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Submission to
UN Human Rights Commission
Submission
to the UN Human Rights Commission
Regarding a “consistent pattern of violations “ and “ war crimes”, “genocide”
and “holocaust”
Violations of Article XIII, Resolution 3074 (XXVIII),
Resolution 2200A (XXI), Resolution 2200A (XXI), Resolution 36/55,
Resolution 1803 (XVII), Resolution 39/11, Resolution 41/128, Resolution 1514
(XV), Resolution 2200A (XXI), Resolution 53/144
Convention (No. 122), Convention (No. 168)
To: Centre for Human Rights
United Nations Office at Geneva
OHCHR – UNOG
8 – 14 Avenue de la Paix
1211
Telephone Number (41 – 22) 917 – 9000
From: Coalition of Igbo and Biafra
Organizations
c/o
Ekwe Nche Organization
E-mail: ekwenche@hotmail.com
Phone # (773) 206 – 9401
Dr. Justin
Akujieze (Member Committee on Genocide)
THE
VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS
OF NDI IGBO IN THE FEDERATION OF
(1914 – 2004)
"
By President Julius Nyerere
Coalition of Igbo
and
Biafra
Humanitarian Organization – Germany; Biafra National Union (BIANU) – Washington
D.C.; Ekwendigbo – Lagos; Ekwendigbo – Imo; Ekwendigbo Anambra, MASSOB – Port Harcourt;
Eastern People’s Congress (EPC) – Aba; BLM/Ekwe Nche – Africa; Ekwendigbo
Youthwing – Lagos; Igbo Canadian Community Association (ICCA) – Canada;
Restoration of Igbo Pride and Dignity (RIPAD) – Canada; Anambra Association of
Canada, Ontario Branch; Ekwe Nche Asia – Japan; Ekwe Nche – Chicago, etc.
(This submission
was made possible in part by the work done by Ohanaeze Organization).
A CALL FOR RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF IGBO SOVEREIGNTY, REPARATIONS AND APPROPRIATE RESTITUTION
A Submission to
THE United Nations Human Rights Commission
By
The Coalition of Igbo and Biafra Organizations
For and on
behalf of the Entire Ndi Igbo
THE VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN AND CIVIL
RIGHTS OF NDIIGBO
IN THE FEDERATION OF
There can be no compromise!
There can be no excuses!
There can be no apologies!
Lies will not suffice!
The debt can never be repaid!
The world must not be allowed to forget!
The guilt of the world will remain from now
to eternity.
(In memory of all Igbo and other easterners massacred from 1914 to
present in Nigeria; over 500,000 in 1966, over three million from 1966 to 1970,
and hundreds of thousands since 1970 to the present.)
"Over half a million Igbo were killed in Northern
Nigeria following the 1966 January 15 coup d’etat led by Major Chukwuma
Nzeogwu an Ibo, accused of killing the Northern leader Sir Ahmadu Bello. This
later resulted in the Biafran secession and the Nigerian Civil war July, 1967 –
1970 January (Paden 1973; Luckham 1971; Depress 1975; Harris 1972; Wolpe 1974
Salamone 1975, Smock 1971)."
An Anthropologist’s
View of Ethnicity and Ethnic Conflicts in Africa
I.V.O. Modo
Department of
Social Anthropology/Sociology
P.O. Roma 180
A CALL FOR
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
0. INTRODUCTION TO SUBMISSION
0.1 2000 Washington Press conference
1. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
1.1 Preamble
1.2 Historical Background
2. OVERVIEW OF MARGINALISATION IN NIGERIAN POLITY
2.1 Preamble
2.2 Marginalisation
2.3 Origins and Victims of Marginalisation
3. VIOLATIONS
OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI IGBO DURING
THE
PRE-CIVIL WAR PERIOD
3.1 Preamble
3.2 Misplaced Aggression
3.3 Waves of Pogrom
3.4 International Law
3.5 Genocide
3.6 The Cost
3.7 The Refugee Problem and Federal Government Insensitivity.
3.8 Prayers
4. VIOLATIONS OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI
IGBO DURING
THE CIVIL WAR
4.1 Preamble
4.2 Continuation of Genocide
4.3 Land War: Concentration on Civilian Targets
4.4 Bombing: Concentration on Civilian Targets
4.5 Scorched Earth Policy
4.6 Rapes
4.7 Maltreatment of War Prisoners
4.8
Hunger as
4.9 The Final Solution
4.10 Prayers
5. VIOLATIONS OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI
IGBO IN THE
IMMEDIATE POST-WAR ERA
5.1
Preamble
5.2
Social Strangulation
5.2.1 Physical Liquidation
5.2.2 Continuation of Starvation Policy
5.2.3 Mass Dismissal of Igbo Public Servants
5.2.4 Destruction of Education
5.2.5 Social Ostracism
5.3
Economic Strangulation
5.3.1 Denial of Pre-War Savings
5.3.2 Exclusion from the Commanding Heights Of the Economy
5.3.3 Abandoned Property Policy 5.3.4 No Reconstruction
5.3.5 Denial of Source of Livelihood to Poor Igbo Traders
5.3.6 Excision of Igbo Mineral-Rich Areas From Igboland
5.4
Political Strangulation
5.4.1 Exclusion from Political Apex
5.4.2 Political Manipulation of Census Figures
5.5
Prayers
6. VIOLATIONS OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI
IGBO IN THE
LATER POST-WAR ERA - TO 1999
6.1
Preamble
6.2
Political Disempowerment
6.2.l Creation of States
6.2.2 Exclusion from Political Apex
6.2.3 A New Height in Marginalisation in Obasanjo’s Regime
6.3
Social Disempowerment
6.3.1 Employment in the Federal Sector
6.3.2 Racial Discrimination
6.4
Economic Disempowerment
6.4.1 Denial and Delay of Infrastructural Facilities
6.4.2 Petroleum Trust Fund: Conduit Pipe for Inequitable Resources Transfer
6.4.3 Discriminatory Industrial Policy
6.4.4 Revenue Sharing
6.4.5 Prayers
7. SUMMARY OF REMEDIES
7.1 Violation of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo During the Immediate Pre-
Civil War Period
7.2 Violation of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo During the Civil War
7.3 Violation of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo in the Immediate Post-war
Era
7.4 Violation of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo in the Later Post- war Era
7.5 Grand Total Monetary Compensation
8. CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION
TO SUBMISSION
2000
“What had started as
a belief was transmuted to total conviction; that they could never again live
with Nigerians. From this stems the primordial political reality of the present
situation.
The
Frederick Forsyth
"Surely, when a whole people is
rejected by the majority of the state in which they live, they must have the
right to live under a different kind of arrangement which does secure their
existence. States are made to serve people; governments are established to
protect the citizens of a state against external enemies and internal wrong‑doers."
President Julius Nyerere
We, “The
Igbo Coalition in the
We, the
Igbo people have suffered many pogroms in the past. We are the survivors of the
most brutal genocidal massacres ever unleashed in
To
illustrate the urgency of our plight, below is a small snapshot of a few of the
pogroms and acts of genocidal slaughter that the Igbo have suffered in
Crimes of GENOCIDE Committed
by
“We do not want, Sir, our Southern neighbours
to interfere in our development.... I should like to make it clear to you that
if the British quitted
Mallam Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (1947)
Later to
become Prime Minister of Nigeria
1945
Northern Moslems kill HUNDREDS of IGBO civilians in the Northern city of
1953 Northern Moslems pounce on IGBO civilians
in the Northern city of
“The seeds of the trouble which broke out in
Official Report of the
1953 Massacre in
British Administrative
officer
“Mr. Chairman, Sir, since 1955 this
government had laid down a policy. First Northerners, second Expatriates and
third non-northerners. Mr. Chairman, Sir, I have noted very carefully all the
speeches made by all the Members in the Honourable House and I am ready to put
up to my Government their views and I hope my Government will give them
consideration ... I think these two things are the major things I have to
answer now. One is on scholarship and the other is on how to do away with the
Ibos.”
Alhaji
Mustafa Ismaila Zanna Dujuna (Minister of
Establishments and training)
AN
INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS FIND
PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE OF
GENOCIDE
1966 * MAY * JULY
* SEPTEMBER *
(The worst pogrom in all of
“It is pertinent to observe that the
Atrocities Tribunal found as a fact that the
1. (a) to kill off the
Major-general and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, T. J. T. Aguiyi-Ironsi;
(b) to kill off all Yamiri (Igbo) Army
officers;
(c) and subsequently purge the Army of
Yamiri by killing the rest in the ranks.
2. With the aid of the Westerners in the army,
to take complete control of the Armed
Forces, the Police and the Navy and to purge off the Yamiri in these
forces too.
3. To kill off and dispossess all the Yamiri
domiciled in the Northern region.
4. To use the control of the Armed Forces to
take control of the country’s Government.
5. To revenge Sarduana’s and Abubakar’s death
by killing Dr. Zik, Dr. Okpara,
Ojukwu and Major Nzeogwu.
6. To destroy Port Harcourt, Enugu and the
University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
7. To kill all
(a) Yamiri in top civil service posts;
(b) all wealthy Yamiri - male and female;
(c) all Yamiri educational giants;
(d) all grown up males and females of Yamiri;
(e) to leave out only sucklings in yamiri
land.
(Tribunal
Report pp. 133 - 134)”
AN
INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS FIND
PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE OF
GENOCIDE
“The army was
even more deeply involved. The following graphic report was given to the
Atrocities tribunal by Paul I. Okwawa, the teacher we mentioned earlier, should
silence the argument as to whether or not Nigerians had the intention to
exterminate Biafrans:
“At
“I had a presentiment that something bad was
in the air, and as we sat near our luggage we wondered whether these
ex-politicians and their European, Asian and Arab friends had come to witness
the final liquidation of our people. Soon shots were heard everywhere. That day
was declared a public holiday, and as usual many Ibos came to the airport ....
“one soldier ordered me outside and asked me
where I came from. When I told him I was a Mid-Westerner he told me I was lying
because he knew where I came from. What I heard was: “About turn! Quick march!”
I heard a shot behind me and I fell down and passed out.
“How long I was there before I came round I
could not tell. But when I became conscious, a heap of dead men was on me. Some
still breathing but others stone dead. It took me some time to extricate myself
from the dead bodies heaped upon me. I crept over other dead bodies as I tried
to hide because soldiers were still shooting people in their hiding places at
the airport. ...”
AN
INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS FIND
PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE OF
GENOCIDE
“Bestialities and indignities of all kinds were
visited on Biafrans in 1966. In Ikeja Barracks (
Mr.
Erif Spiff (Eye witness)
Atrocities
Tribunal
AN INTERNATIONAL
COMMISSION OF JURISTS FIND
PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE OF
GENOCIDE
“Finally,
the monstrous atrocities which accompanied the groesome massacres of 1966 bore
testimony to the fact that the perpetrators were religiously intent on
genocide. There were numerous cases of torture and humiliation, maiming and
mutilation, gouging out of the eyes and tearing out of the womb, slaughter and
decapitation - atrocities which can only be explained by the determination of
the perpetrators to destroy Biafrans in every conceivable way. A witness, Dick
Iwobi, described to the Atrocities Tribunal an outrageous method of murder
which Northern Nigerians practised on Biafrans:
“This punishment is one of the most dreadful
way of crucifying a person. A heavy rod is tied across the back of the chest of
the victim with his hands stretched and secured firmly on the rod. While the
victim may still be standing on his legs, he is as helpless as a man nailed to
a cross. In this position they then proceed to torture the victim by plucking
his eyes, cutting his tongue or cutting his testicles ...”
AN
INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS FIND
PRIMA FACIE EVIDENCE OF
GENOCIDE
Band
of killers, mostly Moslems, in all Hamlets, Villages, Towns and Cities in
1967 - 1970 (
“Let us go and crush
them. We will pillage their property, rape their womenfolk, kill off their
menfolk and leave them uselessly weeping. We will complete the pogrom of
1966"
The theme
song of Radio Kaduna, government-controlled, is the above chant in Hausa.
“There has been genocide, for example on the
occasion of the 1966 massacres ... Two areas have suffered badly [from the
fighting]. Firstly the region between the towns of Benin and asaba where only
widows and orphans remain, Federal troops having for unknown reasons massacred
all the men.”
“According
to eyewitnesses of that massacre the Nigerian commander ordered the execution
of every Ibo male over the age of ten years.”
Monsignor Georges (sent down on a fact-finding mission by His
holiness the Pope)
Le
Monde (French evening newspaper)
THE BRUTALITY OF NATIONS
DAN JACOBS
“All is fair in war, and starvation is one of
the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for
them to fight harder.”
Chief Awolowo (Minister of Finance)
THE BRUTALITY OF NATIONS
DAN JACOBS
“Unfortunately this [Gowon’s] enlightenment
at the top level does not penetrate very deep: a
Dr Conor cruise O’Bien
“The same
UNICEF representative went on to convey something of what lay behind this
intransigence: “Among the large majority hailing
from that tribe (Yorubas) who are most vocal in inciting the complete
extermination of the Ibos, I often heard remarks that all Nigeria’s ills will
be cured once the Ibos have been removed ...”
THE
BRUTALITY OF NATIONS
DAN JACOBS
“I want to see no Red Cross, no Caritas, no
World Council of Churches, no Pope, no missionary and no UN delegation. I want
to prevent even one Ibo having one piece to eat before their capitulation. We
shoot at everything that moves.” Asked what his forces would do when they
overran the center of Ibo territory, Adekunle replied, “then we shoot at everything. Even things that don’t move.”
Colonel Adekunle (Commander of the 3rd Marine Commando)
THE
BRUTALITY OF NATIONS
DAN
JACOBS
Comments: General Obasanjo (current President
of
“One word now describes the policy of the
Nigerian military government towards secessionist
Mayer
Washington
Post (editorial)
In
July, a Northern led army declared war on the Igbo/Easterners in their homeland
in Southeastern Nigeria who, out of utter shock at the pogrom unleashed against
the Igbo, had concluded that Easterners/Igbo were not wanted in the Nigerian
Federation and had declared the Eastern
Region the independent Republic of Biafra. By the time the war ended in January
1970, more than THREE MILLION IGBO
people, including over a million children had died. Many of the dead,
especially children, had died of starvation, a result of the deliberate policy
of the Nigerian government, which had imposed a total land, sea and air
blockade of Biafra, prohibiting even food and medical deliveries to the war
zone!
“The war seems to be reaching its conclusion,
with the terror of possible reprisals and massacres against defenseless people
worn out by deprivations, by hunger and by the loss of all they possess. The
news this morning is very alarming ... One fear torments public opinion. The
fear that the victory of arms may carry with it the killing of numberless
people. There are those who actually fear a kind of genocide.”
Pope Paul VI
THE BRUTALITY OF NATIONS
DAN JACOBS
“Until now efforts to relieve the Biafran
people have been thwarted by the desire of the central government of Nigeria to
pursue total and unconditional victory and by the fear of the Ibo people that
surrender means wholesale atrocities and genocide. But genocide is what is
taking place right now - and starvation is the grim reaper. This is not the
time to stand on ceremony, or to ‘go through channels’ or to observe the
diplomatic niceties. The destruction of an entire people is an immoral
objective even in the most moral of wars. It can never be justified; it can
never be condoned.”
Mr Richard Nixon
During the Presidential
campaign
“The loss of life from starvation continues
at more than 10,000 persons per day - over 1,000,000 lives in recent months.
Without emergency measures now, the number will climb to 25,000 per day within
a month - and some 2,000,000 deaths by the end of the year. The new year will
only bring greater disaster to a people caught in the passion of fratricidal
war.”
Senator Kennedy appeals to
“However,
Richard Nixon got a very different sense of the situation when he met Rogers
and officials of the African Bureau. Following their briefing, he telephoned
his National Security adviser and said: “They’re
going to let them starve, aren’t they, Henry.”
President Richard Nixon
THE BRUTALITY OF NATIONS
DAN JACOBS
Since 1980
thousands of Igbo have continued to be attacked and massacred!
1980 Northern
City of
1982
Northern City of
1984
Northern City of
1985
Northern City of
1986
Northern Cities of
1991
Northern Cities of BAUCHI, KATSINA and
1992
Northern City of
1993
Northern City of
1994
Northern City of
....
2000 (Feb.) More than
3000 CHRISTIANS which included more than 2000 IGBO were slaughtered in cold
blood by Northern MOSLEM FANATICS in the Northern City of KADUNA!
2000 (Apr.) Northern City
of
AT PRESENT SECRET KILLINGS OF IGBO CONTINUE
IN THE NORTH!
As we
write, a well-designed plan is being carried out throughout
Before we
continue on this subject, we ask that you look at the map below:
!
As shown in the map above the following states:
SOKOTO, ZAMFARA, KATSINA,
!
These states have unilaterally adopted Islam as
their state religion and legal/criminal code, in direct and flagrant violation
of the constitution of
To
understand the implications of what the Igbo and other non Moslem nations face
in
It is important that we stress the following:
Islam is a great religion and we have nothing
against Islam or Moslem, whether such Moslems live in
Since the Igbo and other non-Moslems have every right to
practice whatever religion they choose and live by whatever principles they
choose, it is important that the free world recognize and accord this equally very important right.
This
threat to Islamize
#1
Post
Express
Category:
News
Date of
Article:
Topic:
Author: Bassey
Inyang,
Full Text
of Article:
To further
promote Islamic education in the country, the Libyan government, over the
weekend in
The $300 million
school is to be known as Moumar Gaddafi Islamic University,
Ali
disclosed that the decision to set up an Islamic university for the propagation
of the faith in
According
to Ali, the idea behind the university was to ensure that the Islamic knowledge
was preached throughout
He stated
that the idea behind the university was also aimed at checkmating the influence
of European imperialists in
Ali said
the move by Gaddafi to propagate the teaching and learning of Islam in
Ali
disclosed that the WICS was enjoying every amount of support from the
The
The school
will cover all landscape of 137 hectres, and will teach all conventional
subjects ranging from medicine, sciences, agriculture, engineering, arts and a
host of others.
The
contract papers were signed on behalf of the construction firm by Mr.
Constantino Ferrario while Mohammed Ali signed on behalf of the Libyan
government.
*************
#2
The
Guardian Online ‑
Nigerian
Moslem leaders to attend Sharia summit in
NIGERIAN
Moslem scholars and leaders will attend a Sharia summit scheduled for
The summit
is to promote Islamic law in the sub‑region.
*************
These two
articles above and others that we can provide if needed, will definitely point
the trajectory to an unfolding Islamic conquest if permitted. Remember that
since 1945,
We are
told that “
New Heights in
Marginalization (Obasanjo regime)
“A conversation with one of the most
impressive ministers provided significant insight into the political aims of
the federal Government .... The Minister discussed the question of the
reintegration of the Ibos in the future state .... The war aim, and solution
properly speaking of the entire problem, he said, was ‘to discriminate against
the Ibos in the future in their own interest’. Such discrimination would
include above all the detachment of those oil-rich territories in the eastern
Region which were not inhabited by Ibos at the start of the colonial period
(1900), on the lines of the twelve-state plan. In addition the Ibos’ freedom of
movement would be restricted, to prevent their renewed penetration into other
parts of the country ... Leaving any access to the sea to the Ibos, the
minister declared, was quite out of the question.”
The
Frederick Forsyth
If the
history of skewed appointments since independence leaves any one in doubt about
the emergence of a pattern, the Obasanjo regime has cleared such doubts. No
regime has betrayed so much disdain for the rights of the Igbo in its
appointments as the Obasanjo regime. We review the appointment so far. It is
important to stress that no Igbo has attained the position as executive head of
state of Nigeria since the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war in 1970; also glass
ceiling has been created to limit Igbo from attaining ministerial positions in
the following departments: Defense, Foreign, Petroleum, Internal Affairs, etc
i)
National Security Council:
South West
(Yoruba) 4 (including the
President)
North
Central 3
North
East 2
(including Vice-President)
North
West 2
South
South 1
South East
(Igbo) 0
The
absence of any person from the South-East zone contravenes section 14(3) of the
1999 constitution, especially as paragraph (1) of section 25 of part 1, 3rd
schedule of the 1999 constitution dealing with the composition of the National
security Council provides that two additional members may be appointed to the
National Security Council at the president’s discretion.
ii Armed Forces:
The South
East (Igbo) does not presently have any Major General or the ranks above it in
the Nigerian Army, or the equivalent rank in the Nigerian Air Force and the
Nigerian Navy and therefore, cannot produce any of the service Chiefs.
Moreover, the number of officers of South-east (Igbo) zone is far short of the
one sixth of the total as required by Section 14(3) of the 1999 constitution.
iii Nigerian police:
Out of the
16 top police officers, VIZ, IG, DIGs & AIGs, there is only one AIG of
South East (Igbo) origin, contrary to the constitutional requirements in Section
14(3). (IG - inspector general of police, DIG - deputy inspector general of
police, AIG - assistant inspector general of police)
Also, the
South-East (Igbo) Zone under the present structure of the Nigeria Police Force,
would appear to be a colonized territory because:
Anambra State Command (an
Enugu State Command (an
Abia, Ebonyi and Imo States Commands (all Igbo states) report to the AIG
in Calabar (South-South Zone).
There is need for the zonal structure of the Nigeria police Force to be changed so that the Police State Commands in the South East Zone constitute its own zone with its zonal office based in the South-East zone, to which all the state commands of the 5 South Eastern States (Igbo) will report, as is the arrangement in other geo-political zones. It was recently that due to the demands of Igbo at home and in diaspora that Obasanjo grudgingly agreed to give the South East its own zonal command.
iv. Allocation of Ministries
We quote
the protest of South East (Igbo) Zone of the ruling Peoples democratic Party:
“We note that in the allocation of portfolios to
the ministers appointed, there is a gross imbalance against the South-East
(Igbo) Zone in the number and importance of the portfolios. Persons from the
South-East Zone were given 3 Cabinet ministerial positions, which is the lowest
number of all the Zones, and 4 ministers of State.”
For
comparative purposes, it may be noted that:
South-west
has 5 Cabinet Ministers (excluding Petroleum under The President) and 4
Ministers of State.
North-West has 6 Cabinet Ministers
and 4 ministers of State.
North-Central has 4 Cabinet
Ministers and 3 Ministers of State.
North-East has 4 Cabinet Ministers
and 4 Ministers of State.
South-south has 4 Cabinet Ministers and 4 Ministers of State.
Social Dis-empowerment
[ i]
Employment in the Federal Sector
In spite of this elaborate provision of the
constitution that there should be predominance of a few ethnic or other
sectional groups and in spite of the powers given to the Federal Character
Commission in this regard, some ethnic groups and some sectional groups have
continued to have predominance in share of employment at the expenses of some
other ethnic groups especially Igbo.
The
deliberate under-representation in aggregation of States, effected by giving
Igbo ethnic group less number of States than its population merits is a
predictable ploy to ensure that Igbo will be permanently short-changed in the distribution
of employment and other resources. Today, Igbo (South-East) lag, in the
distribution of employment and amenities, behind the Yoruba (South-West) and
the Hausa-Fulani (North-West), the two other major ethnic groupings with which
Igbo rank in population.
The
situation in representations and employments in International Organizations in
Admittedly,
some other zones from the north are also disadvantaged in terms of number of
staff, but the reason, unlike the case of the South-East (Igbo) (where there is
abundant and available relevant manpower in all fields of human endeavor), is
that the zones have a paucity of the requisite manpower.
Racial Discrimination
(a)
Exploitation
“Fortunately the oil statistics both of the
major oil companies and of the Nigerian Government are available for study. For
the month of December 1966 out of total production in
George Knapp
Aspects of the Biafran
Affair,
pp. 27, 28, 53 and 54
50% of
The
presence of Igbo, a diaspora people, boosts the population figures of their
resident States in census counts. Also, the contributions of the Igbo residents
help the economy of the States. Yet, the Igbo residents are denied the full
benefits of citizenship in all such States in many subtle but effective ways.
Such ways include:
(i) Exclusion from
the benefits of Federal Character Law:
Dispensations
(such as scholarships and employments) which flow to States (which means
explicit geo-political basis of States, not tribes) are shared by their
governments exclusively to the indigenes, as against the stranger residents,
normally Igbo.
(ii) Differential Civil Obligations:
Different
tax assessments and school fees operate in favor of the indigenes, against the
detriment of “stranger elements”, mainly Igbo. The heavier loser in this legal
network of exploitation is the Igbo land. In a country where population size is
a vital variable in revenue sharing, Igbo land loses the head-count of millions
of her children in diaspora during national census (Igbo in diaspora- outside
South East zone, constitute at least 50% of the overall Igbo population).Yet
she is made to bear and suffer the grim natal obligations for these millions
whom Nigeria denies the full protection of citizenship and residency rights
through the manipulations of “State of Origin” proviso.
(b) Discrimination and attacks in business
“I
was having a talk to Enahoro the other week and asked him whether Ibos would
ever be allowed to move around
Senior Canadian Correspondent
The
Igbo
businesses suffer also from many other discriminating laws. In
(c) Society’s Scape-goats
“But even at this stage certain points can be
made with absolute certainty. First, whatever has been done, the Nigerian
Military Government and its Head, the Supreme Commander, cannot escape
responsibility in law.
“Second prima facie cases already exist
against individual Nigerian Army commanders for instigation of, or
responsibility for, distinct and numerous cases of mass murder over and above
the requirements of war.
“Third, the charge of genocide is too big
for the world authority vested by the signatories of the Convention in the
United Nations to be required to wait for a post factum inquiry, or none at
all. If the Convention is to rate as anything other than a useless piece of
paper, a reasonable suspicion of genocide must suffice to bring investigation.
This reasonable suspicious has been established months ago; and the United
Nations is in breach of its own sworn word, embodied in Article One, so long as
it continues to refuse to investigate. Lastly, whatever
the Nigerians have done, the British Government of Harold Wilson has
voluntarily made itself a total accomplice. As of December 1968 there
can be no further question of neutrality, or ignorance, or a helping hand to a
friendly government. The involvement is absolute.”
The
Frederick Forsyth
Finally,
the Igbo has always been the favorite scapegoats of the various ethnic
political and religious conflicts and clashes in the country. The property of
Igbo are frequently looted whenever there is group conflict, whether or not the
Igbo are involved.
(d) Protection of the Law
In all the
riots Igbo were made victims as they were killed and their property destroyed
or looted. In the history of
Economic
Dis-empowerment
Denial and Delay of
infra-structural Facilities
The
unwillingness of Federal Government to repair or reconstruct the bad
infra-structural facilities damaged during the war hardened into cold
indifference or indeed opposition to the existence of any infra-structures in
Igbo land. The roads in the five states of South East (Igbo States) have been
acknowledged by all observers as the worst in the Federation.
The
attitude of the federal Government is clearly illustrated by one incident. The
The few
Federal utilities in Igbo land suffer total neglect, even when their
appropriate maintenance will have meant increased revenue to the Federal
Government. Oji River Power Station and Afam Power Station have suffered
virtual abandonment at a time of critical power shortage in Igbo land and
Eastern area. The Coal corporation at
Recently,
more than 2,000 members of a non-violent organization, MASSOB (Movement for the
actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra) were jailed and are still
languishing in jail without trial for peaceful demonstration. Also there is
presently over 8 million internally displaced Igbo (refugees from Islamic
States in
There are no other alternatives out there. There will be
Islamic countries and there will be non‑Islamic countries, one of which
is THE NEW REPUBLIC OF BIAFRA. We appeal to the President, People of the
United States of America and the world to come to the aid of all those fighting
to maintain their way of life, be it in Sudan or Nigeria, and offer them
support and RECOGNITION, including the Republic of BIAFRA, just like was done
for Czechs, Slovaks and for countries of the former Soviet Union.
“A congressional measure, sponsored by
Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat from
In a
recent article in
Does the
Does this
not go against the congressional measure sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy?
There
is enough evidence of war crimes against
the present Defense Minister of
We hereby reaffirm that there is enough
evidence of war crimes against the present
President of Nigeria - General Obasanjo a one time commander of the 3rd
Marine commandoes who massacred defenseless civilians in
Human
rights groups and other impartial observers have indicted the whole Nigerian Armed Forces already
implicated for genocide and crimes against humanity in
This is
the Army that carried the massacre of nearly of all Army officers of Igbo/
Eastern origin?
Is this
not the Army that was implicated in the slaughter and massacre of more than
50,000 Igbo/ Easterners in all hamlets, villages, town and cities in
Is this
not the Army that wiped out the whole town of
Is this
not the Army that for more than 30 years has systematically looted the treasury
of
Will the
Is it
possible that President Clinton does not realize that he is hobnobbing with war
criminals and those that committed genocide against the Igbo, Ogoni, ...?
Is there
not enough documented evidence to prove our case?
President Clinton owes the American public, the Senate and
the House an explanation!
God bless
THE IGBO COALITION:
Eastern
Mandate
World Igbo Council
Ikeduru
Patriotic Union & Friends
Orlu
Peoples Association
Umunna
Progressive
Mbieri
United Association
Okoroshi
African Cultures Inc.
Ekwe
Nche Organization
cc: Secretary
of State: Madam Albright
Vice President: Al Gore
Governor of
Senators and Representatives
1. IGBO RACE IN
1.1 Preamble
This is a petition by the “Coalition of Igbo and Biafra Organizations” on behalf of Igbo people (hereinafter referred to as Ndi Igbo) articulating some of the many violations of the human and civil rights of the Ndi Igbo and other forms of injustices
meted
to them by the Yoruba and Hausa nations and/or governments of
We have in this petition articulated some of the violations of human and civil rights of
Ndi Igbo and other crimes and injustices against us as only illustrative of the numerous
deprivations,
discriminations and violations of rights which Ndi Igbo have suffered
and continue to suffer in
1. Historical Background,
2. An overview of marginalisation in the Nigerian policy,
3. The violation of rights (the immediate pre-war period),
4. Violation of rights (the civil war period),
5. Violation of rights (the immediate post-war period),
6. Violation of rights (the later post-war period - ‘mid-70s to date)
7. The reparations and appropriate restitutions sought.
1.2
Historical background
Ndi
Igbo are the largest ethnic group in
Ndi Igbo have common boundaries with the Igala of Kogi State and the Idoma of Benue
State
in the North, the
Ndi Igbo have lived peacefully and in harmony with their neighbours, intermarrying and
doing
business without any history of war. The Igbo Ukwu archaeological finding of
Professor Thurstan Shaw of the
Ndi Igbo have always been a spiritual, dynamic, (ohacratic) democratic,
freedom-loving and achievement-oriented people.
They are ever open to new ideas and initiatives and are also adaptable, hospitable, egalitarian and abhor injustice. It was, however, in the economic sphere that the Igbos were at their best in the game of competition. In industry, commerce, transportation and services, Igbo businessmen demonstrated unparalleled initiative. This drive is often misconstrued as undue aggressiveness by other Nigerians.
On
(later
called the northern Region) with the Southern Protectorate (comprising the
Eastern and Western Regions) into the polity called
2. OVERVIEW OF MARGINALISATION IN NIGERIAN POLITY
2.1
Preamble
Marginalisation is the most topical issue in Nigerian Polity in recent times. There have been claims and counter claims of marginalisation from ethnic groups, States, and geopolitical zones of the polity. It is, therefore, necessary at this stage to define the following:
. What is marginalisation?
. Who is the marginaliser?
. Who is the marginalised and
. When was marginalisation introduced into Nigerian polity?
2.2 Marginalisation
We define Marginalisation as the deliberate disempowerment of a group of people
in the
federation politically, economically, socially and militarily, by another group or groups, who during the relevant time frame wield power and control the allocation of materials and financial resources at the Centre of the Federation. Therefore, it entails the apparent deliberate exclusion of any particular group(s) by another similar group or groups from either having access to and or taking due possession of common key positions and common resources, as manifested in the political, economic, military, educational, media and bureaucratic realms. (In other words, the five realms above could be seen as occupying commanding heights of any polity or society.) In essence, for a group to marginalise the other, that group must of necessity, have a functional
apex control of combination of these commanding heights of the polity or society.
It is necessary to distinguish at this stage between marginalisation and marginality. The
two are liable to be innocently, but dangerously, treated as though they were interchangeable.
Adedeji (1993) has defined marginality as:
“The
relative or absolute lack of power to influence a defined social entity white
being a recipient of the exercise of power, by other parts of that entity.” [Ref: In
Marginalisation
and Marginality: Context, Issues and View points “ in
within the World. Edited A. Adedeji].
Marginality, so defined, refers to the state of being peripheral, without attributing blame to any particular external factor or marginaliser. Thus, a group, which for instance, by systematically insulating itself from the forces of modernity (e.g. Western education) becomes peripheral in terms of such indices of social development as enrolment in tertiary educational institutions, and the supply of high level manpower to the system, and is appropriately described as marginal, if it is outstripped in terms of those parameters by other groups, which have embraced modernity in manpower development. Such marginal groups will be hard put to identify an external marginaliser. The first step out of marginality is for the group to recognize that its status derives from its relative underdevelopment.
Unlike marginality, marginalisation necessarily presupposes the existence of an agent,
group or groups, which possess the capacity to disempower others or systematically exclude them from the seat of power, where the group’s decisions are made. In general, whereas any given group can attain a state of marginality endogenously, endogenous marginality, for a group, with respect to any given index of socioeconomic development derives, in the main, from the dynamics of that group’s intrinsic or self-inflicted under-development. This lends credence to the view expressed by a prominent Northern politician, Balarabe Musa (former civilian Governor of Kaduna State) that the domination of power by the North has not bridged the gap in development which exists between the North and the South of the polity since independence in 1960. In an
article entitled “The Tragedy of Power” he has this to say:
This
is because the clique from the North which dominated and still dominates
political
power, Is selfish, shortsighted, unpatriotic and corrupt, just like Its
counterpart
In the south. It seems that the clique, in fact, wants the continuation
of
the relative backwardness of the North for Its survival as a ruling class [TELL
Magazine
No. 46,
The author of this article concluded that the backwardness of the North is due to her leadership.
This conclusion may also apply to many claims of marginalisation by some other ethnic
nationalities where in fact self-induced weakness in some attributes caused marginality in the
corresponding areas of public life.
It is
clear from the clear distinction between marginality and marginalisation
that the plight of Ndi Igbo differs in kind and scope from the
claims of most ethnic nationalities in
2.3
Origins and Victims of Marginalisation
The
process of marginalisation of Ndi Igbo is about to run a full circle. It
began in earnest with the civil war which was concluded by Gen. Obasanjo’s marine
commandoes. It has hit an ugly climax with the most blatantly partial political
appointments of President Obasanjo as selected leader of
The
history of Marginalisation in
The period up to 1960 and the period since 1970.
In
the first period, pre-independence, marginalisation was perpetrated against all
Nigerians irrespective of ethnic or regional affiliation by the colonial
master,
However, since 1970, the Igbo ethnic group has been jointly marginalised by the
Hausa/Fulani and the Yoruba groups. It took the intervening period (1960-1970) for the forces of ethnic particularism, which had been artificially repressed during the colonial regime, to burst forth, gather momentum, and culminate in a civil war in 1967 which ended in 1970.
By the end of the civil war in January 1970 the control of power and the dispensation of
economic
resources at the centre had fallen absolutely into the hands of the concert of
the war victors - a combination of the other ethnic groups, major and minor.
The capacity acquired by the victors to marginalise the vanquished was total.
Since then, in contravention of the official policy of “no victor, no
vanquished” Ndi Igbo have been systematically disempowered in all
spheres and excluded from all top echelons of governance in the Nigerian
polity, despite the popular slogan of the Nigerians during the civil war that
“to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done.”
A cursory look at tables 2a, 2b and 3 clearly suggest that (a) the instruments of
governance have been the preserve of Northern (mainly Tarawa Angas, Hausa- Fulani, Gwari and Kanuri ethnic groups, so far) and Western ethnic nationalities (Yoruba). Ndi Igbo were totally excluded from executive authority. The Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s civilian government (October 1979 to Dec. 1983) tried to reverse this ugly situation by giving due regard to federal character in the distribution of offices, but before this could take any root he was overthrown by the military and the agenda of marginalisation of Ndi Igbo was put in place once more.
With
the advent of civilian democracy, once more, in
sigh
of relief, for they hoped that it would mean the end of marginalisation of Ndi
Igbo. Dr. Alex Ekwueme, an eminent Igbo son and former Vice President of
Despite
these political facts and the provisions made in the
appointments into the federal services to show the Federal character of Nigeria, it would appear that the present government has thrown these principles overboard once -more, and is determined to continue to marginalise the Igbo, thus reminding them that they were conquered and therefore must remain second class citizens in Nigeria, 30 years after a civil war in which General Gowon had declared “No Victor no Vanquished.”
3. VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI
IGBO DURING
THE IMMEDIATE PRE-CIVIL WAR PERIOD
3.1
Preamble
Even
the Igbo who still thought that
setting
up of the Justice Oputa panel on human rights abuses marked the dawn of a new
era in addressing rights abuses in
attracts attention as the era of worst rights violations partly because of the calibre of personalities whose rights were abused but to a large extent, we suspect, because of the ethnic origin of the persons involved. Condemnable as these violations are, they do not compare in magnitude and essence to the atrocities against the Ndi Igbo during the pogroms that proceeded the civil war.
3.2 Misplaced Aggression
The pretext for the unleashing of mayhem on Ndi Igbo was an imaginary
conjecture of a grand conspiracy by Igbo race. This is untrue.
The
political crisis in the West in particular and the other political
considerations that led to this coup are well known. We have it on good
authority that the
We concede that this coup was poorly executed and that because of the ethnic origin of
the persons killed as well as the eventual assumption of power by Gen. Ironsi (an Igbo) the coup d’etat was capable of being misunderstood as an ethnic-biased coup organised mostly by Igbo officers. We insist that the coup was purely a military affair and that Gen. Ironsi was not part of the coup plan and was only invited to office by the circumstance of his position as the most high ranking military officer and the General Commanding the Nigerian Army at that time. We note that there have been subsequent coups in our history (some were abortive, yet the ethnic kinsmen of the perpetrators were not visited with pogrom). We also note that subsequent military governments—all, headed by non-Igbos—used exactly the same command structure of unitary
system as Ironsi tried to do through the Unification Decree.
We
contend that
3.2.1. Mind Set to Pogrom
3.3
Waves of Pogrom
We contend that what was supposed to be a revengeful response (the waves of pogroms of 1966 May 29, July 29, and September 29) to January 15 coup d’etat and Decree 34, was in fact a grand plan of genocide against Ndi Igbo. In July 29, the ethnic cleansing which began with the murder of Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi and over 300 military officers and men of Igbo origin escalated into the massacre of surprised and unsuspecting Igbo civilians in many towns. Conservative Police estimate of casualties was 3,300. Following assurances of their safety, Ndi Igbo who fled the North as a result of May and July atrocities, returned to their Northern places of domicile, only to be lured two months later into more bloody massacres on September 29. About 500,000 Igbos were killed in the orgies.
Were the killings genocidal in intention and execution? Yes. Many independent sources
clearly
provide strong evidence. One is the report of the judicial Tribunal of Enquiry
appointed by the Government of the then Eastern
We therefore summarise the genocidal attempts under the following headings—
intentions, scope of the killings, methods, cost and character of the genocide—against the
illuminating guidance of international law and civilized behaviour.
3.4 International Law
According to Article 11 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide adopted on 9th December
1948, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to
destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as:
(a) killing members of the group;
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article III of the same convention stipulates that the following acts should be punished:
(a) Genocide
(g) Conspiracy to commit genocide
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide
(d) Attempt to commit genocide
(e) Complicity in genocide.
3.5 Genocide
3.5.1 Intentions
The public statements at the height of every political crisis have consistently
revealed a
predisposition of other Nigerian leaders to ethnic cleansing as a solution to any differences with Ndi Igbo. In the Northern Region, increasingly frequent threats of property dispossession and physical elimination by its leaders against Ndi Igbo reached a crescendo in the sabre-rattling of members of the House of Assembly in March 1964.
The Speech of the Minister of Lands and Survey, Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Gashash,
was
illustrative of the unanimous view of members. He declared:
Mr. Chairman, Sir, I do not like to take up much of the time of this House in
making
explanations, but I would like to assure members that having heard their
demands
about Ibos holding land in
can
to see that the demands of Members are met. How to do this, when to do it, all
this
should not be disclosed In due course, you will all see what will happen
(Applause).
The situation in western Region was no less threatening. A booklet, entitled UPGAISM
was
published by the Western Government. In it were displayed photographs of stores
and shops run by “Igbo traders in
Commission
of Jurists, 1969).
3.5.2
Scope of the Genocidal Massacres
The pogroms of 1966 registered the first full determination of
On
the involvement of rulers, Enoch Ejikeme, an Igbo businessman who lived in
Katsina for 15 years, told the Onyiuke tribunal “Round about
While the attack continued, the Emir of Katsina, Usman Nagogo, the former Minister (of
Education) Isa Kaita, Musa Tafida Yar’ Adua, former Minister of Lagos Affairs, and Magajin Gari, the Emir’s son, were parading the town up and down cheering them up.”
Mr. V. O. Ekwealor, an Igbo motor mechanic and motor transport owner on the
role of
the
Emir and his aides at Gombe where he had lived for nine years (1957-1966): “On
the 1st of June the Emir of Gombe
was collected by plane for a meeting in
bow
sand arrows machetes and guns shooting at the same time. Suddenly there was
shooting on my windows ... N.A. lorries were transporting many people from the
interior into the town mainly hunters...”
On foreign involvement, another eyewitness, Dr G. E. Ezekwe, an Igbo
Senior Lecturer
in
Mechanical Engineering at
On the involvement of other ethnic groups, another eyewitness, Mr Paul 1. Okwara
revealed to the Tribunal the plot behind the death train ride, reminiscent of the Jewish holocaust:
“…It
was announced over Kano Rediffusion Network that a passenger train would be
leaving Kano for Eastern Region on 2nd October
(1966), and that all those wishing to travel should report on 1st of October at the Railway Station (the waves
of pogroms of 1966--May 29, July 29, and September). George, the Senior Trainer
Officer who is a native of Idoma... He was a member of Nasara Club, and
attended all the meetings where it was decided to kill all the Ibos in
friends but each of them swore they would rather die than give me protection, since they were warned previously not to give any Ibo man or woman any protection...”
Many Igbos who managed to escape from the far north were massacred in the thousands
by Idomas
and Tivs as they passed through the Middle Belt on their flight to
Igboland. The Igbos met similar fate in the hands of the Yorubas in Western
Region. In the second waves of massacres during the civil war, the Binis and
other non-Igbo military officers of Mid-West origin led the murderous
attacks on Ika Ibos (Blood On The Niger, E. Okocha).
On the involvement of the Army, we quote again Mr Paul 1. Okwara: “Exactly
at
something
bad was in the air... Soon shots were heard everywhere. That day was declared a
public holiday, and as usual many Ibos came to the Airport... One soldier
ordered me outside and asked me where I came from. When I told him I was a
Mid-Westerner he told me I was lying... what I heard was ‘About turn! Quick
March! I heard a shot behind me and I fell down and passed out...
...Somebody
emerged from under the big table on hearing me. It was Mr Lekettey, a
Ghanaian
who apparently was hiding from the savage soldiers. He was my uncle and I his
nephew. This strategy worked wonderfully, and when the soldiers heard us out,
they shouted in unison, ‘why have you been hiding? We don’t want to kill
Ghanaians. We are after Okpara’s brothers. We are going to finish them off. They
took us upstairs, where we saw more dead bodies, some of whom I recognised.
Lekettey and myself gave them ten pounds for drink. They drank until
a
sight I would never like to see again till my dying day. Over 700 men, women
and children had been mowed down - they had been killed while they were waiting
for a train to take them to our Region. A few of the children were still
creeping over their dead mothers, shouting, ‘Mama, I am hungry; I want to
drink.’ Some were trying to suck their dead mothers’ breasts...’ Next we were
taken round Sabon Gari. It was the same massacre of Ibos in Hotels where they
had gone to relax because it was public holiday. All the hotels were literally
filled up with dead bodies. In Sabon Gari, everywhere we went, we saw dead and
dying Ibos. No tinge of compunction ever
touched the conscience of these soldier, who on the night of October 1 “joined their civilian brothers to loot, pillage, and kill our kith and kin...”
Methods: The methods of the physical liquidation were more bestial and
gruesome than
the worst holocaust in history.
The Report of the International Committee of Jurists on Genocide recorded reports of
cases
involving the slitting of throats and the chopping of heads in the market
place, the slitting open of stomachs of pregnant women and killing of unborn
babies, and the plucking of eyes out of their sockets. A witness to Onyiuke
Commission, Mr. S. I. Udeng, saw in Makurdi how Igbo victims “were buried
alive in two deep wells. Each well was given a gun shot before it was actually
closed up with stones and sand.” Another, Daniel Agu, testified how one “Mai
Yanka took his two-edged sword and cut his (the Igboman’s head like a
goat...and the man’s blood spread all over our bodies like water spouting from
a tap... we were all both horrified and
gripped
by fear.”
In Ikeja Barracks (
mixture of human urine and faeces.
One method was a throw-back to the infamous Inquisition of the Dark Ages: according to
a
witness, Dick Iwobi: “This punishment is one of the most dreadful ways of
crucifying a person.
A
heavy rod is tied across the back of the chest of the victim with the hands
stretched and
secured firmly on the rod. While the victim may still be standing on his legs, he is as helpless as a man nailed to a cross. In this position, they then proceeded to torture the victim by plucking his eyes, cutting his tongue or cutting his testicles.”
But the tormentors reserved the most horrendous dehumanisation for Eastern
(mostly
Igbo)
women. According to one witness (Erif Spiff) to the Onyiuke Tribunal: “Many
(Igbo) girls in the training school in
3.6 The Cost:
In its complaint to the International Commission, the then Biafran Government
estimated as follows: “Properties and investments worth over thirty million
pound, owned by the then Easterners—hotels, churches, schools, shops, buildings—were
damaged or set fire on after looting.”
This covers the cost in only narrow material terms. The psychological cost is far higher.
This sketch depicts the outline of the most heinous crimes in human history - crimes committed with such absolute impunity that even dangerous vermins that exist outside the law seem to enjoy more rights. The crimes were as wide in scope as the genocide against the Jews but more sadistic and inhuman in implementation than the holocaust.
3.7 The Refugee Problem and Federal Government Insensitivity
Sequel to the waves of pogrom, Ndi Igbo in the North fled to the East,
many of them maimed and traumatised. They fled the North not because they
wanted to but because they had to protect themselves from the massacres that
were undoubtedly genocidal in scope. Over 2,000,000 Igbo were involved. This
influx of dispossessed and destitute Easterners created an enormous refugee
problem in Igbo land. All appeals to the then Federal Government to assist in
the rehabilitation of the refugees yielded no results. The Federal Government
made matters worse by refusing to pay the salaries of Federal Public Servants
who had fled to the East. The obvious consequences of the fleeing of Ndi
Igbo to the East include the loss of jobs and property. Many of the
returnees
died under these circumstances. The Aburi meeting (and accord) of the Supreme Military
Council,
the first after the
“On employment and recovery of property, that civil servants and corporation
staff (Including daily paid employees) who have not been absorbed should
continue
to be paid their full salaries until
got alternative employment and that the military governors of East, West and
the problem of recovery of property left behind by displaced person” [Ref: C
Odumegwu
Ojukwu,
Row,
That the
Federal Government reneged on this agreement was obviously in very bad faith.
The plight of
3.8
The
The creation of the 12-States structure by Col. Gowon on
expediency
aimed primarily at completing their siege of Ndi Igbo and frustrating
their survival and struggle for self-determination. It dismembered the Igbos as
they were split into fragments and put into different non-Igbo States. Thus,
there were Ndi Igbo of
3.9
Prayers
We demand that:
THE PRAYER
We Ndi Igbo affirm that the complaints of the
”On the basis of the foregoing observations, contained in this Complaint,
and
also in the exhibits put before the Directorate of the
'International
Committee for the Study of the Crime of Genocide', and on
the basis of
evidence adduced before this International Conference
with regard to the
merits of the Complaint, and reserving all its rights
with regard to the said
merits, the Government of the
the Directorate of the 'International Committee for the
Study of the Crime of
Genocide', and the Panel of International Jurists, to
hold and declare that
members and responsible officers of the Government of the
Federation of
1. That the said members and officers of the Government of the Federation
of
intent to destroy the peoples of
(this Prayer finds its basis on Article 2 of the
Substantive Criminal Law of
Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly,
1948).
2. That a Declaration be made that members and officers of the Government
of the Federation of
crimes, or to have conspired with those committing the
crimes, be punished,
irrespective of whether they are constitutionally
responsible rulers, or
public officials. (This Prayer finds its basis on Article
4 of the Substantive
Criminal Law of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly,
1948). Furthermore, it might be found relevant to quote
United Nations
Resolution No. A/7342 of the 27th November, 1968,
regarding the
"Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War
Crimes and Crimes against
Humanity", as support for this Prayer.
3. That a Declaration be made, justifying the legislation of the
Government of the
against the peoples of
effective penalties for persons found guilty of the said
crimes. (This
Prayer finds its basis on Article 5 of the Substantive
Criminal Law of
Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly,
1948).
4. That a Declaration be made, justifying the setting up in
Military Tribunal, as the competent tribunal of the State
in the territory
where these acts have been committed. (This Prayer finds
its basis on
Article 6 of the Substantive Criminal Law of Genocide,
adopted by the United
Nations General Assembly, 1948).
*4. This should be done immediately under the auspices of the UN.
5. That a Declaration be made, requesting any of the states of the
International Community, in whose territory any person
found guilty of having
committed any of the crimes, condemned in the
"Substantive Criminal Law of
Mankind" to grant extradition of such persons in
order that they might be
tried in accordance with the Law. (This Prayer finds its
basis on Article 7
of the Substantive Criminal Law of Genocide, adopted by
the United Nations
General Assembly, 1948).
6. That a Communication, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate,
be made available to the Secretary-General of the United
Nations
Organisation, and also that the Directorate empowers its
Secretary-General to
address copies of the Communique to be issued to the competent
organs of the
United Nations Organisation, including the
of Justice; The United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural
Organisation; The Human Rights Committee of the United
Nations; The United
Nations International Childrens' Emergency Fund; and the
World Health
Organisation; and any other Organisations that be found
appropriate.
(This Prayer finds its basis on Article 8 of the
Substantive Criminal Law of
Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly,
1948).
7. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate,
be made available to the Registry of European Human
Rights Committee, and
that the Secretary-General of the International Committee
for the Study of
the Crime of Genocide (known hereafter as the 'C.I.E.G',
be empowered so to
do.
8. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate, be
made available to the Registry of the Organisation of
American States, and
that the Secretary-General of the 'C.I.E.G' be empowered
so to do.
9. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate,
be made available to the Secretariat of the
Organisation, and that the Secretary-General of the
'C.I.E.G.' be empowered
so to do.
10. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate, be
made available to the Secretary of the
European States, and that the Secretary-General of the
'C.I.E.G.' be
empowered so to do.
11. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate,
be made available to the Organisation of African Unity,
and that the
Secretary-General of the 'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so to
do.
12. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate, be
made available to the Government of the Federation of
Secretary-General of the 'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so to
do.
13. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of
this Directorate,
be made available to Her Majesty's Government of the
the Secretary-General of the 'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so
to do.
14. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate,
be made available to the Government of the
Republics, and that the Secretary-General of the
'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so
to do.
15. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate,
be made available to the Government of
of the 'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so to do.
16. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of
this Directorate,
be made available to the Government of
Secretary-General of the 'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so to
do.
17. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate,
be made available to the Government of
of the 'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so to do.
18. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate,
be made available to the Government of
of the 'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so to do.
19. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of this Directorate,
be made available to the Government of
Secretary-General of the 'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so to
do.
20. That the Communique, declaratory of the findings of
this Directorate,
be made available to the International Committee of the
Red Cross; Amnesty
International; Caritas and any other organisations who,
according to the
Directorate of the 'C.I.E.G.' might be found appropriate,
and that the
Secretary-General of the 'C.I.E.G.' be empowered so to
do.
1969
P. Kedy Nwokedi
Agent and Representative of the
People and Government of the
21. Payment of $500 billion (five hundred billion dollars) as compensation for lives, properties and investments owned by Ndi Igbo in the North (These include Hotels, Churches, Schools, Shops, Cars, Lorries, Tippers, Buses, Homes) which were destroyed and looted.
22. Payment of
(a) $10,000,000.00 (Ten million dollars) as per a person as compensation on behalf of Igbo women for 50,000 severely raped during the war.
(b) $5,000,000.00 as per a person to 50,000 assaulted and maimed.
4. VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI
IGRO DURING
THE CIVIL WAR
4.1
Preamble
After
months of unbridled pogrom unleashed on Easterners, mostly Ndi Igbo by
the Northerners, those who survived the pogrom ran back to the East for their
safety. About 500,000 lost their lives and 2 million fled back to the East.
With the threat of annihilation of Easterners in general and Ndi Igbo in
particular through economic strangulation still looming large, the Eastern
Region government declared the Independent Republic of Biafra on
Consequently,
a full scale war broke out on
into
the Eastern enclave to force the Easterners back to
4.2 Continuation of Genocide
With these dislocations the Biafrans lost their food producing areas. The
refugee problem was soon compounded: food shortages, hunger, malnutrition,
starvation, disease and death ran riot.
But
of more deadly concern to the average Biafran, especially the Igboman, was the
deep hatred of Igbo race and the reckless abandon and total disregard for any
restraints of war convention with which the Nigerian soldiers pursued the war.
They showed so much disdain for life and property and destroyed everything in
sight with so much glee that Ndi Igbo were confirmed in their worst
fears that the war was nothing but a continuation of
Most of the atrocities committed by Nigerian troops during the civil war were evidently
outside
the legitimate demands of combat and conquest.
We outline here some of the atrocities which mock the Geneva Convention and violated all the Human Rights laws on war.
4.3
Concentration on Civil Targets
The Nigerian soldiers, in strict obedience to their genocidal objective of physical extermination, concentrated their attacks on civilian targets. Indeed their war slogan, used in daily broadcasts by government radio to motivate both the soldiers and the civilians, was an unabashed declaration of genocidal intentions: “Let us go and crush them. We will pillage their property ravish their womenfolk, murder their menfolk and complete the pogrom of 1966.”
More revealing was the 7-point programme of the Northern Nigerian Authorities:
“It is pertinent to observe that the Atrocities Tribunal found
as a fact that
the
point programme aimed at a complete
extermination of the then Eastern
Nigerians (now Biafrans) in
Federation. The programme is outlined as follows:
“1. (a) to kill off the Major-General and Supreme
Commander of the
Armed
Forces, T.J.T. Aguiyi-Ironsi
(b) to kill off all the Yamiri (Igbo) Army Officers;
(c) and subsequently purge the Army of Yamiri(Igbo) by
killing the rest
in the ranks.
2. With the aid of the Westerners in the Army, to take
complete control
of the Armed Forces, the Police and the Navy and to
purge
off the Yamiri(Igbo) in these Forces too.
3. To kill off and dispossess all the Yamiri(Igbo) domiciled
in the Northern
Region.
4. To use the control of the Armed Forces to take
control of the
country's Government.
5. To revenge Sardauna's and Abubakar's death by
killing Dr. Zik,
Dr. Okpara, Ojukwu and Major Nzeogwu.
6. To destroy Port Harcourt, Enugu and the University
of Nigeria, Nsukka.
7. To kill all
(a) Yamiri(Igbo) in top civil service posts;
(b) all wealthy Yamiri(Igbo) - male and female;
(c) all Yamiri educational giants;
(d) all grown up males and females of Yamiri;
(e)
to leave out only sucklings in Yamiri land.”
A survey of some of the massacres is revealing: We attach affidavits by eye-witnesses of
some of the wanton killings. We hereby describe a few—only a few—of the acts of inhumanity:
Susan Masid of the French Press Agency reporting this horrifying incident had this to say:
“Young
Ibos with terrifying eyes and trembling lips told journalists in
Another
foreign journalist, McArthy William who visited the devastated area of
he saw the Federal Army move in. This eye witness account says:
“The
villages were strewn with the corpses of the peasants caught unawares. The
smashed bodies of children cast aside like broken dolls, lay on the rain
ditches running alongside the main street. The women, old and young, lay huddled
and dead among the wreckages, some with their hands tied behind their backs.”
Thus,
Susan Garth, moved by what she saw in
“We
are all guilty of a murder of a million children in
In Ogwe the Newsweek correspondent describes how a Nigerian, Lt. Lamurde treated a
poor
and lonely boy who went in search of his parents in Ogwe,
“‘I am not a soldier. Sweet Jesus, save me.’ This did not register any sympathy, instead Lamurde pumped bullets into his body...”
In
while
others fled and to pray for deliverance. Col. Mohammed’s Second Division found
them in the church, dragged them out, tied their hands behind their backs and
executed them. This
The
Hydes... tell a horrifying story of the
One of the attached affidavits in the
Appendix
(I i-x) - from Frank Chukwuma Ibegba, an eye-witness - records the
CALABAR: Rev. David T. Craig, writing in the Presbyterian Record of December 1967
(
“A
group of Efik people (the local inhabitants) brought two young men in civilian
dress to the soldiers. The young lads looked like secondary school students. With the Northern soldiers was an Efik-speaking soldier. It was his duty to question prisoners In the Efik language. His job was to see if any spoke Efik with an Ibo accent. These two young lads did. The soldiers took aim and they were shot on the spot.”
UYO: On entry into Uyo, the Nigerian soldiers embarked on systematic elimination of
leaders of thought and their families in a scope reminiscent of the Asaba massacres.
1968
carried on pages 5 and 9 gruesome stories of Nigerian atrocities against Ndi
Igbo. In these it indicated that “in a hospital outside
OKIGWE:
delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegates, two missionaries, several other relief workers and over 100 Biafran civilian men, women and children.
ASABA MASSACRES. Asaba was one of the centres of mass killings. The soldiers
lured
out the civilians into an open field to welcome them. In a pre- meditated plan,
they sprayed the civilians with bullets, killing over 700 males. The Asaba
massacres were reported in Observer and documented in E.
Okocha’s Blood On the Niger (
Jack Shepheredi
the Senior Editor of Look Magazine said in
General Yakubu Gowon, the then Head of State, acknowledged this incident recently at an audience with the Asagba of Asaba (Daily Champion, 26 October 1999, pp. 30-31). He did also acknowledge and apologise to the Igbo for the atrocities, abuse of their human rights during the war at a function (Nigeria Prays) in Ebonyi
State in 1998. Massacre of all was a general pattern of Nigerian troops whenever they entered a town.
A detailed and carefully documented account of the massacres in Asaba and the then
Mid-West
is BLOOD ON THE NIGER by Emma Okocha (
Emma Okocha concludes:
“Throughout
the week in scattered locations the exterminations continued. Because it was
beyond understanding, we shall close by inviting here David Astor who on the
anniversary of the
We must learn more of the fatal fearful process of thought which make people feel not only justified but that they have a duty to destroy others. We cannot tell what may excite this process of mass psychology. Its next form may not be racial or religious but political as has happened before in times of revolution or civil wars ...
4.4
Bombing, Concentration on Civilian Targets
The testimony of Ndi Igbo that Nigerians have concentrated on non-military targets is well illustrated by the following records which are intercepts of coded messages from Nigerian communications revealing that the instruction to bomb civilian targets are official:
[1)
“Co/Calabar/Ca:
Do
not allow anything to stand. Calabar Airforce Base: Roger All right,
Sir. (Received
13.50
bra
[2] Nigerian CO at Calabar (from) Calabar Airforce Base (to) Calabar CO Bombing
should
be done on the fishing port area and all the areas of .Ikot-.rfi-at and Ikot
Offiong.
Calabar Airforce Base—Roger All Right Sir. (Received 11. 05 hrs
[3]
From: Lt. Col. Adekunle (PH) - To NAF Commander (Calabar) NAF (Calabar) -
We
will only do one mission because the bombs are not enough. Which is the important
one?
Lt. Col. Adekunle (PH): Go to Azumini and
mad.
(Received 10-30 his
[4]
NAF PH/NAF Calabar; NAF/PH.- What is the weather like? NAF/CAL: Fair, Sir.
NAF/PH:
Ok, go and bomb Azumini and Akwete and follow it until the river. NAF/CAL:
Ok,
Sir, Tiger-fighter bomber. NAF/PH: When you come back, the tiger should go to
area.
NAF/CAL: What targets, Sir? NAF/PH: The town itself. Chase them like mad.
They
should run away. Received
After
the bombing of
“I
have seen things in
As mentioned in the intercepted messages, the object of Nigerian daily bombing missions
in
the war is to destroy all civilian lives. Itu Leper Colony was razed to
the ground by air attack on
On
In
4.5
Scorched Earth Policy
The famous order of the Commander of the Marine Commanders, Lt.Col. Adekunle, to his troops to shoot anything that moves summarises the Nigerian military attitude of total and indiscriminate destruction of Igboland during the war. As most of the affidavits attached here reveal, this Scorched Earth policy was religiously implemented. The report of the International Commission of jurists on Genocide observes (p.18):
“A number of witnesses testified to the fact that especially In the villages predominantly populated by Biafran citizens, there was utter destruction of all structures for human habitation, livestock and farms, Witnesses mentioned villages around Onitsha, Owerri and Nsukka where this method of extermination was extensively used.”
The policy also had the underlining sinister objective of the Final Solution a la Nazi. The
Report of the International Committee on Genocide records:
“There
are witnesses who testified to the fact that in most areas where troops of the
Federal Authority entered, peoples of Biafran (most Igbo) origin were loaded on
to trucks and taken out of the towns. It was explained that these people were
sent into jungles where the older ones were assembled and shot, and their
bodies were left to be disposed of by the wild beasts that roam the jungles.
The younger men
were sorted out and posted to the units of the Federal Army where they were used as cannon fodder in attacks on Biafran positions. It was testified to me that the children were sent to the Northern region to be sold into slavery, and the women were made to serve in the camps of the Federal troops, where they were ravished.”
The area where this method was first used was Nsukka. A number of other witnesses
mentioned
other places, such as Asaba,
4.6
Rape and Dehumanisation of Igbo Women
Some
of the attached affidavits contain stories of rape and humiliation of women.
Detective Police Corporal in Police Headquarters,
“One
Omeke family comprising eleven people was met intact by the Hausa. They killed
the husband and the wife of the family eliminated seven other children and
relatives of the family and carried away two grown up girls from this very
family. Till today, the whereabouts of these girls has not been known.”
In Unwana, another eye-witness, Samuel
Inyang, deposed that in the village square “near the salga latrine, I saw
five women and
eight children all lying down dead... each and everyone of the five women and three girls of the eight children had long sticks pushed through their external genitalia.” This hostility, a part of large-scale massacre of the villagers, was discovered after a five-day conquest occupation of Unwana by Nigerian troops.
4.7
Maltreatment of War Prisoners
Igbo war prisoners received the most gruesome treatment from their Nigerian captors. The International Commission reports one witness as being “the last of a queue of Biafran Prisonersof- War who were having their eyes plucked out, and that he was able to run away with one eye because when it came to his turn, an alarm was given of a Biafran advance and the plucker had to run for his gun, thus making it possible for him to escape with one eye...”
One
of the factors that compelled
international
outcry against the reckless killings. Before proclamation of the Code of
Conduct, the International Red Cross had lodged protests with the Federal
Military Authority in January 1968 and March 1968, with regard to the inhuman
excesses of its army concerning treatment of Biafran prisoners of war and
civilian population. Even after the proclamation of the Code,
4.8
Hunger
existence of condition of maximum food shortage in Igboland through capture of the food
producing
areas, wanton destruction of farmlands and crops, and obstruction of supplies
of foreign aid. Consequently, mass starvation and death became the order of the
day in
Besides
deliberate denial of food,
the
Biafran health workers and other scientists discovered arsenic acid in bags of
salt, sugar tins of milk and tomatoes infiltrated into
4.9
The “Final Solution”
That all the bestialities sketched above have the character of the Final Solution is underlined by the style of disposing of the dead. The Investigator of Committee of the International Committee notes in the Report:
“I
had evidence from eighteen witnesses who mentioned themselves as being
eyewitnesses
to burials From two of this number, I obtained the testimony that, especially
in the
mass graves at Asaba, the wounded and sick Biafrans, and a few suckling, were dumped together with the dead, and that during the sealing of these trenches with their loads of the dead, the cries and the waiting of the sick, the wounded and the babies, could be heard from a long distance away. In this testimony, It was also mentioned that, when these mass graves had been covered, the Federal soldier, danced native war dances over them.”
Evidence of conduct of the war in a manner inconsistent with Geneva Convention is
overwhelming.
The International Committee in the Investigation of Crimes of Genocide carried
out exhaustive investigation of the evidence, interviewing 1082 people
representing all the actors in the dispute (the two sides of the civil war and
international collaborators). After a thorough painstaking research, the
Commission concludes, through its Investigator (Dr. Mensah of
4.10
Prayers
1.
The re-establishment of the Sovereign Nation of
- The perpetrators of the war crimes be tried before UN Courts of law.
3. Payment of accumulated salaries and allowances due from May, 1966 to 1970, as well as $1,000,000.00 per person, as compensation by the Federal Government of Nigeria for
unjustified inconveniences suffered by all Igbo who were forcibly displaced and lost their
jobs.
4. Payment by Federal Government of $50 billion as compensation for investments and
businesses owned by Ndi Igbo but destroyed in various parts of Igboland from 1967-70,
including Enugu Market, Onitsha Market, Aba Market, Oguta Market, Orlu Market,
Owerri Market, Umuahia Market, Nnewi Market, Afikpo Market, Otuocha Market,
Abakaliki and Okigwe Markets, Industries, Factories and Corporate businesses, by the
Federal
Government of
5. Construction of at least fifteen (100) Secondary Schools, twenty (200) Primary Schools, ten (10) universities, twenty (20) Hospitals, forty (40) Markets, one (1) Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)- recognised Church, in each of the one hundred and five (105) Local Government Areas of Ndi Igbo and Igbo-Speaking areas, by the Federal Government of Nigeria, as reparation for the bombing of these targets.
6. Payment by Federal Government of $1,500,000 for each of the estimated 600,000 Igbo
civilians killed, from 1967-1970, as compensation for targetting unarmed civilians who
were not involved with war.
7. Payment of $500,000 per child as compensation on behalf of an estimated 900,000 Igbo children who died as a result of malnourishrnent due to the economic blockage against the Biafrans, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
8. Payment of $l,000,000 per child as compensation, on behalf of an estimated 2,000,000
Igbo children who suffered permanent intellectual retardation due to malnuourishment,
from 1967-1970, as a result of economic blockage against Biafrans, by the Federal
Government
of
9. A public apology and financial compensation at $l,000,000 each by the Federal
Government
of
(700) unsuspecting Ndi Igbo of Asaba origin in Asaba, who were lured to a reception and
massacred
on
10. (a) Payment of $l,000,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria as
compensation on behalf of other estimated three hundred (300) Ndi Igbo maimed
in Asaba.
(b) Payment of $500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria in respect
of
700 Asaba indigenes killed on
11.
Payment of $500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria as
compensation in respect of an estimated eight hundred (800) Igbo civilians
killed by Nigerian soldiers in other parts of
12. Allocation of a special grant of $3,500,000 for the immediate completion of the
reconstruction
of
civil war.
13. Payment of $5,000,000 per person as compensation by the Federal Government of
5. VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN AND CIVILIAN RIGHTS OF NDI
IGBO IN
THE IMMEDIATE POST-WAR ERA
5.1
Preamble
The Gowon regime offered the world a cheerful hope of immediate return of peace, speedy reconciliation and purposeful healing of war wounds through its declared policy of “No Victor No Vanquished” and “Reconciliation Rehabilitation and Reconstruction.” But the activities on the ground clearly showed that the reconciliatory posture was a smokescreen behind which acts of injustices and cruelty against Ndi Igbo continued. Infact the barrage of atrocities raged with so much intensity after the ‘end” of the war that observers concluded that the Federal authorities were continuing the war by other means and that the 3 R’s were indeed three S’s (Strangulation! Strangulation! and Strangulation!). We hereby itemise some of the atrocities beneath the cloak of
3 R’s in the following three S’s:
5.2
Social Strangulation
5.2.1
Physical Liquidation:
Although
the Nigerian Civil War ended officially on
accepted norms and ethics of civilised conduct of wars.
5.2.2
Continuation of Starvation Policy:
At
the end of the war, Igboland lay prostrate, battered and devastated from the
horrors of the war. Its social and economic infrastructure was in utter ruins.
Massive food shortages and serious absence of medical facilities and services
resulted in avoidable deaths. The destitution, famine and deprivation in the
first months after the war were more distressing than during the war. This pathetic
situation followed the insensitivity of the Federal Military Government. It
rejected and turned away sources of foreign help; South Africa, Portugal and
Southern Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and humanitarian organisations, perceived to
have aided Biafra during the war, were turned down by the Federal Government
(Ref. John d. Jorre: The Nigerian Civil War-London
1972. p. 403). The Federal Government seemed to be continuing to wage the war by other means, in accordance with its war policy that starvation is a legitimate weapon of war.
5.2.3
Mass Dismissal of Igbo Public Servants
By the “Public Officers (Special Provisions) Decree No. 46 of 1970,” thousands of Igbo officers were denied reinstatement in the Armed Forces, Prisons and the Police, were denied reabsorption into the Nigeria Public Service. In the Police Forces alone, 4000 personnel were dismissed. It is on record that in what can be regarded as a symbolic gesture, a Police officer, Charles Mashie, got his job back after he took his case to General Gowon who ordered his immediate reinstatement in accordance with the declared policy, yet thousands of others (many of them are still alive) lost their jobs. Besides mass dismissals, there was silent but evident policy of exclusion that ensured that no Igbo man emerged in any commanding position in the armed forces, police and other paramilitary forces.
5.2.4
Destruction of Education, Our Invaluable Heritage
Education
plays a more critical role among the Igbo as a life source than in the world
view of any other ethnic nationality. Aware of this, the Federal Government
tried though various insidious means to destroy this heritage.
The war-time technological achievements of Ndi Igbo were allowed to rot away. The
Federal
Government took over
A generation of Igbo youth, among them the most talented and skilled in Black Africa,
was
thus suffocated by victorious
In expression of this disposition, churches and foreign Christian educational institutions
which
owned and managed most of the post-secondary schools in Igboland, were not
allowed to return to provide sorely needed rehabilitation. Furthermore, other
channels of education and educational contacts were closed. The U.S Embassy was
not allowed to reopen its library in
5.2.5
Social ostracism
Throughout
the length and breath of
5.3
Economic Strangulation
5.3.1
Denial of pre-war savings
The
Civil War, writes Chinua Achebe (The Trouble with Nigeria, 1983, p. 45
and 46) gave
5.3.2
Exclusion from the commanding heights of the economy
The
indigenisation Decree which followed soon after the arbitrary award of N20
completed the routing of Ndi Igbo from the commanding heights of the
Nigerian economy. Only two years after the war, when Ndi Igbo were still
in their economic doldrums, the Finance Minister Chief Awolowo contrived to
auction off the Nigerian economy to the “indigenes” via the so-called
Enterprises Promotion Decree (1974). The timing of the policy ensured the
effective exclusion of Ndi Igbo from ownership in
5.3.3
Abandoned Property Policy
Before
the war,
Allagoa
of Nembe while the third was Chief F.U. Ihekwaba of Ikwere. In other words, Ndi
Igbo were very deeply involved in the political and economic life of
When
than
to leave
The Abandoned Property Issue remained unresolved until the overthrow of General
Gowon.
Upon the accession to power by General Murtala Muhammed, he set up the Col. S. F.
Daramola
Panel (September, 1975) to look into the issue. Many Igbo felt that General
Murtala would be more humane than his predecessor because of his revolutionary
utterances. The decision of Murtala’s government as announced on
The
remaining ones were to be sold to the indigenes of the state who would require
to pay a fair price to respective owners. The government white paper also
authorised the Rivers and
The Ikwerre Aros live as refugees in their own country, another arrow at the conscience
of the nation, another reminder that Ndi Igbo do not live on the lee side of the law.
5.3.4.
No Reconstruction
The ‘R’
for Reconstruction was, like all the other Rs, meant to deceive the outside
world. No reconstruction of any facility - schools, road, health institution,
communication network or any other infrastructural works - was undertaken by
the Federal Government. The signal which the Federal Government and the rest of
economic reconstruction help to war-torn Igboland was prompted by reasons other than poor treasury.
5.3.5
Denial of source of livelihood to poor Igbo traders
The 1971 Federal government ban on the importation of second hand clothing and stockfish was calculated to throw the ordinary Igbo masses whose livelihood depended on the petty trade into penury and disarray.
5.3.6
Excision of Igbo Mineral-Rich Areas from Igboland and Neglect of Mineral Finds
in Igbo Areas
Through
boundary adjustment, some mineral - rich areas of Igbo land were transferred to
Rivers and former
Besides this, the Federal Government ignored, as a non-issue, mineral finds within
Igboland
(probably because the sites could not be merged with non-Igbo areas). Oil find
in Nsukka area by SAFRAP (a Federal Oil Company) was sealed up with the
expulsion of the Company during the war, and to date the Federal Government has
not ordered resumption of activities. Natural Gas find in Ugwuoba, the largest
deposit in
5.4
Political Strangulation
5.4.1
Exclusion from Political Apex
With the exception of the Administrator of East Central State, Mr. Ukpabi Asika (1967-1975) Ndi Igbo had no representation in all the political and security organs which constituted the apex of political authority - Supreme Military Council and Security Council. Igbo “citizens” were to be seen, not heard.
5.4.2
Political Manipulation of Demographic Figures
A survey of Nigerian demographic exercises revealed a studied attempt to depress the population of Igbo race Lithe two other major ethnic groups.
In the 1952-53 non-politicised census (Table 1), organised by the British, lVdi.rgLio
rated
the second largest ethnic group - and this, in spite of the fact, as the
British themselves admitted, Ndi Igbo were under-counted by 10-15%
because of two factors (the unhealed alienation of the people as a result of
the
But from this period, political manipulation of census figures, to inflate the population of
the North and the Yorubas of the West, and to reduce the population of Igbos, has become a standard practice. Table I points up certain absurdities:
(i) the phenomenal rabbit-like increase of the population of the Northern tribes and
West’s Yoruba, as against the growth performance of the population of Ndi Igbo.
(ii) the increasing reduction of Igbo race to a minority ethnic group. Compare, for
example, the demographic growth of two groups, Igbos and Yorubas.
Figures
in Table 1 show that the population of Igbos in
17.16%
in 1952/53, to 13.48% in 1991, of the total population of
represents a decrease of about 3.68% over a period of 38 years, a decrease of
0.10% per year. Therefore, in 1999, the figure is projected to decrease by
12.68%.
In
the same period, the population of the Yorubas in
5.5
Prayers
We demand:
The
re-establishment of the Sovereign Independent Republic of
1. A
restoration of all Igbo land carved into
re-delineation of State boundaries, and to incorporate into the appropriate Igbo
States all Igbo towns exercised from such States during the unilateral creation of States without Ndi Igbo input.
2. Payment of $1,000,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria as
compensation on behalf of 10,000 Igbo civilians and Biafran soldiers who
surrendered and were killed within three months after the official declaration of
the
end of the war on
3. A restoration of all bank accounts of the Igbo, with accrued interest, who had
been
operating account within
Government
of
4. Payment of an average of $300,000 per adult Igbo, by the Federal Government of
underpayment of a flat rate of 20 pounds to depositors in 1970, irrespective of their war
savings
between
flat rate because of difficulties of access to CBN representatives.
5. Payment of $500 billion (five hundred billion dollars) as compensation to Ndi
Igbo, by the Federal Government of Nigeria, for the willful damage to their
purchasing power, as a
result of the flat rate P-20 payment and other savings irrespective of the amount in
1970, which gravely damaged their ability to compete fairly with other Nigerians
in purchase of assets during the indigenisation exercise (1974 Enterprises
Promotion Decree) and in all other spheres of the economy.
6. Payment of accumulated salaries and allowances due from 15th January, 1970 to
date, to all public officers; reinstatement of displaced Igbo public officers; and
formal disengagement of those not re-instated (including the payment of their
retirement benefits) as the case may be, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
7. Payment of accumulated salaries and allowances due from 15th January, 1970 to
date, to all Igbo Military, Police and other para-military officers who were
displaced as a result of the pogroms; re- instatement or formal disengagement of
those not re-instated (including the payment of their retirement benefits) as the
case may be, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
8. The repossession by Ndi Igbo of their properties which were
compulsorily
acquired in contradiction of the provisions of the 1963 Constitution, Section 31
(1), No. 20, which was in operation at that time, by the Rivers State Government,
Cross
Civil
War.
9. Payment of rentable values including the interests thereof from 1970 until the
repossession of these properties by their rightful owners by the appropriate
Governments and other parties for properties compulsorily acquired.
10. Payment of $50,000 (fifty thousand dollars) per child by Federal Government
of Nigeria in respect of an estimated 250,000 Igbo children who died immediately
after the war as a result of the continuation of the starvation policy.
6. VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI
IGBO IN THE
LATER POST-WAR EPA (MID-SEVENTIES TO DATE)
6.1 Preamble
From the pattern of marginalisation of Ndi Igbo in distribution of
employment and infrastructure since the end of post-war “reconstruction” to
date, it seems that there is in place an unwritten policy of total
disempowernment of Ndi Igbo in economic, political, military,
bureaucratic, social and media spheres. The undeclared policy clearly enforced
total exclusion of Ndi Igbo from all sensitive posts. Observed
persistent pattern of appointments confirms the allegation that exclusion from
high military command should last for at least fifty years from the end of the
civil war (30 years after the civil war, army has not produced a high-ranking
Igbo officers considered fit and safe to head a division).
Our constitution (1979, 1999) are most eloquent on administration of equity and justice in
distribution of rights. Decree No. 34 of 1996 make elaborate provisions on equitable distribution of jobs and facilities. Under the fundamental objectives and directive principles of State policy, 1999 Constitution, Section 14. 3) states that “the composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its parts and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the Federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few ethnic or Other sectional groups in that Government or any of its agencies.”
Pursuant to the above provision, the Federal Character Commission, which was set up, worked out a guideline which provides that:
at the national level the indigene,, of a state shall constitute not less than 2.5%
and not more than 3% and the indigenes of a zone shall constitute not less than
15% and not more than 18%.
The distribution of employment and facilities in major sectors will show a consistent
violation of the Federal Character provisions and a pattern of disempowerment against Ndi Igbo.
6.2 Political Disempowerment
6.2.1
States Creation
The process of marginalisation of Ndi Igbo was ab initio built
into a gross injustice perpetrated through the creation of states and local
governments, as they are the basic units of sharing of Federal amenities. The
official mind-set of preemptive malice and genocidal siege strategy, which
prompted the maiden national exercise of war-winning12-states structure of
1967, has apparently continued to guide subsequent exercises. Accordingly,
Ndi Igbo of South East zone
who
rank in population with the Yoruba of South West zone and Hausa/ Fulani of
North West zone have continued to be allocated a number of states pointedly
lower than the shares of these zones.
At present, the table below summarises the distribution of states and local governments
among the six geopolitical zones in the country.
State and Local Government Area Distribution Amongst the Geo-political Zone.
|
S/NO |
ZONE |
NO. OF STATES |
NO. OF LOCAL |
|
1 |
North-Central |
6 (16.6%) |
116(15.19%) |
|
2 |
North-East |
6 (16.67%) |
110 (14.36%) |
|
3 |
North-West |
7 (19.44%) |
181 (23.69%) |
|
4 |
South-West |
6 (16.67%) |
138 (18.01%) |
|
5 |
South-South |
6 (16.67%) |
127(16.58%) |
|
6 |
South-East |
5 (13.89%) |
94 (12.27%) |
|
|
Total |
36 |
766 |
Ndi Igbo have 5 States and 94 Local government areas, out of 36 States and 766 Local
government
areas. Clearly, Ndi Igbo of South East zone have the lowest number of
states and local government areas, yet the zone is by no means the least
populated. From being one of the three main racial groups in
6.2.2
Exclusion from Political Apex:
With
the exception of Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi, no Igbo man has occupied the
political apex of
Two points are clear from these tables:
(a) Of all the ethnic nationalities, major or minor, whose members have
occupied the political apex, Ndi Igbo, acknowledged as one of the three
majorities
in
(b) Of all the former Ethno/Regional “Establishments,” the Hausa- Fulani/Northern
Regional Establishment produced 8 executive heads and ruled for 34 out of the 39
years, the Yoruba/West produced 2 executive heads and ruled up to the time of
this write-up) 31/2 years, the Igbo/East produced only one executive head and
ruled 6 months less than one, year! Table 3, illustrating the pattern of distribution
of other top political posts below the apex - governors and ministers - establishes
a similar truth.
6.2.3 New Heights in Marginalisation (Obasanjo regime):
If the history of skewed appointments since independence leaves any one in
doubt about the emergence of a pattern, the Obasanjo regime has cleared such
doubts. No regime has betrayed so much disdain for the rights of Ndi Igbo in
its appointments as the Obasanjo regime. We review the appointment so far.
i National Security Council: -
South West (Yoruba) 4 (including the President)
North Central 3
North East 2 (including Vice-President)
South South 1
South East (Igbo) 0
The absence of any person from the South-East zone contravenes section 14(3) of the
1999 constitution, especially as paragraph (1) of section 25 of part 1.1 3rl schedule of the 1999 constitution dealing with the composition of the National Security Council provides that two additional members may be appointed to the National Security Council at the President’s discretion.
ii. Armed Forces:
The South East does not presently have any Major-General or the ranks above it
in the Nigerian Army, or the equivalent rank in the Nigerian Air Force and the
Nigerian Navy and therefore, cannot produce any of the Service Chiefs.
Moreover, the number of officers of South-east zone is far short of the one
sixth of the total as required by Section 14(3) of the 1999 constitution.
iii.
Out of 16 top Police officers, viz, IG, DIGS & AIGS, there is only one AIG
of South-East origin, contrary to the constitutional requirements in Section
14(3).
Also, the South-East Zone under the present structure of the Nigeria Police Force, would
appear to be a colonised territory because:
. Abia, Ebonyi and Imo States Commands report to the AIG in Calabar (South-south
zone).
There is need for the zonal structure of the Nigeria Police Force to be changed so that the
Police State Commands in the South East Zone constitute its own zone with its zonal office based in the South-East zone, to which all the state commands of the 5 South Eastern States will report, as is the arrangement in other geopolitical zones.
iv. Allocation of Ministries
We quote the protest of South East Zone of ruling Peoples Democratic Party:
We
note that in the allocation of Portfolios to the Ministers appointed, there is
a
gross
imbalance against the South-East Zone in the number and importance of the
portfolios.
Persons from the South- East Zone were given 3 Cabinet Ministerial
positions,
which is the lowest number of all the Zones, and 4 Ministers of State.
For comparative purposes, it may be noted that
South-West
has 5 Cabinet Ministers (excluding Petroleum under The President) and 4
Ministers
of State.
North-West
has 6 Cabinet Ministers and 4 Ministers of State.
North-Central
has 4 Cabinet Ministers and 3 Ministers of State.
North-East
has 4 Cabinet Ministers and 4 Ministers of State.
South-South
has 4 Cabinet Ministers and 4 Ministers of State.
It is
a matter of regret that the President did not follow the zoning of
ministerial offices
as
approved by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Party at its meeting
of 18th May, 1999.
The zoning was as follows:
Group A Goup
B Group
C Group D
1. Petroleum 7.
Internal Affairs 13. Education
19. Science &
Tech
2. Finance 8.
External Affairs 14. Health
20. Information
3. Defence 9.
Communications 15. Water
Resources 21. Aviation
4. Transport 10.
Industries 16. Solid
Minerals 22. Youth &
Sports
5. Works 11.
Agriculture 17.
Commerce 23. Urban
Affairs
6. F. C. T. 12.
Power and Steel 18. Justice 24. Labour
This would have ensured each geopolitical Zone getting a Ministry from each of
the four groups of Ministries.
But as it turned out the Ministries allotted to the various Zones were as follows:
North-West North-Central
North-East
1. Agriculture and Rural 1.
Commerce 1.
Defence
2. Communications 2.
Industries 2.
Environment
3. Foreign Affairs 3.
Police Affairs 3.
F. C. T.
4. Solid Minerals 4.
Sports and Soc. Devt 4.
Finance
5. Water Resources
6. Women and Youths
South-West
South-South South-East
1. Aviation 1.
Justice 1.
Culture and Tourism
2. Education 2.
Labour & Productivity 2.
Health
3. Information 3.
Science and Tech 3.
Transport
4. Internal Affairs
4. Works and Housing
5. Power and Steel
From the above, it can be seen that not only has the South-,East been
short-changed
in the number of Cabinet Ministers allotted to it, but also from the Zonal distribution of Ministries, it has suffered as no ministry from Group 8 was allotted to it.”
The Igbo in absolute bewilderment are asking when they will be properly integrated back
into the Nigerian Polity and given their rightful position in the running of the affairs of their beloved country?
6.3 Social Disempowerment
6.3.1 Employment in the Federal Sector
(a). In spite of this elaborate provision of the constitution that there should
be no predominance of a few ethnic or other sectional groups and in spite of
the powers given to the Federal Character Commission in this regard, some
ethnic groups and some sectional groups have continued to have predominance in
share of employment at the expenses of some other ethnic groups especially Ndi
Igbo.
The deliberate under-representation in aggregation of States, effected by giving Igbo
ethnic group less number of States than its population merits is a predictable ploy to ensure that Ndi Igbo will be permanently short-changed in the distribution of employment and other resources. Today, Ndi Igbo (South-East) lag, in the distribution of employment and amenities behind the Yorubas (South-West) and the Hausa-Fulani (North-West), the two other major ethnic groupings with which Ndi Igbo rank in population.
The situation in representations and employments in International Organisations in
rule tactic that for all positions coming to the southern zones, those at the helm of affairs
have always contrived to head such positions away from the Igbo zone (South East) in favour of the other two zones especially the South West (Yoruba) in furtherance of the marginalisation of Ndi Igbo.
Admittedly, some other zones from the north are also disadvantaged in terms of number
of staff, but the reason, unlike the case of the South-East (where there is abundant and available relevant manpower in all fields of human endeavour), is that the zones have a paucity of the requisite manpower. In this respect, we had earlier made the distinction between marginality and marginalisation.
6.3.2 Racial Discrimination
(a) Exploitation
The presence of Ndi Igbo, a diaspora people, boosts the population figures of their resident States in census counts. Also, the contributions of the Igbo residents help the economy of the States. Yet, the Igbo residents are denied the full benefits of citizenship in all such States in many subtle but effective ways. Such ways include:
(i) Exclusion from the benefits of Federal Character Law:
Dispensations (such as scholarships and employments) which flow to States which
means
explicit geopolitical basis of States, not tribes) are shared by their governments exclusively to the indigenes, as against the stranger residents, normally Igbos.
(ii) Differential civil obligations:
Different tax assessments and school fees operate in favour of the indigenes,
against the
detriment
of “stranger elements”, mainly Igbos. The heaviest loser in this legal network
of exploitation is Igboland. In a country where population size is a vital
variable in revenue sharing, Igboland loses the head-count of millions of her
children in diaspora during national census (Igbos in diaspora constitute at
least 50% of the overall Ndi Igbo population). Yet, she is made to bear
and suffer the grim natal obligations for these millions whom
(b)
Discrimination and attacks in business
Igbo
businesses suffer also from many other discriminating laws. In
(c) Society’s Scape-goats
Finally, Ndi Igbo have always
been the favourite scapegoats of the various ethnic political and religious
conflicts and clashes in the country. The property of Ndi Igbo are
frequently looted whenever there is group conflict, whether or not an Igbo is
involved. Such conflicts and violent clashes include:
(i)
The
(ii) the Buluta Maiduguri riot of 1982;
(iii) the Yola riot of February 1984;
(iv) the Gombe riot of April 1985;
(v) the Kaduna Religious crisis of March 1987;
(vi) the Zaru Religious Crisis of May 1988;
(vii) the ABU Religious crisis of June 1988,
(viii) the Bauchi Riot of 1992;
(ix) the Zango Kataf uprising of May 1992;
(x)
the
(d) Protection of the Law
In all these riots Ndi Igbo were made victims as they were killed and
their property destroyed or looted. In the history of
6.4 Economic Disempowerment
6.4.1
Denial and delay of infrastructural facilities
The unwillingness of Federal Government to repair or reconstruct the bad
infrastructural
facilities damaged during the war hardened into cold indifference or indeed opposition to the existence of any infrastructures in Igbo land. The roads in the five states of South East have been acknowledged by all observers as the worst in the Federation.
The
attitude of the Federal Government is clearly illustrated by one incident. The
market,
the commercial knob of
This incident is typical of Federal Government’s policy of cold indifference (indeed,
subtle but outright antagonism) to the infrastructural development of Igbo states.
The few Federal utilities in Igbo suffer total neglect, even when their appropriate
maintenance
will have meant increased revenue to the Federal Government. Oji River Power
Station has suffered virtual abandonment at a time of critical power shortage
in Igboland and Eastern area. The Coal Corporation at
The Federal Government’s policy of total neglect of Igboland has become so glaring that
some
conscientious non-Igbo Nigerians have been shocked. Alhaji Balarabe Musa, an
articulate conscience of the nation, publicly condemned it. Recently, the
Speaker of the Federal House of Assembly, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’Abba, was moved
by his experience in a recent travel on the neglected roads of Igboland to
observe: “It is very sad that... this (
6.4.2
Inequitable Resources Transfer Through The Conduit-Pipe of The Petroleum Trust
Fund (PTF)
The former Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, in his
The PTF’s distribution of funds to the States in the areas of:
(i) Roads, road transportation and water ways
(ii) Education
(iii) Health
(iv) Food Supply
(v) Water Supply
(vi) Other projects
can only be described as unequitable, and with total disregard of the geopolitical Zone II
comprising
the Igbo States-Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi,
Below are the figures supplied by PTF itself:
|
ZONE |
Index to Composition of Zones |
|
1 |
Ekiti, |
|
2 |
Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, |
|
3 |
Jigawa, |
|
4 |
Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Tarabe, Yobe |
|
5 |
|
|
6 |
Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, |
|
|
Source: PTF Sector Overview (March, 1999) |
|
TABLE 1 |
||
|
Zone |
Kilometers |
Zonal Percentage |
|
Zone 1 |
1,984.50 |
10.84% |
Zone 2 |
977.9 |
5.34% |
|
Zone 3 |
5,020 |
27.42% |
|
Zone 4 |
4,299.44 |
23.48% |
|
Zone 5 |
4,551.03 |
24.86% |
|
Zone 6 |
1,478.03 |
8.07% |
|
Total |
18, 310.9Km |
|
|
North |
76% |
|
|
South |
24% |
|
|
Source: PTF Situation |
Report on PTF Programmes |
Vol. II (Dec, 1998) |
|
TABLE 2 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
ZONE |
TERTIARY
|
SECONDARY
|
PRIMARY |
VOCATIONAL |
TOTAL NUMBER OF CONTRACT PACKAGES | ||||||||