While we at Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule
of Law are not holding forth for leading pro Biafra movements including IPOB
and MASSOB in response to general issues raised in the Arewa Youths’ letter to
the Acting President of Nigeria, Prof Yemi Osibanjo, but the odd side of the
letter as it concerns the Arewa Youths’ attempts in their letter to play down,
trivialize and desecrate the constitutionally, regionally and internationally
recognized and codified human rights is worth exposing and condemning.
The human rights aspect that warrant this response of ours,
played down or suppressed in the Arewa Youths’ letter to Acting President Yemi
Osibanjo are the collective right of a people or a race to safe living; right
to preservation and protection of ethnic identities; right to existence and development
as a people or a race; right of a people to free democratic, cultural,
political and economic choices and free speeches using nonviolence; right of a
race or tribe to peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic socio-cultural society
and collective management or elimination of agents and signs of divided
societies by the territorially existing ethnic nationalities; and right of a
people or a tribe against State actor and non State actor or direct and
indirect structural, direct and cultural violence.
It must be boldly and clearly stated that we at Intersociety
firmly believe in the united Federal Republic of Nigeria thoroughly or strictly
governed according to the supreme dictates and wishes of the peoples of the
Republic under democratic pluralism and constitutionalism; and a popular
constitution strictly or totally founded on the supremacy of the people,
equality, rule of law, geographic and demographic equity and fairness and
proportionate distribution of Federal and State offices, appointments and resources.
Also a collectively inhabitable and peopling Nigeria of all
and sundry is a Nigeria of equal access to justice, non discrimination on the
grounds of sex, origin, tribe or religion; free democratic choice and speech;
and inalienable rights of all peoples to: life, liberty and pursuit of
happiness. A Nigeria other than the above is a questionable, rejected and
collectively uninhabitable Nigeria!
A Nigeria where cows are protected at all times with our
commonwealth and supposedly defensive weaponry more than citizens of the
country or any part thereof is a questionable and rejected Nigeria. A Nigeria
where cows are made to invade churches during church services and defecate and
deface church premises, auditoriums and podiums with animal droppings; with the
authorities looking the other side or doing nothing is a questionable Nigeria.
A Nigeria where primitive animal husbandry has become a
national policy with consequential and forceful dispossession of peoples’ farm
lands, ancestral lands, legitimately acquired property and social lands, homes
and properties with tacit and direct government backing and orders is a
questionable and rejected Nigeria.
A Nigeria of animal kingdom where some animals are greater
and mightier than others or a Nigerian society of born to rule or first class,
second class and third class citizenship is a questionable and rejected
Nigeria. A Nigeria of sectional untouchables, with ethnic cleansing, racial,
ethnic and religious stigmatization, criminalization and vendetta as a national
policy or non State actor dominant policy and belief is a questionable and
rejected Nigeria.
A Nigeria of unspeakable State violence, vindictiveness,
structural, direct and cultural violence as well as serial regime failure,
incompetence and atrocities is a questionable and rejected Nigeria. A Nigeria
of primitive, unconventional, sectional and grossly lopsided soldiering and
securitization is a questionable and rejected Nigeria. A Nigeria of rabid or
intractable political corruption, primitive accumulation of wealth,
intellectual daftness in public governance, moral decadence, diarrhea falsehood
and deceit in public governance; and intractable development and growth
backwardness and retardation is a questionable and rejected Nigeria.
A Nigeria of decades long pro Alamajiri policies in Northern
Nigeria where 80% or more of the youth
population are chronically and heartlessly subjected directly and indirectly to mass poverty,
joblessness, mass illiteracy, under-growth and underdevelopment, malnutrition
and Islamic oriented brain-washing or indoctrination, radicalization and
militancy by the Northern politico-economic elites whereas their children and
relatives attend many, if not most of the best and costliest secondary schools
and universities in the world is a questionable and rejected Nigeria.
Commendably, the Arewa Youths had in their letter recognized
that Nigeria is not an island of its own and that the country is regionally and
internationally linked and fused with others and operates according to the
dictates of the regional and international systems under AU and UN particularly
as it concerns its mandatory obligations under strategic rights treaties and
conventions such as the African Charter on Human & Peoples Rights of 1981
and the UN Covenants on Civil & Political Rights; and the Economic, Social
& Cultural Rights of 1976; all containing rights to self determination
using nonviolence.
These treaties and conventions the Arewa Youths in their
letter commendably admitted to be legally binding on the Federal Republic of
Nigeria having willingly, obligatorily and dutifully acceded to them in 1983
and 1993 respectively by way of ratification.
The recognition of the Arewa Youths in their referenced letter to
peoples’ rights to referendum and free democratic and political choice under
nonviolence and zero State violence is worthy of note and commendation.
Contradictorily and condemnably, the Arewa Youths had in the
same letter of theirs turned around to demonize and castigate the exercise of
the same rights by leading pro Biafra groups like IPOB and MASSOB using
nonviolence. It further laid false claims or claims supported with zero
evidence against the likes of IPOB, MASSOB and the entire Igbo Race to the
effect that “they are threatening Nigeria with war and violence by championing
the pro Biafra self determination and ordering members of the Hausa-Fulani
Muslims to leave the Igbo Land”.
Also condemned unreservedly is the Arewa Youths’ tagging of
the January 1966 bloody military coup in Nigeria as “Igbo coup”. This is
totally sad, unfortunate and out-rightly condemnable. The position of the Arewa
Youths is also grounded in sheer deep seated ignorance of the military sub
culture of planning and executing successful and unsuccessful military coups
during military incursions in politics across the world including Africa and
Nigeria; where, for instance, group cult and trust is a fundamental requirement
for planning and executing any military coup.
Their warped position is also borne out of deep seated
hatred and vendetta and evocation of genocidal sentiments against the Igbo
Race. The Arewa Youths also admitted that the 1966 July Coup was Hausa-Fulani
counter bloody coup leading to the death of 340 officers of Old Eastern Region
in revenge for the first and erroneously tagged “Igbo Coup”. If the
Hausa-Fulani had so revenged, why all the anti Igbo massacres in northern
Nigeria since then including the genocidal massacres of the 1967-70 Civil War
as well as allied post 1970 anti Igbo massacres up to 2016 numbering over 25 or
executed in more than 25 locations and occasions in Northern Nigeria?
The Arewa Youths letter clearly and further brought to the
fore the Federal/Northern cabal’s desperate plots to oust the Deputy Senate
President, Ike Ekweremadu from his plum position at all costs. By singling him
out for demonization on a mere fact or fiction that “he visited Nnamdi Kanu” is
a clear case of calling dog a bad name so as to hang it. This is more so when
Senator Ike Ekweremadu was mischievously mentioned or singled out leaving out
the likes of Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose and Femi Fani-Kayode who also
visited Citizen Nnamdi Kanu.
Till date, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu and ors are not common
criminals or terminal violators of laws of the land under the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria. There are no traces of them taking arms
against the People and Government of Nigeria within a defined rebellious
territory with recorded armaments and human and material casualties on
offensive sides. Yet there are motley of recorded or documented unspeakable
State violence against the citizens and properties of the Igbo Race. It must be further stated that a mere call
for constitutional change using nonviolence is never a crime in Nigeria. An
instant case is the 2014 National or Constitutional Conference.
It must be noted that the Nigerian Government’s lukewarm and
nonchalant attitudes towards holistically addressing the decades long direct,
structural and cultural violence against the Igbo Race and other ethnic
nationalities, which has been escalated by the present Buhari/Osibanjo
Government literally places the same central Government as the number one enemy
and hater of united, equal, peace loving, peacefully coexisting and prosperous
Federal Republic of Nigeria. That is to say that the present central Government
policies are utterly disintegrative and a serious threat to the united,
peaceful, healthy, prosperous and protected Federal Republic of NOsibanjo
Signed:
For: Int’l Society
for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line:
+2348174090052
Florence C. Akubilo, Esq.
Head, Campaign & Publicity Department
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