(Intersociety
& SBCHROs, Onitsha Nigeria: 22nd January 2017)-The leaderships of Int’l Society for Civil Liberties and the
Rule of Law (Intersociety) and the
Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs) are
deeply concerned, alarmed and shocked over the wilful and premeditated killing
of no fewer than twenty (20) unarmed and defenceless Nigerian citizens and
terminally injuring of scores of others at the Port Harcourt (Igweocha) venue
of Donald J. Trump Solidarity Rally on 20th January 2017. Over
seventy (70) other citizens that attended the rally were arrested and are still
being detained by soldiers and police, etc, in various detention facilities in Rivers
State and possibly outside the State.
The regime atrocious deaths
and associated terminal injuries were carried out and perpetrated by the
Nigerian Army led by its Chief, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai; among other
security forces. The operation, circumstantially, was presidentially ordered by
the Commander-In-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, President Muhammadu Buhari.
The shootings and killings reportedly
started at various sub-scenes of the solidarity rally the moment the Nigerian Army
stormed the places to join other security forces on the ground and opened fire
at unarmed and defenceless citizens with live bullets shot at them at close
range. Some dead bodies of the Port Harcourt shootings and killings were taken
away by the Nigerian Army, while others were rescued and deposited in some
mortuaries located in across Rivers State. In similar shootings and killings in
Onitsha and Aba in August and December 2015 as well as in January, February and
May 2016; they also started after the arrival of the soldiers of the Nigerian
Army.
By law and circumstances, the
shootings and killings are totally and inexcusably wilful and premeditated; particularly
on account of existing secret or unofficial presidential death code
against unarmed and defenceless Pro Biafra Campaigners and other
citizens of Southeast and South-south Nigeria led by Igbo-Nigerians. The
anti Igbo presidential death code is circumstantially evidential;
likewise associated criminal stigmatization.
Further attestation to the wilful
and premeditated shootings and killings is the widely publicized written
notification for the rally sent by the lead-organizer of the rally, the
IPOB World-Wide to relevant security agencies in Nigeria including the Army,
Police and SSS and leading diplomatic missions and social advocacy groups
within and outside Nigeria.
The shootings and killings have also
exposed the Nigerian Army and other security agencies’ bare-faced lies and
indefensible excuses made against the Pro Biafra Campaigners particularly the
IPOB since 2015 to the effect that “Pro Biafra Campaigners are shot and killed
during their protests because they are armed and violent”. The Igweocha shootings
and killings have completely exposed these bare-faced lies and vindicated IPOB
led Pro Biafra Campaigners as unarmed and nonviolent or pacifist self determination campaigners.
Gory images emerging from the
Igweocha (Port Harcourt) shootings and killings have also exposed the Nigerian
Army, Police and SSS; in the area of criminal use of force; where unarmed
and defenceless citizens who gathered for the rally were targeted and shot with
automatic weapons at close range; directed at terminal parts of their bodies
such as chest, waist, lung, heart, forehead, neck, reproductive and stomach
regions of their bodies. The Rivers Police Command even has the audacity and
shamelessness to tell reporters that “non person died in the rally”.
In all these, President Muhammadu
Buhari has again failed woefully in his constitutional duty to protect the
citizens’ constitutional rights to life, personal liberty and dignity of human
person as well as freedom of association, expression, movement and
constitutional assemblies. The Buhari Administration has also failed woefully
to observe and uphold Nigeria’s regional and international rights obligations
under the AU and the UN Systems.
Apart from grave ethnic bias and
hatred which the shootings and killings further exposed; they also gravely or
dangerously rubbished Nigeria as an
international murderous country. It is also very important to observe that Nigeria
as a current Member-State of the African Union and the United Nations under the
current international diplomacy and relations; is speedily becoming a
Rogue State under the Buhari Administration.
Diplomatically and internationally,
there have been several pro Buhari and anti Buhari Street protests and matches
in strategic international capitals and cities; yet no single soul was shot and
killed or terminally maimed with live bullets. Several street matches and protests
have been organized and are still being organized by mass movements involving
millions of citizens of various regional and international ethnic nationalities
in several cities of the world for self governance, statehood or
socio-political and economic self determination; yet heavens have not fallen
and the host political territories have never unleashed their armies and other
coercive agencies on them with brute alacrity. But in Buhari’s democratic
Nigeria, over 270 killings and 350 terminal injuries have been recorded in
seventeen months or 510 days or between August 2015 and January 2017.
Diplomatic consequences of the pro
Trump solidarity shootings and killings wilfully carried out and perpetrated by
the Buhari Administration may most likely overweigh Nigeria’s current
Presidency particularly as it concerns Nigeria’s relationship with the new
Donald Trump Administration in Washington. The killings are the height of diplomatic
blunder and miscalculation. Nigeria is doomed irreparably if it attracts
to itself international isolationism from the world’s first among the equals
and the equals themselves.
The Buhari Administration appears
deadly decayed diplomatically and internationally that it has defiantly and
dangerously remained locally and diplomatically incorrigible and suicidal. The
Administration ought to have learned a lot of lessons from its gross diplomatic
bias and sidedness in the just concluded failed Hillary Clinton and former
President Obama’ election campaigns; but we are deeply disappointed that the
reverse is grossly the case till date.
Granted that there exists diplomatic lobbying, but how can the
Buhari Administration explain to the Trump Administration that it killed not
less than 20 unarmed and defenceless citizens, terminally injured dozens of
others and detained over seventy (70) simply because they non-violently and harmlessly
gathered to show solidarity with Mr Donald J. Trump on his historic swearing in
as the 45th President of the United States on the same date of the
shootings and killings?
Will the Trump Administration abandon
the
Statue of Liberty and swallow President Buhari’s expected indefensible
excuses? Is Nigeria no longer a key
Member-State of the United Nations? What about the Principles and Purposes of
the United Nations and the Fundamental Rules of the United Nations or Opino
Juris including the Ten Basic Standards of the International Law, Use
of Force and the Hallowed Right to Freedom of Expression? Is Buhari’s
democratic Nigeria now an island of itself? Can the Ghanaian security forces, for instance,
order for mass murder of Nigerians in Ghana on account of their jubilations or
rallies over the Super Eagle’s defeat of the Black Stars in a football match?
We shall not be surprised to read in coming days or weeks in Nigeria’s print,
visual, audio visual and web media; particularly those with strong
ethno-religious bias and news censorship, a scripted or diplomatically coerced
statement from the authorities of relevant diplomatic missions in Nigeria or
the Government of Nigeria with indefensible excuses bordering on the reason for
diplomatic
indifference as it concerns the shootings and killings or dissipation
of diplomatic or verbal energy as in why President Muhammadu Buhari’s name was
omitted from the list of the international dignitaries invited
for Trump inauguration at the White House; thereby ignoring diplomatic
and moral abominations trailing the Igweocha pro Trump rally shootings and
killings.
As we and other Nigerians and members
of the international community await the completion of the ongoing statistical
compilation and computation of the images and bio-data of those killed and
maimed at the Igweocha Pro Trump Solidarity Rally of 20th January
2017; we again console with the families that lost their loved ones and bread
winners as well as the leadership of IPOB World-Wide and urge them to take
heart and see the death of their slain comrades as a price for liberty of their
race to be saved and rescued from age-long physical or structural violence in a
bleeding Federal Republic of Nigeria.
We also urge them to remain
unprovoked, pacifist and nonviolent at all times. It is extremely important to
inform them that the Buhari Administration and its leading regime atrocities
perpetrators including President Buhari himself, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai, former Inspector Gen of
Police, Solomon Arase, current IGP, Ibrahim Kpotum Idris, SSS boss, Lawal Daura and their
culpable sub commanders as well as the present Governments of Abia and Anambra
States which culpably aided and abetted the 9th February and 30th
May 2016 military massacres in Onitsha and Aba ; are doing everything immoral
or crooked to escape from the long arm of the law, locally and internationally,
at the appointed time and dates.
One of the escape routes desperately
and deadly being exploited by the named perpetrators is to provoke the families
of the slain and the IPOB World-Wide to collectively resort to reprisal
radicalization including armed rebellion or insurgency so as to find enough
grounds to escape retribution and eternal moral damnation itching speedily at
the doorsteps.
These, the members of the slain and
terminally injured families and the IPOB World-Wide, must never allow. The regime
atrocities perpetrators who have chosen to remain adamant and repeat-perpetrators; must
at all times be guided to the path of retribution and eternal moral damnation
without recourse to shortcuts, reprisal radicalization and jungle justice.
The United States Embassy in Nigeria
is also called upon to rise in condemnation of the heartless killing and
maiming of these unarmed and defenceless Nigerian citizens who gathered to join
the United States in inaugurating her 45th President and renewing
her total allegiance to the American People, the Hallowed Statue of Liberty and
the rest of the World in her moral and diplomatic capacities as the
Police of Global Security, Peace and Human Rights!
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties &
the Rule of Law (Intersociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Email: info@intersociety-ng.org
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
For: Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights
Organizations (SBCHROs)
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