…its outcry on marginalization of Igbos in the Nigeria Police Force grossly belated Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria The Int’l Society f...
…its outcry on marginalization of Igbos in the Nigeria Police Force
grossly belated
Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria
The Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law,
INTERSOCIETY, is strongly calling on educated Igbo persons, and wise and conscientious others;
drawn from middle class and class of noble elders to begin fresh moves to put
in place a new legitimate and purposeful Socio-Cultural Organization that will
congregate, aggregate, bind, lead and reposition the independently estimated
60m People of Igbo Nation presently found in Igbo Land and outside same including
other parts of Nigeria, Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania and Americas.
Specifically, we are calling on conscientious or moralist Igbo intellectuals
resident in Diaspora including Americans, Germans, Britons and other Europeans
of direct and indirect Igbo roots to liaise with their contemporaries back home
so as to bring this epochal and immortal demand to fruition. Unless new
legitimate and purposeful political and socio-cultural leaderships are urgently
put in place, otherwise the Igbo Nation-State will find herself in a situation
of industrial scale harms. As a matter of fact, Oha-na-Eze Ndigbo has
overstayed its welcome and usefulness.
There is also a need for the present living Igbo population
within and outside Nigeria to be reconnected spiritually and customarily with
generations of Igbos that have gloriously departed especially the Nobles among
them as well as the lost Igbo generations in Americas and Europe. These, when
done and if done well, will provide a congregation of formidable spiritual and
physical forces and resources to overturn and overcome the systematic and
sustained threats to the Ethnic Nationality’s collective existence, identity,
dignity, development and security and safety. It is saddening that the
Southeast Govs Forum and Oha-na-Eze Ndigbo that are being looked upon by Igbos
within and outside Nigeria as custodians of Igbo’s collective security, safety,
dignity and welfare, have lost the legitimacy of their existence and become
chronically selfish, incompetent and the mouthpiece of the ruling Caliphate in
Nigeria; thereby making it compelling to find their immediate replacements.
It must be noted and acknowledged here that in matters of
collective security and safety of the Igbo Nation, her citizens and
territories, the Southeast Govs Forum and Oha-na-Eze Ndigbo are exclusively
entrusted with statutory and moral responsibilities of securing and protecting
them at all times, but in practice presently, the duos are seen by many as
‘security threats from within’. It remains a height of security threat when a
Nation-State is exposed to dangers by being systematically excluded or
disproportionately represented in security recruitments, promotions and
postings or appointments and more dangerous when those looked upon to checkmate
same turned around and aided and abetted such extremist policy being promoted
and sustained by the present Government of Nigeria.
Therefore, having observed, researched and investigated the
unfolding ravaging social situations in Nigeria and Igbo Land, Intersociety
wishes to state boldly that Igbo Nation has dangerously been put at crossroads
by the duo of Oha-na-Eze Ndigbo and the Southeast Govs Forum. As a matter of
fact, the present Oha-na-Eze Ndigbo and the Southeast Govs Forum have lost
legitimacy to continue as the central socio-cultural and political mouthpiece
of the Igbo Nation. Having lost collective respect and legitimacy of the People
of Igbo Nation, they are only clinging on their present positions by force of
arms, betrayal, deceit, selfishness, falsehood and propaganda.
It is also very difficult to separate the duo from
complicity or involvement in the ongoing Nigerian Government’s policies of
‘structural violence’ including political exclusion, segregation and nepotism;
‘cultural violence’ including tribal criminalization and stigmatization; and
‘physical violence’ including targeted killing of Igbos and destruction of
their properties. That is to say that but for conspiracy of the duo, these
‘war-grade’ policies would have been effectively checkmated. It is also a
settled view in the Principle of the survival of ‘Ethnic-Nationalistic State’
within the union of congregated and aggregated ‘Ethnic Nationalities, such as
‘Nigeria that proportionality of securitization and political offices are sure
way for the survival of every participating Ethnic Nationality such as Igbo
Nation. In other words, it is an act of impossibility for Igbo Nation, her
citizens and territories to be effectively and adequately secured and protected
where there are gross disproportional security and defense representations.
Our Grouse Against
Oha-na-Eze Ndigbo & Southeast Govs Forum
As a reputable research and investigative rights group,
Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law is fully grasped with the
situation of general, regional and individual security and safety in Nigeria or
any part thereof including Southeast
Region and other Igbo territories in South-south and North-central regions. We
are also aware of the situation of same in other parts of Nigeria where Igbos
are residing. Fully in the know, graphically speaking, are the systematic and
sustained gross lopsidedness in the country’s present security establishments
and their top echelons targeting for elimination the Igbo senior officers. We have researched, investigated, documented
and published all these for others like the Southeast Govs Forum and Oha-na-Eze
Ndigbo to take same to the next level including compelling the authorities to
frontally address them, yet, all to no avail.
We have been speaking out statistically since 2013 on same
issue of marginalization of Igbos in the country’s security forces. At a point
in early 2014, a former Anambra Gov took the next available flight to Abuja to
meet the then Chair of the Police Service Commission and his intervention led
to promotion of some Igbo officers including Retired DIG Chintua Amajor-Onu and
Retired AIG Chris Ezike-whose promotions were deliberately stagnated for years
on account of being Igbos. Presently, the situation of Igbo senior officers in
the NPF has further deteriorated with imminence of total elimination of the
officers of Igbo extraction from the Force.
Igbo senior police officers have now been fully eliminated
from the Police AIG ranking and are facing similar fate in the rank of Police
Commissioners. The number of serving Igbo CPs is steadily going down and fueled
by deliberate refusal of the PSC and the NPF to elevate new ones. In this
outgoing 2020, Igbos have lost two CPs to retirement and the third will retire
by early Feb 2021; leaving the strategic Region with only about four serving
CPs, excluding the one (CP Cyril Okoro) retiring on 2nd Feb 2021. The two CPs lost to recent
statutory retirement are CPs Uche Anozia (retired on 19th Sept 2020) and
Celestine Okoye who retired as DIG on 22nd Dec 2020. Also between Nov 2019 and
Dec 2020, four Igbo senior police officers have been made DIGs at the twilight
of their retirements. Promoted to fill the Southeast slot in the DIG positions
and the NPF Management Committee, the four senior officers had had their
statutory promotions delayed or withheld for several years. They are Retired
DIG Alex Opara, Retired DIG Godwin Nwobodo, Retired DIG Celestine Okoye and
Retired DIG Joseph Egbunike. As it stands now, out of over 100 serving CPs,
only about four remain as “Igbo Southeast CPs”.
We also researched and exposed the continuation of same
ethnic cleansing in the NPF, Army, Navy, Air Force, Intelligence and
Paramilitary Agencies. Even when key military and policing formations in the
old Eastern and Mid Western Nigeria were found to have been ‘northernized’ and
‘south-westernized’, we also statistically raised alarm, yet, the Southeast
Govs Forum and Oha-na-Eze Ndigbo kept perpetual mute. We have documented the
unprovoked killing, torture, unlawful arrest and incarceration of innocent and
defenseless Igbo citizens by Nigerian security forces and other criminal non
state actors like Islamic Jihadists and Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen. In these, it
is same silence of the graveyard on the part of the duo.
Today, over 348 innocent and defenseless Igbo citizens,
residing in Obigbo, Rivers State have already spent two months in secret
military dungeons located in different parts of Northern Nigeria. They have
also spent Charismas outside their homes and behind unlawful bars. Among them
are ten women and five couples, alongside 323 others were abducted and disposed
of all their belongings including phones and excommunicated from their beloved
families including children and other nuclear family members. Sadly and
shockingly, the Southeast Govs Forum and Oha-na-Eze Ndigbo have kept mute. They
also visited the Gov of Rivers State where they delivered “victory song” sung to the Gov for inviting
secularity challenged soldiers to massacre almost 100 defenseless citizens,
injure 120 others and abduct 400. These are just to mention but a few.
Signed:
For: Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chair, Barr Chinwe Umeche, Head of
Democracy & Good Governance, Barr Obianuju Igboeli, Head of Civil Liberties
& Rule of Law, Barr Ndidiamaka Bernard, Head of Int’l Justice & Human
Rights and Comrade Samuel Kamanyoku, Head of Field Data Collection &
Documentation
Contacts: Mobile/WhatsApp: +2348174090052, Email:
info@intersociety-ng.org, Website: intersociety-ng.org
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