Accuses Buhari, Uzodimma, Umahi

From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) in collaboration with the Ekwenche Research Institute, Chicago-Illinois, USA, the Global Igbo Leaders Coalition, United Kingdom and the Rising Sun Charities Organization, Newark-New Jersey, USA has raised the alarm of proliferation of no fewer than 20 armed killer entities and high influx of illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) in Igbo Land especially South-East and Igbo parts of the South-South Nigeria.

The group said that the proliferation which started in 2015 and January 2021 led to escalation was traced to the former Government of Buhari’s allegedly bent on laying siege, conquering and enslaving the Igbo Land, her defenseless populations and properties for purposes of radical Islamism and politics of hate, segregation and exclusion.

In a special report by the coalition titled: “Who is killing who outside the law in Igbo land?” released to newsmen by the Chairman of Intersociety Mr. Emeka Umeagbalasi said that the affected states include, Imo and Ebonyi; followed by Anambra, Enugu, Abia, Rivers and Delta as well as ancestral Igbo populations and their neighbors in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo and Delta and also Benue, Nasarrawa and Kogi States in North-Central Nigeria.

The report read in part: “it must be reminded that this Special Investigative Report had arisen from Intersociety’s recent Reports issued on May 21, 2023 (Imo Mass Atrocities: 33 Pages), July 16, 2023 (Over 50 Armed Groups Raised In Nigeria To Kill On The Grounds Of Religion, Politics And Ransom Since June 2015: Seven Pages) and July 31, 2023 (N2.8 Trillion Seized From Easterners At Gunpoint By Criminal Security Personnel And Non State Armed Groups In Three Years Of Jan 2021-July 2023: Five Pages).

“This Joint Special Investigative Report also contains 20 References of the Research Reports by Intersociety covering Dec 2015 to August 2023.

“The no fewer than 20 Government-linked armed killer groups in Igbo Land identified in this Special Investigative Report are found to have been raised and armed indirectly with illicit SALWs by the Government of Nigeria under Buhari and its allied sub-national (State) Governments in the East such as the Government of Imo State under Hope Uzodinma and the past Government of Ebonyi State under Dave Umahi.

“The two sub-national Governments are strongly suspected to have been federally engaged as ‘willing tools’ to counter and counterfeit ‘Biafra Self Determination Agitations’ and nonviolent activities of the mainstream agitators with intents to class-criminalize and mass-kill defenseless law abiding members of the Igbo population and wantonly burn down or destroy their properties.

“Such class criminalization by the Nigerian Government under Buhari and its deployed security forces had consistently been used since August 2015 and heightened since October 2020 in Rivers State and January 2021 in Imo State and other parts of Igbo Land which saw thousands of unarmed Igbo Easterners and defenseless properties massacred or wantonly destroyed in the past three years using politics of exclusion and hate, religion and ethnicity as weapons.

“This Special Investigative Report, therefore, has identified “the Nigerian security forces in Igbo Land and the more than 20 Government-linked armed groups, as those killing and burning outside the law in Igbo Land particularly in the past three years or January 2021 to August 2023, using religion, politics and thefts including ransom as weapons”. They are joined by more than 300 “street criminal entities” and tens of thousands of “individual criminal persons” engaging in sundry “street criminalities” on account of Igbo Land wearing “blue-collar” sub-cultural identity.

“The South-East and Igbo parts of the South-South have also been gripped by state actor generated insecurity and other unsafe conditions such as heavy militarization and placement of the Region under ‘police state’ resulting in unchecked mass atrocities including arbitrary arrests and detentions, abductions, torture and other inhuman and degrading treatments or punishments, disappearances, extrajudicial killings within and outside the custodies; burning down or destruction of civilian houses and other properties and lootings, etc. Other armed state actor mass atrocities in Igbo Land targeted at defenseless Igbo citizens and their properties are false labeling, ethnic profiling, class criminalization, etc.

“The drafted security forces and their commanders in Igbo Land are also integrity challenged and biased; by targeting and treating members of the lawful population as “criminals” and members of the unlawful population as “lawful citizens”. A clear case in point is brazen aiding of jihadist activities of the Fulani Herdsmen and other Jihadists including invasion, seizure and occupation of forests, bushes and farmlands in Igbo Land or forceful acquisition of the same using MACABAN.

“Included in the list are forceful Islamic marriages and conversions, killings, abductions, disappearances, armed robberies, kidnap-for-ransoms and infliction of pains and fears on general civilian population with intent to loot, plunder, destroy, conquer, terrify, terrorize, enslave and Islamize; all perpetrated under the protection of the Nigerian Government security or coercive establishments,”‘ the report stated.

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