(Onitsha Nigeria, 26th of August 2016)-Regime failures
and atrocities in Nigeria under the Buhari Administration have gotten out of
hand and are hitting the nadir of intractability. The constitutional liberties
are in acute jeopardy and security agencies have fully transformed into agents
of executive lawlessness and dictatorship. Rights based Civil Society leaders
and organizations mainstreamed in the Southwest have become the image
launderers and profiteers of anarchy and dictatorship; turning their hitherto
goodwill and social sainthood into democratic negatives. Nigerians are now in
fears and tears at an unquenchably alarming speed.
While pet dogs’ owners and
citizens who never use or advocate violence or take up arms against the Federal
Republic of Nigeria or any part thereof; are hunted and hounded in prisons and
other detention centres with reckless abandon, government-armed criminal
citizens and others who have taken up arms against Nigeria and Nigerians and
graduated into broad-day and late night murderers and marauders; are being
reached for presidential handshakes and sharing of stolen or diverted “national cakes” derived
from import duties, oil/gas sales and reckless public borrowings.
It is on these saddest notes that
we, the leadership of International
Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law announce to the world
that the Nigerian Secret Police (DSS)
and other security agencies particularly the Nigerian Army and the Nigeria
Police Force have again gone on rampage. As a matter of fact the Southeast and
the South-south Nigeria are under siege and terror conquest; courtesies of
government-armed/backed non-State actors and murderous State actors (i.e. DSS,
Police, Army and Fulani Islamist Terror Group). In our recent demographic and
geographic observation tour of the Southeast: covering Anambra, Imo, Abia,
Enugu and Ebonyi States, we shockingly observed that the Zone is flooded with
rampaging Fulani Herdsmen and their herds of cattle with various military checkpoints
as their protective backups. Most of the bushes located along major Federal and
State roads have already been taken over by the killer-herdsmen.
Beyond the above non-State actor’s
well coordinated invasions and terror against the innocent citizens of the
Southeast and their natural environments; State actor violence and other forms
of brigandage against the citizens of the Southeast and the South-south Zones
are on steady increase. That is to say that the two zones are victims of crimes
against civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental rights;
committed with reckless abandon by the administration of Gen Muhammadu Buhari.
Of these, the civil and political rights of unarmed and non-violent
citizens of the two zones particularly the nonviolent advocates of Biafran Self
Determination Rights are threatened and terrorized on daily basis with reckless
abandon.
As we speak, private homes and
residences of IPOB activists are under siege. Raids or invasions are
indiscriminately carried out particularly in the hours of the blue law or late
nights. Scores of IPOB activists have been arrested and detained by the DSS.
Doors are smashed and broken and non-criminal house-hold properties are either
destroyed or confiscated with impunity. Such late night invasions or raids are
conducted in utter secrecy and in grave violent and unprofessional manners. In
most cases, victims are trailed in late evenings from their meeting or working
places or social outings and traced to their ad hoc or substantive abodes; after
which their movements are closely monitored to ensure their presence before
being ambushed in late nights or in their sleep. Cases abound where IPOB
activists in their sleep are shot and battered before taken away.
In all our findings, we did not
come across a credible single case of IPOB activists resisting arrest or
bearing any arm even in the dead of the night or at ungodly hours, yet they are
shot at and sometimes killed on the spot. The arrested IPOB activists are also
detained under torture for months without trial or charge. Those shot and
battered in their late night arrest are usually abandoned in their captors’
cells to bleed and die or bleed to death. Totality of these is not only unknown
to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, but it further violates
gravely Nigeria’s sacred regional and international obligations. It also
constitutes crimes against humanity; frowned at by the international
customary, humanitarian and human rights laws of the UN and the AU.
Statistically speaking, Citizen
Chidiebere Onwudiwe is Nigeria’s National Coordinator of IPOB and a trained
Mechanical Engineer with lawful means of livelihood. He was trailed and traced
to his residence near Port Harcourt by DSS in the evening of 22nd
June 2016 and his abode was violently attacked in late night of same day/early
morning of the next day; leading to his violent arrest while in sleep. Engineer
Onwudiwe has remained in the DSS custody without trial or even charge since
June 22, 2016; a period of 64 days. The DSS attempts to label him “a terrorist”
during its press conference were strongly and expertly challenged by some
rights based CSOs Intersociety inclusive.
As if these were not enough, the
authorities of the DSS trailed and traced Citizen Justice O. Udeh (an official
of IPOB in Aba, Abia State) to a place he had gone to pass a night and
violently arrested him in his sleep. The raid took place in the late night of
13th of July 2016 near Port Harcourt in Rivers State. Citizen
Justice Udeh is one of the officials of IPOB in Nigeria. Since his arrest; a period
of 43 days today, he is neither released nor put on trial.
The case of Citizen Sunday Chuks
Obasi is the crudest and most shocking of it all. Citizens Chuks Obasi is the
Nnewi-Ichi Coordinator of IPOB. He was trailed by the DSS from Port Harcourt where
he had gone on a trip and in the late night of 16th of August 2016,
his residence in Nnewi was violently invaded while he was sleeping. It was in
the process that the DSS operatives opened fire on him and shattered his two
legs before he was whisked away. Till date, the condition of his gunshot wounds
has not been ascertained and he has remained in DSS custody without trial.
In furtherance of their violent
and riotous attacks on Pro Biafra activists particularly the IPOB, the DSS in
company of soldiers, police and other members of the Abia State Joint Security
Taskforce operating with the Abia State Government procured hilux vans,
yesterday, 25th of August trailed and ambushed some leaders and
members of IPOB in Abia State who were returning from Abuja. The arrested IPOB
activists are Citizens Ikechukwu Ugwuoha, Asochukwu Ugochukwu, Sunday J.
Okafor, Joseph C. and Ogbuawa C., among them were those released from Aba Prisons
on 11th of August 2016 following the directive of the Attorney
General of the Federation that charges against them and other Pro Biafra
activists in Nigeria should be dropped. They were arrested in the morning of 9th
of February and spuriously charged following the army massacre of at least 22
IPOB activists during their prayer procession at the National High School
Premises in Aba on the day of their arrest.
The IPOB activists arrested
yesterday (25th August 2016) had since their release on 11th
of August 2016 per Aba Magistrate Court 1 and the AGF, been subjected to sundry
harassments and intimidations by the DSS, Army and Police in Abia State. Their
fundamental human rights to personal liberty, rest and leisure, movement,
shelter, expression and association have been gravely threatened; forcing them
to go into hiding and sleeping outside their homes. Some of them have also
narrowly missed being shot at sight and killed by soldiers. Their names,
residences and mobile lines have been tracked, hacked and censored by security
agencies particularly the DSS.
On 25th of August 2016
being yesterday, the five IPOB activists were arrested by a combined team of
DSS, Army and Police. It is strongly suspected that they were under DSS watch
and trailed by same on their way back to Aba from Abuja. Their Hummer Bus per “Onyenwe
Motors” was impounded by the named security operatives along Isiala Ngwa area
of the Aba-Umuahia Dual Carriage Way near Aba. The impoundment possibly
followed a tip off and intelligence information supplied by some undercover DSS
operatives about their movement and vehicle. On getting to their vehicle, which
also had few other passengers on board, they were called by their names and the
first person (Ogbuawa C.) at the front seat was spotted, handcuffed and
mercilessly beaten up, followed by others.
They were later moved with their
vehicle to the Ngwa High School (temporary headquarters of the 144 Battalion of
the Nigerian Army in Aba) where more beatings and other forms of torture including
use of electric tasers were heavily applied. They also had their mobile phones
confiscated and seized till now. Five of them and two married women (Ugochi
& anor) were taken back to the scene of their abduction where the two
married women were released, with one of them beaten mercilessly.
The five IPOB activists were seen
being taking away and heading towards Umuahia-Aba Dual Carriage Way. Till today,
their whereabouts have remained unknown. According to one of the ladies who
spoke to Intersociety, she said that she got beaten up mercilessly
because one of the soldiers accused her of being the wife of a Niger Delta
Avenger and was forcing her to admit so and that one of the plain cloth
security operatives she suspected to be a DSS operative told them that their
arrest was well planned and the arrested activists carefully trailed, which was
why they were called by their names moments after their vehicle was impounded
at Isiala Ngwa, near Aba.
As we speak, 23 other IPOB
activists are still languishing in Ikot Abasi Prison Custody in Akwa Ibom State,
following their mass arrest on 9th of February 2016 during their
peaceful and lawful prayer procession in furtherance of their agitation for and
exercise of nonviolent Biafran self determination rights. The names of 23 IPOB
activists are Citizens Inua Eshiet Akpan, Marabuchi Ikeotuonye, Benjamin
Asonye, Chisom Chichi, Chinedu Okpara, Ndubuisi Ozoemena, Chiadiakaobi Paul,
Okorie Ejegbu Chima, Sunday Oko E., Joseph Edet Frank, Emmanuel Eno Uwah,
Chimaobi Iwoben, Eze Nwogu, Kelechi Lawrence, Chudwa Chinonso, Chika Chima,
Uche Godwin Njoche, Chijioke Gospel Vitus, Ndukwe Eme, Ikenna Ojiekwe, Moses
Ngozi Ginikanwa, Chinemerem Chimuche and Odinaka Onyeka.
By the recent directive of the Attorney
General of the Federation that all charges preferred by Federal Government
against IPOB and other Pro Biafran activists in connection with peaceful
assemblies and protests embarked by the Pro Biafran groups should be dropped
and discontinued; which is yet to be reversed; the continued detention of the
above 23 IPOB activists and particularly those presently held in the DSS
custody is null and void.
We call on the authorities of the
DSS to unconditionally release all IPOB activists in their custody and desist
from taking laws into their hands by invading citizens’ homes in the dead of
the night, arresting, shooting, torturing and detaining them for months without
trial. The incessant harassments and indiscriminate arrests of IPOB activists
in particular and Pro Biafran activists in general must stop. All the IPOB and
other Pro Biafran activists currently being detained across the country
including those in the Ikot Abasi Prisons in Akwa Ibom State should be released
unconditionally and their further arrest, harassment and intimidation stopped
forthwith.
The energies and resources wasted
in hunting innocent and unarmed IPOB activists and other security irrelevancies
such as harassment, arrest, detention and prosecution of pet dogs’ owners
should be channelled into teething security challenges such as indiscriminate
butchering of innocent and nonviolent Christians, priests, farmers and rural
dwellers in the old Middle Belt and Southeast and South-south Nigeria by the
government armed, aided and abetted Fulani Jihadists.
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
(Intersociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
Obianuju Igboeli, Esq., (LLB, BL)
Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
Mobile Line: +2348034186332
Email: igboeliobianuju@gmail.com
Chinwe Umeche, Esq., (LLB, BL)
Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program
Mobile Line: +2347013238673
Email: chinwe.englewood@gmail.com
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