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| Pro Trump Rally Killings: The making of Nigeria an international murderous country |
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)
1.
Comrade
Aloysius Attah (+2348035090548)
For: Civil Liberties Organization,
Southeast Zone
2.
Comrade
Peter Onyegiri (+2347036892777)
For: Centre for Human Rights & Peace
Advocacy
3.
Comrade
Samuel Njoku (+2348039444628)
For: Human Rights Organization of Nigeria
4.
Engineer
Rufus Duru (+2348037513519)
For: Global Rights & Development
International
5.
Comrade
Chike Umeh ( +2348064869601)
For: Society Advocacy Watch Project
6.
Obianuju
Joy Igboeli, Esq. (+2348034186332)
For: Anambra Human Rights Forum
7.
Comrade
Alex Olisa(+2348034090410)
For: Southeast Good Governance Forum
8.
Jerry
Chukwuokoro, PhD (+2348035372962)
For: International Solidarity for Peace
& Human Rights Initiative
9.
Mr.
Tochukwu Ezeoke (+447748612933)
For: Igbo Ekunie Initiative (Pan Igbo
Rights Advocacy Group)
10.
Comrade
Vincent Ezekwume (+2348171793911)
For: Civil Liberties Organization, Anambra
State Branch
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