 Igbo traders from Lagos to Onitsha and its arrogant justification by Lagos State Governor, Alhaji Babatunde Fashola and the indiscriminate destruction of Igbo traders’ wares by present Lagos State, Governor Akinwumi Ambode, in stores built by the traders according to government-approved plans -  for which secession is the appropriate remedy of last resort – “Remedial Rights Only Theory”;
3.  Igbo people by virtual unanimity have chosen a separate state; and
4.  The democratic theory against majority rule justifies session if the existing political entity has allowed secession of any other group within its territory - the Bakassi Peninsular and the 12 Islamic Republics in Northern Nigeria. (For more details refer to my recent work on Self Determination expected shortly in the market).

Finally, Nigeria is a failed State. By its structure configuration, it is incapable of electing competent persons to manage the affairs of its over 180 million people with conflicting values, bunched together. The country needs to be broken into smaller units to match the level of supine political management available in some of the zones. Being the biggest country in Africa, which in a period of over 50 years, is unable to add value to human development of its peoples despite unlimited resources, is not a feat. It is rather a curse to humanity.

APPEAL: My solemn appeal to Nigeria is to let my people, the Igbo, go.

 In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve. Having chosen Nigeria as it is, Nigerians should release the freedom-seeking Igbo people from this bondage other Nigerians see nothing wrong with. Restructuring as the rest of Southern and North-Central Nigeria clamours for, obviously will not change the oligarchy’s domineering attitude which is inconsistent with Igbo values.

   Tyranny and enslavement are antithetical to the Igbo spirit of freedom and liberty which would forever destabilise the Nigerian oligarchy’s enclave.

 It is in the best interest of peace for every Nigerian to let the Igbo to go!

 

OkpalaEzeNri Chukwuemeka I. Onyesoh

Enugu,

REFERENDUM, SELF DETERMINATION AND THE QUEST FOR BIAFRA

Referendum in Politics Defined:
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to vote on a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new law. In some countries it is synonymous with a plebiscite or a vote on a ballot question.
Some definitions of 'plebiscite' suggest that it is a type of vote to change the constitution or government of a country.
The legal basis for referendums can be divided into the three categories: international law, constitutional law and local autonomy law.
In a broader sense, however, elections are also a kind of referendum. The difference is that they are held to elect people while referendums are held to decide on issues.
Referendum laws are domestic; their status is below that of constitutional laws and may not be the legal basis for direct people power, unless so provided by existing Law. At best, referendum laws are legal regulations for implementation procedures.
First, the legal basis for referendums involving international issues such as a country's sovereignty, independence or the ceding of territory, sometimes also called "plebiscites," comes from international law. In such a case it becomes a supra-constitutional right. Sometimes a country has not even been established when this right is exercised. Certainly, in such situations, one does not need to rely on domestic legislation or incorporation of the right to referendums into a constitution.
The right to self-determination is a basic supra-legal human right. Its scope includes sovereignty, the freedom to decide on political structures and independence in terms of economic resources and so forth. Referendums are one of the concrete ways to express this right.

How Does Referendum Work?
Countries define it differently depending on the purpose for which it is meant and the existing legal framework.
[1] Australia for example, defines 'referendum' as a vote to change the constitution, and 'plebiscite' as a vote that does not affect the constitution.
[2] In Ireland, the vote to adopt its constitution was called a "plebiscite", but a subsequent vote to amend the constitution was called a 'referendum', and so is a poll of the electorate on a non-constitutional bill.
 [3] In Canada in the Quebec independence vote, the limits of referendum is defined by a federal law. The Quebec's Referendum Act was enacted by the Canadian National Assembly prior to the referendum of 1980.
The first referendum, held the same year, 1980, sought a mandate for the provincial government to negotiate "sovereignty-association" with the federal government of Canada. The vote was however decisively defeated by Quebecers in the province.
In the second referendum of 1995, also subject to the same1980 Referendum Act, the question put to vote was worded as follows:

"Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?"
The "Yes" votes lost by a margin which was less than the 1980 margin; yet it was a loss and the "No" votes retained Quebec province in Canada.
It must be noted that the Canadian Constitution provides for secession, which the Nigerian Constitution doesn't.
The agitation for the independence of Quebec province was led by a provincial political party - Parti Québécois, which also controlled the provincial government of Quebec.

[4] The Scottish Vote in United Kingdom: In the UK, there was no law providing for the separation of Scotland, or a referendum to ascertain Scottish opinion as to whether to secede or not. Yet once it was established that it is the popular wish of the Scottish people, as expressed by a majority of votes in the Scottish Parliament in the Holyrood area of Scottish capital city, Edinburgh; and in a bid to accord the Scots their right to self determination, the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Government negotiated and arrived at an agreement termed " the Edinburgh Agreement," ratified on 15th October 2012 “to provide a clear legal basis for the holding of the Scottish independence referendum in the year 2014." The agreement was signed by the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Scotland, on UK side; and the Scottish First Minister and Deputy First Minister, on the Scottish side.
An Order in Council was therefore proposed by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron and approved by the British Government on 12th February 2013, granting constitutional legitimacy to the referendum held on September 18, 2014. The Scottish vote ended with 53.30% rejection of independence, with only 44.70% "Yes" votes.
The Scottish National Party which controlled the provincial government of Scotland, based in Edinburgh, led the quest for Scottish independence.
[5]  California: The Quest for Self-Determination: There have been more than 200 unsuccessful proposals for the secession of California from USA, over the state’s 165-year history.
 For California to secede from USA, a stated percentage of Californian eligible voters supporting a petition for independence, puts the motion for independence on the State ballot. Thereafter an independence plebiscite would be needed to repeal Article III, Section 1 of the California Constitution which states that California is “an inseparable part of the U.S.” That done, a process to amend the US Constitution commences either by no.1 or no. 2 procedure, below.
(i). A member of the California federal delegation to US Congress would propose an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowing the State of California to withdraw from the Union. The Amendment would have to be approved by 2/3 of both chambers of the Congress - the House of Representatives and the Senate. If the Amendment passed, it would be sent to the fifty state legislatures to be considered (to satisfy the "consent of the states" requirement in Texas v. White US Supreme Court judgement). It would need to be accepted by at least 38 of the 50 state legislatures to be adopted.
(ii) California could call for a convention of the states and the Amendment granting California its independence would have to be approved by 2/3 of the delegates to this convention. If it passed, the Amendment would be sent to the fifty state legislatures to be considered and 38 of the 50 states would have to approve the measure in order for it to be adopted.

[6] Referendum Supervised by United Nations
      In special circumstances as in Nigeria, where a dominant faction, using the coercive forces of State in brutalizing a defined group of people which is not necessarily an ethnic group, but meet in all respects, the "Remedial Rights Only" standards for separation; and is overwhelmingly agreed on independence; the UN Security Council can influence the government of such a country to agree to a UN-supervised referendum. This invariably happens where the State authorities, despite glaring justification for referendum,  refuses to verify the popularity of agitation for independence in a designated area.

In Nigeria of today, apart from street demonstrations which is a vital integral part of the process, there is no other evidence that the agitators for independence have meaningfully demanded referendum from UN and the power blocks in the UN Security Council. "Meaningfully" means sustained efforts in litigation, publicity, lobbying and diplomacy; not just a one-off  submission of petitions to UN bodies. Lobbyists, legal experts in international law and publicists must be permanently engaged to generate the kind of pressure, through world leaders, that can force a change of mind in the reluctant fundamentalist government of Nigeria, to allow agitators for independence  to self- determine their right to their political, social and economic affairs.

Some Examples of UN- supervised or conducted Referendum:

Namibia: In 1989 the UN, with the consent of  South Africa organized the referendum of independence of Namibia from its UN trustee, South Africa, after years of guerrilla warfare.
South Sudan:The referendum was called for by the UN & AU-induced 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which ended more than 20 years of war. The Sudanese authorities were responsible for the referendum process.
East Timor: An independence referendum was held in East Timor on 30 August 1999. The referendum's origins lay with the request made by the President of Indonesia, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 27 January 1999, for the United Nations to hold a referendum, whereby the Indonesian province of East Timor would be given choice of either greater autonomy within Indonesia or independence.

THE QUEST FOR BIAFRA AND INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENTS
Beyond the state of nature in which every man was law unto himself, is the organized society which is regulated by laws. Even under the Divine Rights of Kings, which preceded constitutional democracies, monarchs still made laws to regulate society, the only difference being that the king varied the law as it pleased his whims and caprices. This still happens in such absolute monarchies as in Saudi Arabian Theocracy.
In constitutional democracies, the Constitution is the organic Law under which all other laws operate. Under the Constitution is Common Law - a body of laws as adopted and modified separately by the government, and in respect of Nigeria, the different states of the  federation and the federal government, subordinated to the various multi-lateral treaties the Nigerian state ratified and/or domesticated.
Thus every activity in any organized society is regulated by Laws.
In the five countries discussed above (Australia, Ireland, Canada, Scotland and USA), there are set out laws on how the people's elected representatives in government at regional and national levels, execute referendums within laws regulating the referendum in question.
In the case of Biafra, none of the agitators for Biafra is either a government; or has elected representatives in any group in government or in a political party. None of the prominent agitating groups is even a registered non-governmental organization (NGO). Thus whereas it is within the competence of the agitators and Nigerian Laws, to campaign for the right to self determination of Igbos, it is not within their ambit to enforce such right. The only option they have is by physical force which they do not have, which I reject and the world also does not accept.
In the five cases referred to above, regional politicians operating through regional parties or national parties, engineered their independence movements.
In Nigeria, by the implications of Sections 221 to 228 of the 1999 Constitution , no regional party can be registered. The only lawful option left for agitators for regional independence is therefore for agitating groups to maneuver themselves into control of existing political parties; or to endorse candidates in parties controlled by citizens of that area and who  have given firm undertakings to support the agitation for regional independence. That way they can influence the State Assemblies, State Houses, Representatives and Senators of the states they have mapped out as the territorial limits of the new nation, to support resolutions favorable to the movement.
AGITATOR'S BOYCOTT OF ELECTIONS IS AGITATION FOR BIAFRA IN DENIAL
Consequently, the present posture of agitators threatening that elections will not hold or if they hold in Anambra State or any of designated Biafraland, would be boycotted by the agitators unless a referendum takes place,  is therefore tantamount to AGITATION FOR BIAFRA IN DENIAL. It is anti-Biafra and could rightly be construed as an act of subversion against the movement.
 Instead of maneuvering to get get a Biafra sympathetic Governor with the movement's popularity in the area, the leaders are unknowingly denying themselves that right to elect a Biafra sympathetic Governor, which by the agitators' rated popularity is achievable. The agitators are instead indulging in such hare-brained activities as threatening public peace by disrupting campaigns in Anambra State and mustering crowds to obstruct economic activities and normal life in the rest of the area of the designated Biafra. Thus alienating the quest for Biafra from informed opinion in the designated Biafra territory.
Perhaps, but for the law suit in Washington DC instituted by families of 9 of the 270 pro-Biafra demonstrators extra-judicially murdered by the Security Agencies and one torture survivor from among the 370 terminally incapacitated by gunshot wounds at Anambra, Abia, Delta and Rivers States  between August 2015 and January 2017, hundreds more might have been massacred or terminally injured in the recent massive demonstrations in Ebonyi, Onitsha and Ekwuluobia.
The creation of Biafra would require enactment of a new national law for referendum to take place; and an amendment of the Nigerian Constitution which with the present mindset of the oligarchy, needs local, national  and international pressure to influence a change of mind of the people dominating the Nigerian affairs.
Rights agitators therefore need to woo the political, business and intellectual elite of the proposed Biafra and the rest of Nigeria to support the movement for the establishment of Biafra.
 The present threats posture of the agitators indeed frightens Biafra' s political, business and intellectual elite. One highly placed judicial officer once asked me how the elite can peacefully co-exist with the the agitators in the proposed Biafra. I merely counseled that since it would be no military regime, a democratic process would ensure sound leadership.
It is an accepted fact that no political movement can succeed without the cooperation of the elite. At the moment, Biafra agitators seem to have caused so much alienation from this critical elite in the South East by its boisterous mode of operation.
Overwhelming Percentage of Igbos Support Biafra: A recent opinion survey indicates that added to the natural conservatism of the political and business elite, the leadership of pro Biafra agitators have driven over 95% of Igbo political and business elite to accept enslavement and into open opposition to Biafra independence. This, the survey revealed, is in spite of close to 90% popularity of the Biafra independence quest among the ordinary Igbo man/woman on the street and Igbo intelligentsia. And this group constitute over 85% of the adult population of Igbo land.
South West, South south and North Central Understanding
Furthermore, to get a referendum Act passed in Nigeria, Biafra agitators  would need to woo the Southwest, the South south and the North Central zones whose votes  would be needed to get the referendum Act to be enacted by the National Assembly. Therefore nobody in any of these zones needs be denigrated. Unfortunately the agitators' leadership is indulging in the opposite of this, through radio broadcasts; thus squandering vital goodwill. No man is an island.
PRO BIAFRA AGITATORS SEEM TO HAVE REACHED THE POINT OF DIMINISHING RETURNS
The leadership of the pro Biafra Agitators therefore seems to have over-reached themselves and since August 2017 appears to be destroying and dismantling all the good job they have done in recent past.
It is therefore time for this leadership which is full of zest and energy, to tone down rhetorics and allow those who have capability to win friends, locally, nationally and internationally, take over the winning of sympathy for the Igbo man's tragedy in Nigeria.
Enormous sympathy is needed nationally and internationally, if Biafra would ever be. Sympathy can only be won when friends understand the tragedy of the oppressed.
On the international scene, submitting papers to UN, AU, EU, U.S. etc is good, but the memory of those papers among the receivers transpires the day it was submitted. Regular follow-ups are required to sustain momentum.
International opinion can only be won by permanently sustained effort by professionals. Very little of this effort appears on ground anywhere in the world.
Perhaps the only of such effort trending, is that of Bruce Fein and W. Bruce DelValle, Washington Attorneys in a Civil Claims suit no. 1.:17-cv-01033 and consequent publicity that follows it.
Suits in various capitals of the world, particularly exhibiting how much genocide was, and is being executed by Nigeria on the Igbo. The publicity following such suits will enable appointed professional lobbyists to win more sympathizers for the tragedy of the Igbo in Nigeria; and obviously help to accelerate the Igbo quest for self determination.
It was James Madison, Jr. (1751 – 1836) political theorist, American statesman, fourth President of the United States (1809–17) who was hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights who said and I quote:

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

It is time for the leadership of pro Biafra agitators to go to school on successful agitation for independence and jettison the failed model which they seem to be imitating without thought.

Yes it is germane as Thomas Jefferson, an American Founding Father who was the principal author of American Declaration of Independence; and who later served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809, declared:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
But the Igbos have watered the tree of liberty with enough blood - 30,000 in pre-civil war genocide, 3.5 million in the genocidal Civil War, several thousands in several riots in the North and massacres in Nigeria from 1970 to date; and the recent killing of 270 unarmed pro Biafra demonstrators by Nigerian Security Agencies

It is time to use our brains. Igbo children excel in first positions in examinations to Unity Unity Schools, WASSCE (WAEC), UTME (JAMB) and degree exams in Nigeria and all over the world - evidence that God has been generous inendowing the Igbo with human capital.

LET US USE OUR BRAINS; NOT OUR BRAWN, LIKE JIHADISTS.

CHUKWUEMEKA I. ONYESOH (PRINCE)
30th August, 2017.
emekaonyesoh.blogspot.com.ng

Lawyer Files Lawsuits At Federal High Court, ECOWAS Court To Compel Arrest Of Arewa Youth Leaders

Mr. Vincent Egechukwu Obeta, a lawyer, has, on behalf of Igbo people resident in the North, filed three lawsuits before the Federal High Court in Abuja, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court to compel the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to arrest within seven days members of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (ACYF), led by Mr. Yerima Shettima.
BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORKAUG 28, 2017
Mr. Vincent Egechukwu Obeta, a lawyer, has, on behalf of Igbo people resident in the North, filed three lawsuits before the Federal High Court in Abuja, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court to compel the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to arrest within seven days members of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (ACYF), led by Mr. Yerima Shettima.

The lawyer announced the filing of the suits in a world press statement made available to SaharaReporters. In one of the lawsuits, Mr. Obeta is seeking an Order of Mandamus of the Federal High Court, compelling the IGP to arrest Mr. Shettima who, in July, issued a quit notice to Igbo people based in the North.

The second is a fundamental rights enforcement suit filed at the Federal High Court against Mr. Shettima, the IGP and the Federal Government. The seeks to enforce the rights of the Igbo to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part of the country as guaranteed by Section 41(1) of the Constitution.


Arewa Youth leaders
The third is a fundamental rights enforcement suit, filed at the ECOWAS Court, against Mr. Shettima, the IGP and the Federal Government.

 Mr. Obeta said should the IGP fail to comply with the Order of Mandamus to arrest Mr. Yerima, if granted by the Federal High Court, he will approach the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, The Netherlands, to press criminal charges against them. One of the charges, he said, will be the aiding and abetting of a second genocide against the Igbo in the North.

“My criminal suit for such second genocide against Ndigbo in the North will be filed against Shettima, the IGP, the Attorney- General of the Federation (AGF), Professor Ango Abdullahi and Professor Yemi Osinbajo as the Acting President of Nigeria when the threat of a second genocide against Ndigbo in the North was issued,” he explained.

He added that the IGP, AGF and Professor Osinbajo will be charged before the ICC as for deliberately neglecting to arrest and prosecute Professor Abdullahi, Mr. Shettima since the issued the quit notice.

The lawyer warned that if it becomes necessary to head to the ICC on account of the IGP’s refusal to comply with the Order of Mandamus, he will be left with no option than to press charges against those behind the 1966 genocide against the Igbo in the North.      

 Mr. Obeta noted that the AYCF has suspended the quit notice, but warned that the suspension cannot, in law, banish the grave offense the group committed.

 “Nothing short of such arrest and prosecution will suffice to settle the three suits as filed. It is no longer news that the cynical silence and manifest bias of the Federal Government and its agencies since the treasonable threat against the Ndigbo was issued have encouraged and opened a floodgate of hate speeches and songs,” the lawyer said.

He observed that the Igbo in the North and indeed, all around the country, have been victims of cynicism, oppression, and extreme marginalization since the end of the Nigerian Civil War. He equally noted that the Igbo have been regularly killed by northerners.

 Despite the atrocities against them, Mr. Obeta said the Igbo have remained law-abiding and have continued to contribute, through their enterprise, to the socio-economic development of Nigeria.

 He accused the Federal Government of shirking its responsibility of protecting the Igbo and actively encouraging hostility towards them.

“The 1966 massacre of the Igbo in the North, was not only condoned but was celebrated by eminent Northerners, who, indeed, gloated openly over the gruesome event. The 1966 genocide against the Igbo in the North has, since the end of the Civil War, been swept under the carpet to the extent that it has been banned by the Federal Government from being mentioned in history lessons in all Nigerian schools. Furthermore, it is even not allowed to be mentioned in public and any such mention otherwise is regarded by the Nigerian state as treason,” claimed Mr. Obeta.

The lawyer contended that since 2015, when the current government took office, the Igbo complaints against repression and marginalization have been equated with treason. This, he said, has seen defenseless civilians killed by soldiers, especially at Onitsha, Anambra State. He pointed out that a recent Amnesty International report stated that at least 150 unarmed civilians and have shot dead in Onitsha by soldiers since 2015.

“It is extremely distressing that coming out of all the recent discourse across the Federation, (which Discourse has been ignited by the ongoing agitations by Ndigbo), Professor Yemi Osinbajo and all other eminent / elder statesmen have obscenely remarked that in as much as Alhaji Yerima Shettima’s quit notice to Ndigbo in the North is condemnable, the ongoing agitations by the same Ndigbo should stop forthwith.

That is, they mean that the treason committed by Alhaji Shettima is a befitting response to the agitations of Ndigbo, which have since the end of the Civil War been equated to treason in any event,” said Mr. Obeta.

 He also called on the US President, UK Prime Minister, President of China and other world leaders to pay attention to the plight of the Igbo in and use their influence to end the persecution.

  http://saharareporters.com/2017/08/28/lawyer-files-lawsuits-federal-high-court-ecowas-court-compel-arrest-arewa-youth-leaders#.WaQ3rNVze_s.email

PRESS RELEASE


August 25, 2017


CONTACT: Bruce Fein or Bruce DelValle, 202-465-8727, bruce@feinpoints.com; brucedelvalle@gmail.com

UNITED STATES LAWEYERS REPORT ON ONE WEEK TRIP TO ENUGU, NIGERIA TO GATHER FACTS AND TO CONDUCT RESEARCH TO ADVANCE THEIR TORTURE VICTIMS PROTECTION ACT LAWSUIT IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ON BEHALF OF TEN IGO PLAINTIFFS AGAINST SIXTEEN NIGERIAN DEFENDANTS INCLUDING GOVERNORS OBIANO OF ANAMBRA STATE AND IKPEAZU OF ABIA STATE FOR COMPLICITY IN TORTURE AND EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS UNDER COLOR OF NIGERIAN LAW MOTIVATED BY THE IBO ETHNICITY, CHRISTIAN FAITH, AND POLITICAL VIEWPOINT OF THE VICTIMS.


WASHINGTON, D.C.—The law firm of Fein & DelValle PLLC travelled to Enugu, Nigeria—the heart of Igboland—from August 19-August 24, 2017.  Our visit was to meet with our plaintiffs-clients, to gather facts and to conduct research to advance the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) lawsuit we have filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of ten (10) anonymous plaintiffs against sixteen (16) individual defendants for extrajudicial killings and torture perpetrated under color of Nigerian law motived by the Igbo ethnicity, Christian faith, and political viewpoints of the victims.  The case is styled John Doe, et al v. Turkur Yusuf Buratai, et al, Civil Action No.  1:17-cv-0133.

Plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages to secure justice for the Igbo people, to give them hope for the future, and to deter genocide, ethnic cleansing or the extermination of Christians in Nigeria by radical Islamic Hausa-Fulani terrorists in Northern Nigeria.  We are convinced that Nigeria is the most dangerous country in the world for Christians.   They routinely defile the sanctity of churches by killing children hiding their tiny bodies in pews. In violation of Nigeria’s professed secular constitution, Nigeria has joined the Organization of Islamic Unity and twelve northern states have adopted sharia law.  The Christian Open Door Report of 2015 found that Boko Harem, the northeast Islamic terrorist organization, had killed 11,000 Christians, destroyed 13,000 churches and 1,500 Christian schools, had created 2.6 million internally displaced persons, and forced 1.3 million Christians to flee.

On July 11, 2017 by the Fulani Youth Consultative Forum (ACYF) issued an odious, chilling and genocidal threat to plunder the properties and evict by force and violence eleven (11) million Igbos peacefully residing in Northern Nigeria if they do not vacate the region by October 1, 2017.  The Government of Nigeria and nineteen northern States have tacitly endorsed the ACYF threatened genocide of twice the number who was exterminated by the Nazis in the Holocaust!  The federal and state governments in northern Nigeria have refused to arrest even a single ACYF member.  

In our Buratai suit, the District Court issued an order granting the plaintiff’s motion to proceed anonymously because they reasonably feared lethal retaliation against themselves or families if their identities were known.

 The actions of the defendants were crimes against humanity that can be prosecuted in any jurisdiction in the world.  Indeed, the Convention Against Torture mandates that signatory nations like the United States and Nigeria prosecute the crimes of torture or extrajudicial killings.

Fourteen of the individual defendants are federal officials and two are state governors in the Southeast.  One of the two, Governors, Willie Obiano of Anambra State has already apologized for the brutal killings of plaintiffs that he admits were perpetrated under his aegis.  The other defendant Governor is Dr. OkezieIkpeazu of Abia State.

The defendants have yet to answer.  Several are in default for failure to respond within 21 days of the service of the summons and Complaint.  We are optimistic about our chances of victory at trial or earlier.  Defendants are represented by a small Nigerian law firm in California thousands of miles from the venue of the litigation in the District of Columbia.  The defendants’ representative law firm said they have been contacted by the Government of Nigeria, not by the individual defendants.  

We salute the courage of our ten anonymous plaintiffs and their brave supporters throughout Igboland.  We are unified in our insistence on obtaining justice for the Igbo people through peaceful and lawful means that disavow the lawless savagery of their persecutors.  They should tremble when they reflect that God is just, and that his justice will not sleep forever.
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*CAN RESTRUCTURING ONLY SOLVE ANY OF THE  NIGERIAN MULTIDIMENSIONAL ATTITUDINAL* *PROBLEMS? THE ANSWER IS EMPHATIC NO!!!!!*

How will restructuring stop the fast Spreading Cattle Fulani herdsmen Islamic Terrorism and Open Grazing; the Abduction of underaged girls and women; their  forced conversion to Islam, rape and marriage without parental consent; Reverse rebellion of 12 Sharia States in the North where HIsbah Police enforce Sharia Law on everybody (Sharia Law being antithetical to Common Law and Constitutional Democracy, in Conflict with Modern Civilisation, denigrates women and is unmanageable in any multiethnic and multi religious Federation) ; stop growing Islamisation of Nigeria; change the mindset that drives the Islamisation; stop the indiscriminate killing of Igbo's in Abuja and the North; remove Arabic language in our Currency Notes and in the Army Coat of Arms since Arabic is neither the indigenous of any ethnic group in Nigeria nor Nigeria's official language but the language of Islam; reverse the mass retirement of Igbo and other Southern officers in the Army; stop the complete northernistion of all the Security Agencies of Nigeria; stop FCT Abuja from remaining North's 19th State; stop the  denial of C of O to Christian Churches in most parts of the North  and much much more?
Unless Nigeria is completely renegotiated along Aburi Accord (Confederacy), with  brand new Constitutions, I do not see any light at the end of the tunnel.  _Nigerians in their malleability are just timorously  pursuing the wind by asking for_ _restructuring!!_ *A RUSE*
Emeka Onyesoh.