The Association of South East Town Unions and Igbo elite groups -Igbo World Assembly, World Igbo Congress, Alaigbo Development Foundation, Igbo Think-Tank – Nzuko Umunna,
Council of Igbo States in America amongst others on Thursday threatened to drag, President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), and his regime to the International Criminal Court over what they described as extra-judicial killings of Igbo youths, burning corpses and houses to cover acts.
They also launched Igbo Human Rights Violations Portal (IHRVP), to collate details of all victims of the killings by Fulani herdsmen and the Nigerian security agencies.
Addressing journalists in a joint media briefing at the
National Secretariat of ASETU in Enugu, the Igbo bodies called President Buhari to tender an unreserved apology to Ndigbo and withdraw his genocidal comment against Igbo.
Describing his genocidal comment as unfortunate, the groups noted that by that statement the president had shown his mindset against Igbo and tacit support of atrocities his kinsmen were committing in Igboland.
In a communiqué issued at the end of an emergency security meeting and read by ASETU National President, Chief Emeka Diwe, the Igbo groups called on Igbo political leaders to rise and defend Alaigbo, her people and properties from those they described as enemies whose their aims were to destroy what Igbos had build over the years with self effort.
They stated, “the Association of South East Town Unions (ASETU), having widely consulted with and collated the views of the leaderships and the Town Unions, and working in concert with many other respected Igbo groups, totally condemn the continued attacks by killer herdsmen in our land.
“The inability of the security operatives to track and bring these merchants of death to justice over the years has remained inexplicable and totally unacceptable to us. We acknowledge the efforts of the Governors who have put machineries in motion for the enactment of the anti-open grazing laws.”
While condemning the killing of policemen, soldiers and other law enforcement personnel as well as the burning of key national security and political infrastructure that have recently been witnessed in South East, the Igbo groups alleged that security agents have capitalized on the development to indulge in killing innocent youths in southeast in the pretence of looking for unknown gunmen.
“Several cases abound where security operatives kill innocent Igbo youths and set their corpses and houses ablaze in order to obstruct traces of the act”.
“The Federal Government and the leadership of the security agencies should immediately withdraw the very draconian orders given to security operatives in Igboland which have led to the ongoing profiling of Igbo youths, mass arrests, extra-judicial killings and human right violations in our land, especially in Imo State. We find it germane to underline our support for peaceful self-determination initiatives. People have the right to insist on restructuring or even asking for a new country, provided this is done peacefully.
“We are appalled by the statement made by President Muhammadu Buhari in which he threatened to respond to Ndigbo in the language of the genocidal civil war of 1967-1970 which consumed over three million innocent Igbo lives. This is just another strong act of insensitivity from the President given his litany of non-inclusive and discriminatory actions against Ndigbo. It is appalling that President Buhari who has never spoken strongly against the atrocities of the Fulani herdsmen and bandits is threatening to visit another festival of blood on Igbo people. We demand that he retracts that statement, tenders an apology to Ndigbo and puts off all arrangements geared towards enforcing that genocidal threat.
“We equally wish to put the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, the African Union, ECOWAS, United States of America, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Israel on notice of the public encouragement given by the President to uniformed officers and the general public to engage in genocidal behavior against Ndiigbo.
“We hereby launch the Igbo Human Rights Violations Portal (IHRVP), whose mandate includes the collation of details of all victims of the killings by Fulani herdsmen, extra-judicial murders and other human rights violations in Igboland for onward action in the International Criminal Court.”
