THE rising repression of, and unprovoked attacks on self determination agitators by Nigerian authorities have become a major cause of concern for the human rights and civil liberties in Nigeria.

According to the Civil Liberties Organisation, CLO, “The President Muhammad Buhari led APC government has matured as a purely civilian dictatorship that has gagged all voices of dissent in Nigeria.”

CLO made this observation in a statement it issued on Wednesday, July 7, and made available to Realnews. Signed by Ibuchukwu Ezike, executive director, CLO, the statement noted that “The progressive press, human rights organisations, labour and student movements, the radical Judiciary as well as progressive political oppositions have become gravely intimidated by the dictatorial regime.”

This has hugely affected popular activism and ventilation of progressive ideas which characterise constitutional democracy, it said.

The CLO also said that the self determination agitators are not left out, adding that “Recently, in a gestapo style, the regime abducted the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, from Nairobi, Kenya, to Nigeria without respect for international law and human rights.

“Kanu was leg chained and hand cuffed and treated like a common criminal. He has since been held incommunicado at the dungeon of the Directorate of the State Service (DSS) since last week under torturous conditions. Kanu’s abduction has been condemned by both local and international community, including the United Kingdom which has taken Kenya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for colliding with the repressive Nigerian authorities to commit the crime against citizen Nnamdi Kanu.”

Also, it noted that Raila Odinga, Kenya’s major opposition leader, accused the Kenyan government of complicity in the unlawful arrest and abduction of the IPOB leader.

CLO quoted Odinga as saying that the Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta whose father, Jomo Kenyatta, was shepherded in Igbo land during Kenya’s campaign for Independence, and the Kenyan Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Wilfred Machage, collected a whopping $1 billion US Dollars from Abuja for the dirty job.

CLO further stated that in a similar gestapo manner, Sunday Igboho, the campaigner for Odu’a Peoples Republic, is currently being hunted by the regime’s attack dogs. Igboho’s residence has been illegally attacked and ransacked by security operatives for daring to mobilise his Yoruba kinsmen and women for self determination which is a provision of both local and international human rights instruments.

“All these hunts and incarcerations are going on while arms bearing Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram insurgents and bandits are terrorising Nigeria; killing,  maiming and raping women sporadically and destroying peoples farms.  They freely roam our streets, schools, farms and forests committing all forms of atrocities and mayhem. Besides this, very highly placed persons in this government were named in the past as the sole negotiators by Boko Haram at their peak of terrorist attacks in Nigeria.

“Only recently, Major General Atolagbe, the Commander of the Special TaskForce in Plateau State,  was lawlessly dismissed from the Nigerian Army. His crime was that he publicly paraded Fulani militia and their financiers and refused to transfer their case to Abuja for trial and consequent freedom to continue to perpetrate heinous crimes against unsuspecting Nigerians.

“CLO’s worry is why those committing heinous  crimes against the society are left untouched while peaceful citizens who are agitating for their freedom through legitimate processes are hunted, incarcerated and tortured. CLO rejects, in its entirety, the running of a Federation like a personal estate and the use of absolute power to gravely and grossly undermine fundamental rights of the citizens.

The civil society organisation “demands  immediate and unconditional release of Maazi Nnamdi Kanu from the gulag and discontinuation of PMB’s men’s hunt for Sunday Igboho and other voices of dissent in the country.

“Immediate reinstatement of Maj General Atolagbe to the Nigerian Army and restoration of all his rights and privileges where they were tampered with, and;

“Thorough and unhindered restructuring  of Nigeria in the format that the ethnic nationalities making up this country have demanded as this will lay to rest, these unprovoked  abuses, and address in perpetuity, the lopsidedness in Nigeria that is responsible for all these abuses, agitations and utter disrespect for Nigerians by those in power,” it said.

CLO maintains that a people’s Constitution is the major and best solution to the myriads of Nigeria’s challenges and calls for the ethnic nationalities making up Nigeria to stand up to, strongly and without stop, demand for the making of a modern, peoples Constitution. We call on all progressive movements and associations in Nigeria to rise up to the occasion by uniting to fight against this current anti democratic government and to work to rescue our  society from the arms of these oppressors and human rights violators.

– July 8, 2021 @ 12:15 GMT |