27 Groups Back Nigeria’s Intersociety Special Reports On “Warzone Situation” In Eastern Nigeria
…call on the United Nations’ Human Rights Rapporteurs and the International Criminal Court to urgently intervene, investigate and hold armed state actor and armed non-state actor perpetrators involved accountable
By Aloysius Attah
A group of twenty-seven (27) respected international persons and scholarly experts including serving and retired academic professors, doctorate degree holders from various academic disciplines, Christian Priests of international standing and respectability, local and international human rights advocates and experts, democracy and rule of law advocates, etc., have risen strongly and thrown their strong weight behind the two recent special international reports unveiled by ‘Expert-Leaders’ of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety).
The Reports unveiled on Sunday, December 22, 2024, in Enugu by the Board Chairman of Intersociety, Emeka Umeagbalasi, contained shocking and chilling revelations regarding the “warzone” situation in Eastern Nigeria particularly in the South-East, covering August 2015 to December 2024 or a period of nine years and four months.
The Reports, titled: “Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In Eastern Nigeria: 282 pages” and “Human Rights Made In Nigeria: 154 pages”; “are a catalogue of armed state actor and armed non state actor atrocities in the East since August 2015 (August 30, 2015-December 31, 2024); during which the Nigerian Security Forces (NSFs) unlawfully killed 32,300 defenseless citizens including the abducted and disappeared; tortured and bodily lacerated tens of thousands; burned down or razed 6000 civilian homes and allied properties valued at over N450billion; raided 300 defenseless Igbo communities; sacked their 180,000 inhabitants; and frightened and forced over 1million others to flee their homes to escape being tracked down, falsely labeled and shot and killed or abducted and detained indefinitely or permanently disappeared”.
“...During which, too, Government-linked and non-Government linked armed non state actors in their several thousands killed over 14,500 defenseless citizens, abducted over 65,000 others and forced estimated 55,000 of them to pay ransoms estimated at over N500billion and extra N50billion realized from sold millennium cars seized from the abducted victims; and razed or burned down civilian properties valued at over N60billion and aided by biased and compromised Nigerian Security Forces to influx and proliferate estimated 2.7m illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons across Eastern Nigeria”.
The Intersociety’s Special Reports further “catalogued and exposed massive arbitrary arrests, perpetual detentions arising from uninvestigated and un-triable phantom allegations, kangaroo arraignments, late night abduction and face-bagging of unarmed Igbo civilians to secret military detention facilities in northern Nigeria, torture and bodily lacerations, open killings, secret, extralegal and extra jus executions, innumerable cases of enforced disappearances and victims’ dead bodies’ criminal interments; perpetual concealment of the arrested and abducted citizens’ whereabouts and denial of access to their families, lawyers and physicians; invasion and wanton destruction of civilian dwelling houses and allied properties; indiscriminate false labeling, mass criminalization, class stigmatization and ethno-religious profiling on the grounds of ethnicity and religion, selective and discriminatory law enforcements and their operations, rampancy of prosecutorial vindictiveness and hearsay conclusions; unchecked and untamed military and police roadblock and barrack-extortions and other corrupt practices including monetization and commercialization of criminal investigations and prosecutions, etc.; all of which had arisen from military siege and terror in Eastern Nigeria since August 2015 using “IPOB/ESN/Biafra Terrorism” as a pretext or cover.
Among the groups who made the call included Mazi Luke Nwannunnu, (Coordinator), Chairman, Igbo Genocide Survivors’ Committee, Ekwenche Research Institute and Organization, Chicago, Illinois, USA, Mr. Bernhard Wanner (Swiss), Sustainability and Quality System Manager, International Human Rights Campaigner Zurich, Switzerland and Dr Festus Okere , President, World Igbo Congress (WIC), Houston, Massachusetts, United States.
Others included Austin Okeke Esq.President, Igbo Board of Deputies International South Africa and Prof. Obasi Igwe, Renowned University Don, Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria and 22 others.
“We hereby call on the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions; the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Religious Freedom; the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders; the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of the Internally Displaced People; the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Arrest and Detention; the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing (anti-Domicide); the UN Special Rapporteur on Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Office; the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, New York, USA and the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to urgently intervene, investigate and identify and hold armed state actor and armed non-state actor perpetrators involved accountable and sanction public office holders found in the Reports to have aided, abetted and sponsored such grievous crimes or conduct-atrocities and have them sanctioned appropriately”.
“We also urge the incoming Trump Administration in the United States to adopt the Reports as working documents in the assessment of Nigeria’s human rights records and the USA’s future international development partnership with the Government of Nigeria. The incoming Donald Administration is particularly called upon to ensure that the Government of Nigeria and the country’s security forces’ high commands are compelled to respect the International Freedom of Worship or Belief and end such discrimination or risk being enlisted in the USA’s “Country Of Particular Concern (CPC)” under “her International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998”.
“In line with the Intersociety’s seventy-six strong recommendations contained in the Special Reports, we are calling on Nigeria’s International Development Partners including all Member-States of the EU, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Canada, etc., to: 1. Critically study the Reports and have them reflected in future development and defense, security and safety assistance and supports geared toward promotion of democracy, rule of law, human rights and humanitarianism in Nigeria particularly in the East and ensure that such development and military supports or assistance are not channeled into “instruments of violence or state terror and persecution” against defenseless members of the Eastern civilian population and their properties”.
“The above Democracies called upon are urged to ensure that such development assistance and human rights and humanitarian supports amounting to billions of dollars yearly are not channeled into extrajudicial killings, abductions, torture and other cruel treatments, enforced disappearances, civilian house burnings, false labeling, class criminalization, ethno-religious profiling and persecution, prosecutorial vindictiveness and hearsay conclusions, etc., against defense Eastern civilian population and their defenseless properties”.
“The Government of Nigeria shall further be compelled to frontally address pandemic and endemic corruption in the country’s security (military, police and secret police) sector and digitalize law enforcement operations including preventive, detective, investigative policing and crime detection; all of which have become a modern trend in the mother world; more so when “Digital Policing/Security” has become the speediest way by which struggling countries have leveled up with advanced countries owing to the fact it is quantitative, qualitative, cheaper, available, avoidable, less corrupt, human rights and rule of law friendly and importable or exportable” the groups said.
