It is imprudent to sell military equipment to governments that are not only extensively documented abusers of human rights; but prone to crimes against humanity and genocide. One of such is the government of Nigeria especially under the current ailing Muslim president.
Flashback: Nigeria waged a genocidal war against the people of Southeast (Biafra) for declaring independence amidst a state sponsored pogrom against the Ibos living trustfully in the north, who—by the full might of British military equipment and logistical oversupply—were invaded in their homeland as they sought refuge, and forcibly recolonized into the British-Nigeria “ex-colony” between 1967 and 1970 albeit in total violation of United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in 1960.
The United Nations stood and still stands idly by and never convened any inquiry whatsoever in the chilling slaughter of 3.5 Million Biafrans (mostly unarmed civilians) by Nigerian state to date.
The extant war criminals including the current president have serially been empowered, supported, and equipped to continue marginalizing and massacring Biafrans for exercising basic rights such as freedom of association or for seeking equitable control of her natural endowments.
Biafra was a country before the British conquest and subsequent colonization of the area known as Nigeria between 1851 and 1901. Efforts were made as it were to scrub the history of Biafra from contemporary documents, histories, and education curricula by the imperialists and their Nigerian puppets. Maps were redrawn, Biafra expunged, and rivers renamed arbitrarily.
Ancients map before 1851 show the territory of Biafra and the Bight of Biafra which is now known as Gulf of Guinea southing the Atlantics.
The British Broadcasting Corporation located in Oxford Circles in London has Biafra among many other nations engraved on its concrete grounds.
The territory known as Nigeria is an illicit agglomeration of extremely disparate and mutually antagonistic peoples, cultures, languages, traditions, and religions with no commonality or the hope thereof to date. The constituents are held together by brute force and defy every attribute, or ingredient in the definition of a nation.
As a result, Nigeria is a genocidal, failed, and irredeemably corrupt state.
For this and much more, the people of Southeastern (Biafra) have resolved to restore their independence from the stranglehold of the colonial entrapment in accordance with United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) to self-determination adopted by the 107th plenary meeting on September 13, 2007.
Against UN mandates, and to exacerbate the status quo, British government in pursuit of her “economic interests” supports the Muslim North against the Christian Southeast where the crude oil and gas resources that sustain Nigeria are located.
The conflicts that led to the 1967-1970 genocidal war are now more amplified under President Buhari. Mutual suspicion, unhealthy rivalry, impunity, election rigging, corruption, Fulani murderers, nepotism, threats, and senseless killing of all opposition are once again at all-time high.
The people of southeast (Biafrans) who seek independence live under perpetual existential threats of Islamic conquest, progressive genocide, and marginalization by British-Nigeria.
Radical and insidious Islamism is an ever growing and present danger to Nigerian Christians.
The Muslim political leaders argue that since they prevailed in the 1967 war, Southeast (Biafra) is thereby permanently conquered and must remain subject to the whims of Northern Muslim political leaders.
The army and police, mostly Muslims, are deployed among Biafrans during seemingly peace times as if at war and incessantly mounting roadblocks, conducting illegal searches, extorting money, abducting protesters, and senselessly killing unarmed citizens with near zero accountability.
Leaders of civil groups are killed, abducted and incarcerated without trial, as the rogue state pretentiously go through endless judicial motions and adjournments in pretext for following due process.
Nigeria while not at real war commits human rights abuses and crimes against humanity at scales similar to, or worse than countries at total war. Far more victims have died at the hands of Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, and the government of Nigeria than by Al Qaeda and ISIS.
“The headlines focus on the Middle East, but there were more recorded killings of Christians due to their faith in northern Nigeria in 2015 than in the rest of the world put together; 4,028 out of a worldwide total of 7,100 reported deaths” according to a January 2016 study by Open Doors USA (ODU)—a Christian Organization for persecuted Christians.
Fighting Boko Haram terrorists is not for the simpleton.
Boko Haram is a part and parcel of the Northern Hausa-Fulani culture of violent Islamism.
Boko Haram double agents and sympathizers are believed to be in every aspect of Nigeria’s Islamic laced security forces and government.
The Fulani political class is suspected to be the founders and sponsors of Boko Haram. They head the police, army, legislature, judiciary, and other sensitive parastatals; and are members of the same strand of Sunni Islam as Boko Haram terrorists.
As a result, unaffiliated soldiers are frequently sabotaged and slaughtered by Boko Haram; while the terrorists that are captured either fizzle out or not seen to be conclusively prosecuted.
Asking Fulani led government of Nigeria therefore to eliminate Boko Haram is tantamount to asking it to eliminate itself by fratricide.
In fact, Boko Haram has survived thus far because of Fulani sympathizers within and without the government of Nigeria.
The Islamic government of Nigeria uses Boko Haram as bait to garner international support and military weaponry but all the while killing all opposition indiscriminately and forcibly preventing the untenable British contraption from meeting its inevitable doom.
The contemporary history of Nigeria is replete with local invasions and massacres of Nigerian citizens where entire villages are destroyed with armored tanks, air raided, or crowds massacred with gun shots like Odi, Zak-Ibiam, Zaria, Ogoni, IPOB and MASSOB (peaceful protesters), and Ikot Obi Okot massacres, with thousands of lives destroyed with impunity by the government.
Justice remains elusive in virtually all cases.
It is naïve to ask Nigerian government to follow international protocols to address crimes against humanity which she committed. The criminal contraption has neither capacity nor will to promote justice. Otherwise, the shamelessly corrupt ruling class would be imprisoned.
The absentee President Muhammadu Buhari is an avowed Islamist.
As a military dictator in 1983, Buhari unilaterally upgraded Nigeria from observer to full membership at Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
He openly advocated for total implementation of Sharia Law in Nigeria in 2001.
Buhari was allegedly instrumental in the illegal imposition of Sharia law in all the northern states of Nigeria to date—which essentially is the same thing that Boko Haram is fighting to establish in the entirety of Nigeria.
More than 4000 people (mostly Christians) were slaughtered in the riots that ensued due to Sharia law imposition in 2000.
Clearly, the goal of Boko Haram and the Northern political leaders whom the international community depend on to fight terrorism is identical. Their methods (treachery, violence, and terrorism) are equally identical only that one wields political power while the other—clandestine power!
Buhari, a Fulani-Sunni Islamist was once chosen as spokesperson for Boko Haram. He frequently criticized the former president for killing Boko Haram terrorists and ranted that “an attack against Boko Haram is attack against the north.”
He declined publicly to be Boko Haram spokesman as he aspired to be president.
A criminal complaint of “crimes against humanity” was submitted to the International Criminal Court against Buhari for inciting the mass murder of 800 citizens after losing 2011 presidential election. See https://goo.gl/ocZib1
No sooner did Buhari come to power than senseless massacres by security forces and Fulani herdsmen skyrocketed. A cursory mention here would suffice.
The Shiite minority including members of Islamic Movement of Nigeria in Zaria, Kaduna State of British-Nigeria were invaded on some trumped up charges, and 348 (government figure) Shiites killed, then robbed thereafter by the Nigerian Army in December, 2015.
Irrespective of sides, how does a “democracy” turn its military armaments on unarmed citizens?
In contrast, the victims reportedly alleged that more than 1000 persons were extra judicially slaughtered over unfounded claims and dumped in mass graves. Nigerian Human Rights Commission labeled it “Massacre” by the Army.
The numbers of dead victims are usually always contested in Nigeria due to the government’s propensity to distort, obfuscate, and confound.
Just like 2015 Christmas day massacre of Kimba community in Borno state, on Christmas eve/day 2016, the Fulani Herdsmen invaded Goska Village of South Kaduna, a Christian enclave, despite the ongoing curfew to prevent the imminent attack.
With a Fulani president, the Fulani Herdsmen are now boldly attacking villages in all regions of Nigeria including Agatu and Enugu (Southeast) massacres which left more than 500 victims dead and entire communities burned to the ground in 2016. Buhari’s regime allegedly instructed security forces to stand down.
Neither the police nor the army it appears has ever clashed with Fulani herdsmen as they unleash carnage with sophisticated military weapons.
According to a press release in December 29, 2016 by Reverend Ibrahim Yakubu, the Vicar General of Kafanchan Catholic Diocese in southern Kaduna, 808 Christians have been slaughtered by Fulani herdsmen including destruction of “1,422 houses, 16 Churches, 19 shops, one primary school, and about 5.5 billion Naira ($18M.USD) worth of farm land and produce” in recent attacks.
“Unfortunately, [the] government both at the center and state levels has failed woefully. If anything, government has shown outright partisanship in favor of the herdsmen to the disappointment of the majority Southern Kaduna indigenes and Christians” concluded Rev. Yakubu.
In Jan 19, 2017 Nigerian Airforce recklessly massacred 236 refugees at the Displaced Persons Camp. There has been no accountability whatsoever regarding this incident.
Many believe that the so called “accidental massacre” by Nigerian Airforce was deliberate because most of the slain refugees allegedly were Christians displaced by Boko Haram.
On Trump’s inauguration on January 21, twenty two (22) pro Biafrans marching in support of Trump’s inauguration were allegedly massacred, with more than one hundred critically injured and or arrested. The government denies that anybody was killed.
When in international circles, Buhari touts Boko Haram terrorists and Niger Delta freedom fighters which he disingenuously likens to terrorists as he campaigns for military weapons, but conveniently omits Fulani Herdsmen to hide their deeds and draw attention away from their butchery.
As a Fulani herdsman, as well as patron of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, President Buhari and his lackeys likely know the inner workings of the cattle herdsmen and the source of their sophisticated weaponry but continue to pretend that his nomadic kinsmen are merely clashing with local farmers even though they have murdered between twenty and sixty thousand people (mostly Christians).
The terrorists who double as nomadic herdsmen deliberately destroy farm crops and lands owned by Christians, and rape, butcher, or murder those who dare to resist them.
According to an investigative committee set up by Nigeria government, “as many as 53,787 individuals were killed as a result of the conflict. Other expert reviews believe it is up to 100,000 with the aid and collusion of the government.
Apparently, the Muslim Herdsmen are armed and supported by government with highly sophisticated military weapons which explain the reason that they are hardly ever prosecuted or brought to justice.
The government makes nothing of the cattle herdsmen’s wielding of sophisticated military weaponry but serially pursues and massacres unarmed pro Biafra protesters and other perceived opposition.
That Nigeria abuses and murders her subjects incessantly is not a secret. But those who gain from her failed state status and endemic corruption pretend to see and hear no evil and many times shamelessly aid and cover her crimes against humanity.
Open Doors USA, currently ranks Nigeria as “very high persecution” risk level, and found that the government is complacent in the persecution of Christians especially by Hausa-Fulani Herdsmen/militants whom the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) ranks as the 4th bloodiest terrorist organization on earth.
Amnesty International, another global organization that campaigns to end human rights abuses found that Nigerian military killed no less than 150 pro-Biafra protesters between August 2015 and August 2016 in its November 24, 2016 publication.
“This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths and we fear the actual total might be far higher.” See report here https://goo.gl/SwOMQD
Over the years, Amnesty has documented more than 20,000 incidents of extra judicial killings and violation of Human Rights by Nigerian government.
It is a mistake then, and in fact, aiding and abetting crimes against humanity to sell even one bayonet to the government of Nigeria.
Further, The US Leahy Law was enacted to prohibit the State Department and Department of Defense (DoD) from selling military equipment to foreign military units that habitually violate Human Rights. Countries like Nigeria and Sudan with deep rooted ethnic strife, animosity, hatred, suspicion, and religious conflicts who are proven hot beds of genocide are precisely whom the Leahy Law intends to protect.
Yet, unfortunately, the State Department transferred 24 armored mine-resistant vehicles in violation of US Leahy Law under President Obama. See https://goo.gl/VxY0tK
Any attempt to transfer war planes to Nigeria under any circumstance would not only contravene the Law, but encourage human rights abuse. Those tagging Boko Haram to the need for war planes are either ill-informed.
What then is the solution to Nigeria’s Boko Haram and human rights abuses?
First, acknowledge that it would require an entirely unaffiliated non-Fulani army to destroy Boko Haram. Then, Shift all support and logistics to surrounding non-Fulani neighboring armies who are already fighting Boko Haram. The governments of USA and UK under the spell of murderous oil cartels need to end their meddling, supply of arms, training of random human rights abusers within the Nigerian Army without safeguards or accountability, and end the degradation by Western governments’ priorities of economic exploitation over humanity.
Finally, it is never prudent to ignore the cry of the real victims of Nigeria (Biafrans and Christians), or help in any way to advance human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in pretext for “fighting Boko Haram.” Aiding and abetting Nigeria’s murderous government shenanigans is downright immoral and illegal. Human rights abusers deserve accountability; not support.
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Ndubuisi Anukwuem
IPOB
