(Onitsha Nigeria, 1st May 2016)-It is
an incontestable fact that ethnic bloodshed, gross rights abuses and other
regime atrocities in Nigeria’s present dispensation have deteriorated on
account of conspiratorial roles of the security forces, aided and abetted by
the Presidency as well as well as coordinated conspiracy of silence maintained
by the (former) mainstream human rights, good governance and democracy
activists or groups; majorly concentrated in the Southwest part of Nigeria and
dominated by activists of Southeast and Southwest sections of the country. It
is also an undisputed fact that the conspiracy of silence under reference came
on account of an existing partisan alliance between the referenced rights and
democracy CSOs, their leaders and then AC/APC controlled Government of Lagos
State (since 2003); through a Government-CSO liaison arrangement. This was
later extended and enlarged ahead of 2015 general elections that produced Gen
Muhammadu Buhari and his APC as the sixth Nigeria’s central civilian
government.
We further wish to inform that
apart from choosing “conspiracy of silence” as an alliance policy with the
Buhari administration, the referenced activist-CSOs also adopted pro
establishment, advisory or non-critic concept of CSO activism. A major area of
their nowadays peripheral activism is rooted in their blind supports to the
present regime’s anti corruption alarmist policies. As far as the referenced activist-CSOs
are concerned, fight against corruption, no matter how crude and human rights,
rule of law and constitutionally unfriendly it is; must take precedent over
gross breaches of fundamental human rights of the citizenry. To them,
democratic governance is no longer collective effort at ensuring collective
good, welfare, unity, cohesion, security, safety, protection, prosperity and
national development; but an opportunity for few to be privileged and have
access to the corridors of political power with its illicit goodies.
Today, the referenced
activist-CSOs advocacy, if any, is not only utterly selective, but also
sectional and establishment oriented. The principles of neutrality, bias,
impartiality and grassroots orientation have not only departed their advocacy,
but the bodies and individuals under reference now see the Buhari
administration as “incapable of doing wrong or engaging in any misconduct”.
To
the greatest surprise of all and sundry in Nigeria and beyond, with the exception
of Intersociety and minute others; the conspiracy of silence has become
the permanent policy of the referenced activist-CSOs; to the extent that till
date, no firm advocacy statements or proactive advocacy steps have emanated
from them concerning all the evidential regime atrocities associated with the
Buhari administration particularly the massacre of over 80 members and
supporters of IPOB and maiming of over 170 others in Onitsha, Aba and other key
cities of Southeast and South-south regions. Their conspiracy of silence has
also been extended to other regime and non regime atrocities such as recent
Agatu and Ukpabi-Nimbo (Uzo Uwani) butcheries by the Fulani Janjaweed. Where
any statement is rarely issued, it is empty, advisory, defensive and utterly establishment
oriented.
A clear case
in point, which must have captured the attention and worries of the Speaker of
the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Hon Onofiok Luke; is the press statement
issued by the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG); a supposedly non-partisan
coalition of CSOs dominated by the Southwest based activist-CSOs, which say
they are advocating for credible and popular elections in Nigeria or any part
thereof. The TMG has in a statement issued on Friday, 29th of April
2016, belatedly accused the former Goodluck Jonathan administration of
attempting to offer it a bribe of N2billion ahead of the 2015 general
elections. It further accused the former administration of pressuring it to
accept “50,000 PDP members as elections observers”. While the statement in its
entirety is political and APC friendly, the TMG group failed to disclose in
same why it chose to make it public over 12 months after the said elections
were held. The link below contains the TMG reference statement http://elombah.com/index.php/reports/6667-jonathan-offered-us-n2b-ahead-of-2015-elections-tmg
The roles of the National
Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in all these are condemnably alarming and shocking.
The Commission has not only lost focus but it is also spineless and
conspiratorial. Till date, there is no single statement from the Commission
condemning the massacres and butcheries under reference, despite enormity of
powers and oversight functional mechanisms at its disposal. Its roles in the
Zaria Shiite massacre are nothing but “cooling off” and escapist. It has
maintained, till date, total silence over IPOB massacres and shootings as well
as Agatu and Ukpabi-Nimbo (Uzo Uwani) butcheries by the Fulani Janjaweed; likewise
other plethora of regime atrocities of the Buhari administration. For instance,
it took the NHRC over four months to respond to our “urgent action” letter
addressed to it, dated 13th of November 2015, concerning flagrant
abuse of legal rights of Citizen Nnamdi Kanu (POC) by DSS; guaranteed by the
Chapter Four of the 1999 Constitution.
Such legal rights under
breach, warranting our referenced letter to it included disobedience to bails
granted by courts and denial of access to his lawyers, family and medical
doctors while he was in the DSS captivity. It took NHRC over four months to
respond to our letter of 13th of November 2015 via its letter to us,
dated 4th of March 2016 and referenced: C/2016/983/HQ. The letter
was delivered to our secretariat on 22nd of March 2016. Signed by
A.A. Yakubu for Executive Secretary/CEO; the letter read in part, “you are
informed that the subject of the complaint is before a competent court and is
subjudice and cannot be admitted by the Commission”. By this the Commission is
saying that once a citizen is arrested, arraigned and remanded in prison by a
magistrate court without trial, his or her fundamental human rights including
legal rights cannot be discussed and protected or even when he or she is put on
trial, same cannot be discussed when abused or under threat of abuse.
We, therefore, share the deep
concerns recently expressed by the Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of
Assembly, Hon Onofiok Luke, over conspiracy of silence of the CSO rights
activists in the country at a time the country is in dire need of courageous
people to speak on governance and against poor leadership. The Speaker further
said that “it is worrisome that a few years ago there were myriads of activists
who spoke against bad government and there seems to be a conspiracy of silence
in the face of even worse leadership crisis in the country presently”. The
Speaker spoke while addressing members of the Young Lawyers’ Forum of the
Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, in Uyo, where he asked: “Where are the activists in the
country now?”
The Speaker went further to
say: “We have a great challenge facing us today as the leaders of this country
for tomorrow. In the last eight years when things were wrong, we had senior
lawyers who would hit the streets shouting and making demands in the name of
human rights activists.“Yet the same things which happened in the last couple
of years are happening today, and even taking worrisome dimensions, but there
seems to be a conspiracy of silence”.“What we find today is that people become
activists when political situations don’t favour them. But when they are on the
side which favours them, they feign ignorance of harsh realities.
“This is why,
till tomorrow, we respect the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi.” (Sources: This Day
Newspaper and the News Express online, 30th of April 2016). Our
answer to the above question by the Speaker (where are the activists in the
country now?) is that “mainstream activists in the country have slumbered and
are on the run”; leading to birth of a new generation of rights, democracy and
good governance activists across the Niger and the creeks of the Niger Delta.
In other words, though mainstream activist-CSOs have conspiratorially
slumbered, but others abound and waxing.
Conspiratorial Roles Of Security Forces In Regime Atrocities
& Other Rights Abuses: Pieces of credible evidence
exposing the conspiratorial roles of security forces in the country’s non-State
actor butcheries across its rain forests region are mounting on daily basis;
likewise those directly linking the Buhari’s Federal Government and its
security chiefs to incessancy of State terrorism and murders in the Southern
part of Nigeria. There are continuing reports of sponsored security personnel
particularly members of the armed forces posing as “alamajari” shoe makers or
shoe shiners, “Mai-ruwa” (water fetchers), beggars, finger nail cutters, and
barrow pushers flooding the streets of southern cities particularly those of
the Southeast and the South-south regions for the purpose of embarking on well
coordinated intelligence gathering missions for Hausa-Fulani oligarchs. From
Nnewi to Onitsha; Awka to Ekwulobia; Abakiliki to Enugu; Umuahia to Aba; Owerri
to Port Harcourt; the number of cities under siege by those marauding elements is
many to be named.
In Nnewi, Anambra State, for
instance, a doctor of a teaching hospital recently ran into an officer he knew
way back in the north, called Sani, whom he saw posing as a shoe shiner along a
road in Nnewi. On shouting his name twice, the officer-soldier saw and
recognized him; took to his heel and abandoned his shoe shining basket. In
Owerri, Imo State, there was also a case of another soldier posing as shoe
maker, whose identity card dropped from his pocket and a person nearby picked
it and discovered that he is a serving soldier of the northern extraction. At
Ekwulobia, Anambra State, there was a heated argument between a supposedly shoe
maker of northern extraction and his customer; leading to a near-fist cuff and
along the line, an identity card of the supposed shoe maker dropped from his
pocket and he turned out to be a soldier of the northern extraction. Other
instances abound.
Just recently, 76 unarmed and
innocent natives of Ugwuneshi Autonomous Community in Awgu LGA of Enugu State
were arrested and tortured by soldiers of the 144 Battalion in Abia State;
detained and influenced a feeble magistrate to remand them in prison for
fifteen days for protesting against the menace of the Fulani herders and their
armed Janjaweed in their area. As if that was not enough, the DSS recently
arranged a press conference where it accused IPOB of “killing five Hausa-Fulani
civilians”. The accusation turned out to be watery, vexatious and grossly
unsubstantiated. In the Agatu and Ukpabi-Nimbo (Uzo Uwani) butcheries by the Fulani
Janjaweed, in which over 300-400 defenseless citizens mostly women and
children were killed; the DSS has not said anything or arrested anybody till
date. Just recently, the Commissioner of Police Anambra State, CP Hosea Karma
publicly claimed that “IPOB and MAASOB activities”, were his major security
headache. How nonviolent protests guaranteed in democratic society and the
Constitution have become violent crimes warranting the CP’s security headache,
has not been publicly explained by the CP till date.
As recently as Saturday, 30th
of April 2016, the Governor of Enugu State, Hon Lawrence Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi made
a shocking revelation of how relevant security chiefs in the State including
the CP and the GOC of 82 Division of the Nigerian Army were duly informed over
eight hours before the Ukpabi-Nimbo Fulani killings, yet they could not do
anything. The State CP, Ekechukwu Nwodibo, obviously acting on a script from
the above, had after the butchery claimed that “hoodlums not Fulani herders
(Janjaweed) carried out the killings”. The Governor, on his part, also
exhibited moral remorselessness and culpability. The same Governor that was
caught in the media shedding tears during his visit to the butchery scene with
a declaration of two days of mourning; was sighted in Aso Rock smiling and
laughing as if he won a Nobel Prize for Peace in Norway. He also nearly turned
himself into a snail while having a handshake with Gen Muhammadu Buhari; as if
he was greeting and shaking “Saint Pope John Paul 11”. These are clear
manifestations of conquest and modern day political slavery; responsible for
ceaseless ethnic cleansing directed at Igbo population in Nigeria.
Further attestation to the
conspiratorial roles under reference, is the hostile and war drumming position
taken by the 19 Northern Governors Forum. The Forum not only defended and
justified strongly the butcheries perpetrated by the Fulani Janjaweed
particularly that of Ukpabi-Nimbo, but also described the butchers as “cattle
rustlers”; yet they did not tell Nigerians why those seeking to steal cows
(rustlers) from cow herders, would abandon cow herders and their cows and go
after the lives of those not involved in cattle herding (Agatu and Ukpabi-Nimbo
natives of Benue and Enugu States). The Northern Governors and the Buhari
Presidency are also believed to be the brains behind the pendency of the
National Grazing Reserve Bill before the National Assembly with its genocidal
provisions. Totality of these explains our position that “the security forces
in Nigeria are conspiratorially on rampage while the (former) mainstream
activist-CSOs are on the run over the raging ethnic bloodshed, rights abuses
and other regime atrocities in the country. Till date, the perpetrators are
still on the prowl and not one of them has been arrested and prosecuted.
We are aware that the Oyo
State Government has made it clear to Federal Government that “it does not have
any land to give for National Grazing Reserve”; likewise the Government of
Enugu State. That of Oyo State is commendable; not minding its affiliation with
APC controlled Federal Government. The position of Ekiti State, too, is
commendable. Condemned unreservedly is the silence of the graveyard maintained,
till date, by the Governments of Anambra and Ebonyi States. The conspiratorial
and parasitic position taken by the Government of Imo State is not unexpected;
yet it does not represent the majority views of the Imo People. That of Abia
State should be explicit and frontal. All the States of the rain forests region
must rise with one voice and ensure prohibition of the Fulani Animal Husbandry
in all parts of Nigeria except in the core north.
Call For International Criminal & Diplomatic Interventions: Time
has also come for urgent international intervention by the International
Governmental Organizations (IGOs) and other members of the international
community. Specifically, the UN Security Council is called upon to carry out
extensive criminal and diplomatic investigations into the activities of the Fulani
Janjaweed and associated roles of the cattle owners and
herders as well as conspiratorial roles of the country’s security forces and
the Government of Gen Muhammadu Buhari, which, till date, have not arrested and
prosecuted any perpetrator associated with the butcheries under reference. By
this, the Buhari administration has not only failed to fulfill its
international obligations, but also circumstantially an accomplice. The
administration has further breached its obligation under the Rome Statute of
the ICC by its “unwillingness and inability” to bring to justice those
murderous elements within the Fulani Janajweed.
We hereby demand that the investigations
under recommendation should follow the patterns applied in the Sudan’s Darfur
Region by the international community and the UN Security Council (UNSC). Such
international criminal and diplomatic investigations should be referred by UNSC,
under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter to the Office of the Prosecutor for International
Criminal Court for further investigation, indictment and prosecution of actors,
sponsors, aiders and abettors. Alternatively, any State-Party to ICC Statute
that feels deeply concerned over unprovoked butcheries in Nigeria is also called
upon to refer the butcheries to the ICC for necessary remedial and punitive
actions.
Signed:
For:
International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety)
Emeka
Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile
Line: +2348174090052
Email:
info@intersociety-ng.org
Chinwe
Umeche, Esq., Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program
Mobile
Line: +2347013238673
Obianuju
Joy Igboeli, Esq., Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
Mobile
Line: +2348180771506
Website:
www.intersociety-ng.org
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