IF NIGERIA is a Baby in my WOMB, I will ABORT it,

BIAFRA Girl Spit Fire: IF NIGERIA is a Baby in my WOMB, I will ABORT it, If is LIFE, I choose DEATH

Why it is better to Free Biafra- Obasanjo writes to share his views Admin June 1, 20

Obasanjo writes to share his views Admin  June 1, 20

The whole world is now watching and listening closely to know the important plea for independence which is coming out of Western Africa. Nigeria has a population of roughly 180 million people with a balanced religious mix of roughly 49.3% Christian and 48.8% Muslim. We know most of the Christians live in southern Nigeria, a land previously controlled for over thousands of years by a people living in a land known as Biafra. Biafrans were a proud people. They were mostly Christian and a bastion of free-enterprise in Western Africa. With the formation of Nigeria in the breakup of Great Britain’s empire, Biafra lost its independence when it was unilaterally combined with the Muslim dominated north.

Today, the drive for a Muslim caliphate in Africa remains focused on three primary African states, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, where large populations of Christians remain. The all-out effort to destabilize the Christian power base has been carried out by Al-Shabaab in Kenya and Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria.

Boko Haram, an extremist Sunni Islamic fundamentalist sect strongly influenced by the Wahhabi movement, is committed to establish Nigeria as an Islamic State under Sharia Law. Their impact is strongest in the North. Seeking more grazing land for their herds, Fulani militants, linked to Boko Haram, have killed at least 20,000 people since 2009. The Fulani herdsmen have been moving south to areas dominated by Christians and non-religious farmers. They are well armed, and their coordinated attacks are increasing.

The atrocities against moderate Muslims and Christians are well documented but not widely covered in the Western press. Recently, angry Muslims youths in Kano decapitated a woman plastics trader alleging that she blasphemed the Prophet Muhammad. When the shop owner refused to allow a young man to wash his legs for the usual Muslim’s prayers in her shop because other customers were there, the young man shouted Allahu Akbar and lied to his friends that the owner had blasphemed. They dragged her away, beheaded her carried her head through the market and town center.

Many feel that now is the time for Biafra independence. The Biafran “George Washington,” Nnamdi Kanu, is out from jail from trumped up charges. Judges have refused to officially charge him. But fearing his leadership, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has decided to free him instead to know the fate of Biafrans. His long sustained incarceration has just fueled the flames for independence. The number of supporters of freedom for Biafra has quadrupled since Kanu’s imprisonment.  

Recently, Niger Delta Avengers blew up vital Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation oil pipelines. A new militant group, Red Egbesu Water Lions, has joined them in demanding that Nnamdi Kanu be released. Unless the Buhari government releases Kanu and moves toward a referendum on independence for Biafra, militants promise to shut down oil and gas production in the region.

In the past, Shell and British Petroleum have formed lucrative agreements with the Northern Muslim politicians to control 80% of the Nigerian oil, primarily from wells in the south. Not only are resources from Biafra being sold and profits diverted, the lack of environmental controls have resulted in pollution—hurting farming and fishing in the south.

Freedom isn’t free, but nowhere in Africa is freedom more important than in Biafra. But what are the Western powers doing? Unfortunately, very little. Britain has called for the release of Nnamdi Kanu but said little about the freedom referendum he supports. While covering the atrocities of Boko Haram in the North, there is little or no coverage of the Islamic terrorists brutalizing the Biafran Christians in the South.

This is about more than stopping Islamic extremism in Nigeria. Supporting the freedom of Biafra establishes a beachhead for Christian capitalism in Africa that puts a stop to a vision of a united Muslim caliphate in all of Africa.

America received support from France in breaking free of England. It’s time for the UN and Western powers to do their part to free the people of Biafra while independence is still possible without expanded bloodshed.

Chief Olushegun Obasanjo

http://dailyinfong.com/article-why-it-is-better-to-free-biafra-obasanjo-writes-to-share-his-views/

Northern House Of Assembly Proceedings, February - March 1964

Northern House Of Assembly Proceedings, February - March 1964

Below is an extract from the proceedings of the Northern Region House of Assembly between February and March 1964, less than four years after Nigeria’s independence from the British.

I have nothing to add. Read and judge for yourself:

• Mallam Muhammadu Mustapha Mande Gyan:On the allocation of plots to Ibos or allocation of stalls, I would like to advise the Minister that these people know how to make money, and we do not know the way and manner of getting about this business. We do not want Ibos to be allocated with plots. I do not want them to be given plots…
  

• Mallam Bashari Umaru:
  I would like (you), as a Minister of Land and Survey, to revoke forthwith all Certificates of Occupancy from the hands of the Ibos resident in the Region… (Applause)
  

• Mr. A. A. Agogede:I’m very glad that we are in a Moslem country, and the government of Northern Nigeria allowed some few Christians in the region to enjoy themselves according to the belief of their religion, but building of hotels should be taken away from the Igbos, and even if we find some Christians who are interested in building hotels and do not have money to do so, the government should aid them, instead of allowing Ibos to continue with their hotels.
  

• Dr. Iya Abubakar (Special Member, Lecturer, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria):
  I am one of the strong believers in Nigerian unity, and I have hoped for our having a united Nigeria, but certainly if the present state of affairs continues, I hope the government will investigate first the desirability and secondly the possibility of extending Northernisation policy to the petty traders. (Applause)
  

• Mallam Mukhtar Bello:
  I would like to say something very important, that the Minister should take my appeal to the Federal Government about the Igbos in the post office. I wish the numbers of these Igbos be reduced…. There are too many of them in the North. They are like sardines and 1 think they are just too dangerous to the Region.
  
  

• Mallam Ibrahim Musa:Mr. Chairman, Sir. Well first and foremost, what I have to say before this Hon. House is that we should send a delegation to meet our Hon. Premier to move a motion in this very Budget Session that all the Ibos working in the Civil Service of Northern Nigeria, including the native authorities, whether they are contractors or not, should be repatriated at once…
  

• Mallam Bashari Umaru:
  There should be no contracts either from the government, native authorities, or private enterprises given to Ibo contractors (Government Bench: Good talk and shouts of “Fire the Southerners”). Again, Mr. Chairman, the foreign firms too should be given time limit to replace all Ibo in their firms by some other people.

• The Premier (Alhaji the Hon. Sir Ahmadu Bello, K.B.E., Sardauna of Sokoto):It is my most earnest desire that every post in the region, however small it is, be filled by a Northerner (Applause)

• Alhaji Usman Liman:
  What brought the Ibos into this region? They were here since the colonial days. Had it not been for the colonial rule, there would hardly have been any Ibo in this region. Now that there is no colonial rule, the Ibos should go back to their region. There should be no hesitation about the matter. Mr. Chairman, North is for Northerners, East for Easterners, West for Westerners, and the Federation is for us all. (Applause)

• The Minister of Land and Survey (Alhaji the Hon. Ibrahim Musa Cashash, O.B.E.):Mr. Chairman. Sir, I do not like to take up much of the time of this House in making explanations, but I would like to assure members that having heard their demands about Ibos holding land in Northern Nigeria, my ministry will do all it can to see that the demands of members are met. How to do this, when to do it, al1 these should not be disclosed. In due course, you will all see what will happen. (Applause)

Copied

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL :Biafran Jews mark 50 years since failed bid for independence

Nigeria on Tuesday marks 50 years since the declaration of an independent Republic of Biafra plunged the country into a civil war, amid renewed tensions and fresh calls for a separate state.

The main pro-independence groups — the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) — have called for a day of reflection.

Among the IPOB are one of the largest ethnic groups in the central African nation, the Igbo people, and among them is a small minority of practicing Jews, who believe they are descended from the tribes of Israel.During the last 30 years or so, many Igbo Jews have moved to match their tradition of Jewish descent with the practice of rabbinic Judaism, the learning of Hebrew, observance of kosher dietary laws and observance of Jewish holidays. Many Igbo Jews are passionately Zionist.

In 1970, after nearly three years of fighting, Biafran soldiers, who were outnumbered 10 to one by federal troops and under-equipped, laid down their arms.

The conflict caused an estimated million deaths, many of them by starvation after the secessionist region was blockaded.

With surrender went their dreams of a separate state for the Igbo people, who are the majority in the southeast.

Half a century later, Biafra remains an extremely sensitive subject in Nigeria.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/biafran-jews-mark-50-years-since-failed-bid-for-independence/

MEMORY AND NATION BUILDING: BIAFRA 50 YEARS AFTER : A SOBER REFLECTION

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 Center this 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-Westby 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 AwolowoVice 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 have beenthebasis of the burden they carry as a nation within the Nigerian Federation.

Secondly, Chief OlusegunObasanjo, 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

1. How did the world come to describe the conduct of the war as POGROM?
2. What about the policy that hunger was a legitimate weapon of war and so was justified in its application against the Biafrans?
3. 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 o mind-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.

1. Tribute to General Yar’Adua.

NOW, Mr Chairman, Ladies and \Gentlemen, let me go onto thank the organisers of this Conference- the Yar’Adua Foundation and the six Nigerian Universities partnering with the Foundation; the Ford Foundation and theOpen 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 ShehuMusa 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 talentShehu 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, wesat down on the sofa.Shehusaid to me “Dr Nwala, let me show you why we Northerners are reluctant to relinquish political power”.

He brought outtwo volumes of strategic studieswhich 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 inthat 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’AduaCenter when I visited there about two week ago.

What is important in this narrative is that General Yar’Aduawas 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 a democratic 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 a Federation 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.

1. 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 believethis 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 AdolfHitler, would emphaticallyrespond NO!Theywould rather blame the present upsurgefor 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 pacified nor 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. KaluEzera 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 fromAsain 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 NkwoMbaise their base, Nwoguegbe instantly recognised me and shouted Nkume! I responded Nwoguegbe! Despitebeing 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.CornelliusOguikpe, Michael Osuagwu, EfriamChukwunoyerem, EchewodoOnwunali, 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 nor even 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, KaluEzera)
• 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 i Nigeria..
• 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 whowere 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 Ohanaezendigbo 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.

1. 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 agendaThey designed a local a local agenda for the same purpose?
• Have we forgotten the cause of Biafra and the war? Have we ever come together 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?

1. 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 1995Draft 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.

1. 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 UkpabiAsika’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.

1. 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. UzodinmaNwala
President
Alaigbo Development Founda tion (ADF)

THEY CAME,SAW, DESTROYED AND LEARNT NOTHING

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: 
HOW  TO BUILD  2 STANDARD INTERNATIONAL  AIRPORTS IN  ONE MONTH AND MAINTAIN THEM AFTER DAILY BOMBINGS:   Authors : BIAFRAN ENGINEERS. 1967-1970

Every 3 years  we  hear  of  the closure of  Abuja airport, poor  and dangerous position of  the airport etc . I believe  the Nigerian engineers should read this  old book from the  rubble of  war. 

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: 

• HOW  TO BUILD  2 STANDARD INTERNATIONAL  AIRPORTS IN  ONE MONTH AND MAINTAIN THEM AFTER DAILY BOMBINGS:   Authors : BIAFRAN ENGINEERS. 1967-1970
  

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 The Nigerian soldiers came saw,destroyed and LEARNT NOTHING.

Photo of  General Obasanjo (Nigerian Army Engineer) Jan 1970:  posing  for  a remembrance picture and jubilating   at their first sight of the  (one of the airstrips) ULI airport fully constructed and maintained  by the Biafran Army Engineer corps throughout the war.
The Nigerian  destroyed  without learning NOTHING till now.

ARMY PROBING ARMY...WHO IS FOOLING WHO?

Army probes Amnesty’s report on killing of IPOB members, others

By Karls Tsokar, Kanayo Umeh (Abuja), Clarkson Voke Eberu and Damilola Obakoya (Lagos)   |   09 March 2017   |   4:33 am

Members of the Indigenous People of Biafra during a protest. PHOTO: AFP PHOTO / PIUS UTOMI EKPEI

Civil society groups differ over document

The leadership of the Nigerian Army yesterday inaugurated an eight-man Special Board of Inquiry to investigate allegations of rights abuse levelled against its officers by Amnesty International (AI).

While commissioning the Major General Ahmed Jibrin (rtd)-led panel yesterday in Abuja, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai, noted that besides the commendations for the professional conduct of the soldiers in the ongoing anti-insurgency fight in the North East, there had been allegations of misconduct perpetrated by some of them, “especially in the early days of the operations.”

The empanelling was consequent upon the 2016 report of the global rights organisation which indicted the military and security agencies of gross rights violations. The document particularly claimed that more than 170 members of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) and 240 civilians had been extrajudicially killed in different parts of the country by soldiers. A claim, which the military vehemently denied.

Since the army had consistently brushed aside the allegations, its latest move signals a readiness to purge itself of its alleged excesses and make its operations and the individual conduct of its officers to be in sync with civilised society. However, the credibility of the exercise can only be determined by its report.

Other members of the investigating panel include Brig.-Gen. A. Dadan Garba (rtd); Brig.-Gen. Abdulquadir Gumi (rtd); Brig.-Gen. O. Olayinka; Col. L. Mohammed and Col. U. Wambai. Lieutenant Colonel C. Akaliro is to serve as secretary.

Earlier, the Concerned Professionals’ Congress (CPC) and Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) took divergent positions on the report.

While the CPC faulted the document in its entirety, HURIWA on the hand, advised the Defence Headquarters to scientifically address the issues it raised.

During a briefing in Lagos, CPC’s Chief Media Strategist, Mr. Emeka Nwankpa, accused the global rights organisation of acting the script of vested interests determined at undermining Nigeria.

His words: “We join our counterparts in Global Amnesty Watch (GAW), Africa Arise for Change Network, Coalition of Civil Society Group (COCSG) and others in putting pressure on Amnesty International and its mischievous collaborators to desist from undermining the integrity of our military and security forces that have continued to rescue defenceless Nigerians from the dastardly activities of Boko Haram and similar groups.”

The group commended the “excellent professional conduct of the military and other security agencies for keeping to the rules of engagement anchored on best global practices in deterring criminal acts of destruction of our national oil and gas installations, preventing militancy as well as stopping crude oil theft, piracy and others.”

Nwankpa, who lauded government’s initiative for the rebuilding of the North East and the consultative approach adopted in resolving the renewed militancy in the oil-rich Niger Delta, prescribed the method for the resolution of the political agitations in the South East.

But HURIWA, backing the report, advised the Defence Headquarters to stop issuing out threats against international non-governmental bodies for speaking against the country’s human rights record.

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA urged Acting President Yemi Osinbanjo to encourage the constitution of an independent panel headed by the United Nations to investigate the claims of extrajudicial killings of demonstrators raised by the global rights watchdog and similar bodies.

It recalled that the Amnesty International said: “The military was deployed in 30 out of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory where they performed routine policing functions, including responding to non-violent demonstrations. The military deployment to police public gatherings contributed to the number of extrajudicial executions and unlawful killings. Since January, in response to the continued agitation by pro-Biafra campaigners, security forces arbitrarily arrested and killed at least 100 members and supporters of the group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Some of those arrested were subjected to enforced disappearance.”

HURIWA advised the Defence spokesman, Brigadier- General Balarabe Abubakar, to be moderate in the use of language in order not to send the wrong signals to the outside world that Nigeria is a banana republic where might and brute reign supreme.

It argued that the document in question spoke to the critical issues of brutal encounters the citizens had had with a section of the nation’s armed forces in the period under review.

Besides, AI condemned the spate of arrests and detentions of journalists and bloggers, saying the development stifles freedom of expression. In a presentation in Abuja by its Nigeria’s board chairman, Auwal Rafsanjani, the organisation said 10 journalists and bloggers were arrested and detained last year without trial. It, however, commended the military for attempting to probe the rights violation allegations against it.

Also yesterday in Lagos, a group, Igbo Ekunie Initiative (IEI), in a statement by its president, Chief Tochukwu Ezeoke, called for the release of detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kalu and other agitators.

 SOURCE

https://guardian.ng/news/army-probes-amnestys-report-on-killing-of-ipob-members-others/