Politics
By Anthony Isibor
The group made this known at a press conference organized on Tuesday, April 27, to discuss what it described as “the vicious happenings in Igboland, the incessant killings, agitations, and invasion of youths by federal security forces in Nigeria”.
At the end of the meeting, the women demanded that: “All killer herdsmen clandestinely aided and protected by federal security forces, who have now permanently settled in farmlands, bushes, and forests in our land and our key neighboring states must be moved out and relocated back to wherever they were brought from.
They called on the federal government to “Discontinue its clandestine policy of turning Southern and Middle Belt Nigeria into Sharia or Caliphate colony and respect the country’s secular status as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution. All armed forces must therefore vacate their security cordons in all parts of Igboland because we have discovered that the cordons by security agencies are part of the clandestine oppressive strategy to keep Igboland occupied to ease penetration by some jihadists elements to permanently occupy the land and a source of dishonest enrichment for security personnel manning this extortionist cordons.
“The federal government must ensure that the constitutional rights of citizens to freedom of residency and movement, as well as ownership of property in any part of the country, is no longer misconstrued and misinterpreted. The exercise of such rights must conform to Chapter Four of the 1999 Constitution and the ratified and domesticated African Charter on Human and People’s Rights Act of 2004, including rights of citizens of the country to peacefully and non-violently reside in urban residential areas anywhere in Nigeria and to own moveable and immoveable properties.
According to them, the Constitution does not guarantee any citizen’s right to live violently in another’s farmland or bush or forest and settle in same with small arms and light weapons and engage in terrorism and gang-raping of the residents.
“ The federal government must immediately end the ongoing crackdowns on our sons and other innocent citizens who are being deliberately labeled as IPOB members and killed by security forces whereas the insecurities in Nigeria are creations of Nigeria’s 1999 constitution, which has continued to be a lie unto itself when it says “We, the People.”
They also demanded: “The immediate release of all Igbos in secret detention facilities since 2020 and hundreds of citizens of Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, and Enugu States, who are residents of Obigbo in Rivers State, including Citizen Elvis Chigbu and 109 others detained without charges since six months ago and presently held at the Nigerian Army Commando Base in faraway Bida, Niger State.
The group, which also extended its demands to the five governors of the Eastern States, urged them to sit up to their duties and begin an immediate plan for the restoration of peace within the region.
“We call on southeast Governors to immediately begin consultations with critical indigenous stakeholders to draft an anti-open grazing and odd hours grazing prohibition bills and get them passed into law by the Houses of Assembly of the South East Region States.
“The South East States must institute a special probe panel to investigate countless massacres in Igbo communities with a view to fishing out the perpetrators and bring them to book or hand them over to International Criminal Court (ICC) for international prosecution and victims of their atrocious activities adequately compensated.
“southeast Governors must genuinely enter into credible negotiations with Igbo youths to avert a major calamity waiting to happen in the South East if the current security situation is not handled with care. The governors of the Eastern region must convene a regional security dialogue with IPOB and all youth groups. If governors and Islamic clerics are meeting and dialoguing with bandits in the north, why are our governors not holding talks with unarmed citizens in the region to find lasting peace?.
They urge the government to do the needful while insisting that the country is ripe for a people’s constitution and true federalism.
“We, therefore, call on the federal government to address reasons behind calls for agitations in the region and not to use force to suppress them.
“If our demands are not met within the stipulated time, Igbo women have their own way of tackling such crisis wherever they may be. If on the other hand, good sense prevails, and we hope and pray that the federal and state governments adhere to this call and not push us, the South East women further to the wall, we will cooperate and work acidulously to bring peace to the South East region and Nigeria in general,” it said.
While they called on the federal government to meet their demands within the next 60 days the southeast governors were given 90 days to meet their own part of our demands, including the passage and signing into law the anti-open grazing bill.
“If our demands are not met within the stipulated time, Igbo women have their own way of tackling such crisis wherever they may be. If on the other hand, good sense prevails, and we hope and pray that the federal and State Governments adhere to this call and not push us, the South East women further to the wall, we will cooperate and work acidulously to bring peace to the South East region and Nigeria in general,” they said.
The group further considers the attacks which date back to 2015, as “Systematic attacks on the peace and the tranquility that has over the years existed in the South East region”.
They stated that reports from INTERSOCIETY revealed that not less than 700 farmlands, bushes, and forests have been occupied or attacked by the jihadist herdsmen in the region while no fewer than 400 rural Igbo Christians have been hacked to death by the same jihadists who masquerade as “cattle herders”. Scores have also been bribed or abducted and forced or hypnotized into becoming Muslims against their will.
The group, which also fingered the Nigeria Security agencies as part of the problems of the South East, said that “Since August 2015, South East Region and its major gateway neighbors have been under military and police siege, to the extent that as of December 2020, not less than 6,300 militaries and police roadblocks were independently found to have been mounted or maintained on the South East and South-South roads and between August 2015 and Dec 2020, not less than N335 billion was illicitly raised and pocketed by Police and Military personnel and their supervising authorities who engage in infuriating and unchecked roadblock corrupt practices.
“These findings were according to research investigations carried out by Intersociety between October 2019 and December 2020. Citizens of the South East Region and their outpost brothers and sisters were also visited with indiscriminate clamped downs by drafted security forces, leading to many being detained without trial and scores either killed extra-judicially or disappeared without traces till date,” the group said.
They insisted that these incessant ‘Organized terrorist’ activities in the South East spearheaded by armed herders has culminated into a very evident negative impact on the economy of the eastern region.
They said that based on a recent report on poverty level by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, NBS, the southeast states performed very poorly and extremely below expectations.
“In the South East, Ebonyi State was rated the poorest with 80%. Enugu took the second position with 60% of its citizens on the poverty level. Abia State was rated 31%, Imo State 29%, and Anambra State 15%.
“This is the glaring economic reality in five southeast states. So, beyond the visible marginalization of South East region from the federal government in appointments and federal projects, the organized attacks on the economy of Igbo speaking communities in Nigeria is getting to the crescendo as farmers are now abandoning their farmlands to armed herdsmen in our region,” the women said.
It insisted that “The South East Region has also been gravely victimized by the atrocious state actors, especially the Nigerian Army and its appointing and supervising authorities, leading to the massacre of no fewer than 700 unarmed and defenseless citizens of the region between August 2015 and November 2020 and maiming of not less than 800 others.
“Hundreds were also abducted by Nigerian security forces while dozens disappeared to date.”
It said: “The abductees include 550 citizens of Abia, Imo, Ebonyi, Anambra, and Enugu, who resided in Obigbo and environs in Rivers State, who were abducted between October and November 2020, and held secretly without trial in Northern Nigeria for over four months. While 283 of them were located and freed by the courts, over 270 are still held secretly till date.
“Many of the 60 women among the female abductees, between the ages 20 and 39 were sexually assaulted and abused during over four months of their captivity in the Army and DSS facilities.
“We cannot forget the killings and maiming by soldiers, police, and other security agencies of the federal government in the South East region.”
The group recall that on “August 30, 2015, 40 defenseless citizens of the Judeo-Christian faith were brutally massacred during their peaceful self-determination protests in Onitsha, Enugu, Yenagoa, Uyo, Port Harcourt, and Asaba.
“On December 2, and 17, 2015, another 30 defenseless citizens of the same faith were massacred in Onitsha. On the 18th and 29th of January 2016, 20 of the same defenseless citizens of the Judeo-Christian faith were killed during peaceful protests in Aba.
“On 9th of February 2016, those massacred were 30 unarmed protesters in the same Aba just as on 29th and 30th of May 2016, other 140 defenseless citizens of the same Judeo-Christian faith was also killed during the world Igbo Heroes Day in Onitsha and Nkpor, (where 110 deaths occurred in Onitsha and Nkpor, and 30 deaths in Asaba) and on the 20th of January 2017, 20 unarmed protesters were killed at a pro-Trump rally in Port Harcourt.
“Also, on 11th to 14th In September 2017 there was the massacre of over 180 unarmed and defenseless citizens of Judeo-Christians faith in Ogwe, Aba, Isiala-Ngwa, and Umuahia, all in Abia State. On the 23rd of August 2020, the Army massacred no fewer than 30 Judeo-Christian worshippers and sports activists in Emene, Enugu State. As if that was not enough, in October 2020 the Army/Police killed over 50 civilians in the South East, and between October and November 2020, the Army equally massacred not less than 102 defenseless Igbo citizens in Obigbo, Rivers State.
“In January this year (2021), the Nigerian Army in Orlu, Imo State, killed 10 defenseless residents, including six rural farmers,” the women said.
The group insisted that though the Igbo’s have suffered escalated ethnic hatred and have also consistently faced persecution for just being Igbos, no single perpetrator of these heinous atrocities against the people have been held to account or brought to justice while the victims have neither been compensated nor adequately taken care of.
The women said that these aforementioned anomalies bedevilling the Ndigbo are just a few compared to the many atrocities that have been perpetrated by the Nigerian government.
A.I
Tags: give FG IPOB South East governors ultimatum Why Igbo women are angry
