From Jude owuamanam, Managing Editor, Northern Operations
ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – A coalition of South East-based human rights groups has expressed shock at what they described as “conspiratorial incitement to genocide’s utterances of the spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum, retired Prof Ango Abdullahi.”
The statement was in response to Prof. Ango Abdullahi’s support for the three-month quit notice given to Igbos on June 6 by a coalition of Arewa Youth groups to leave the north.
In a statement signed by the leaderships of International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) and Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights Organisations (SBCHROs), the groups said that it was shocking and alarming that such inflammatory and clearly genocidal incitement is coming from an academic professor, even though he is no longer an active university professor or has retired.
They described Professor Ango Abdullahi and his Northern Elders Forum’s grounds for supporting their northern youth coalition’s recent incitement to genocide are utterly infantile, illogical, unverifiable, unscientific, false; and historically, socially, politically and economically twisted and doctored.
The statement was signed by Comrade Aloysius Attah, Civil Liberties Organization, Southeast Zone; Comrade Peter Onyegiri, for Centre for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy; Comrade Samuel Njoku, Human Rights Organization of Nigeria; Engineer Rufus Duru, for Global Rights & Development International; Comrade Chike Umeh, for Society Advocacy Watch Project and Obianuju Joy Igboeli, for Anambra Human Rights Forum.
Those who signed the statement also included, Comrade Alex Olisa, Southeast Good Governance Forum; Jerry Chukwuokorofor: International Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights Initiative; Mr. Tochukwu Ezeoke for Igbo Ekunie Initiative (Pan Igbo Rights Advocacy Group); Comrade Vincent Ezekwume for Civil Liberties Organization, Anambra State Branch; Emeka Umeagbalasifor International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law and Comrade Uzor Ugonna Kingsley or: Rural Engagement & Development Foundation (RED Foundation).
The statement said, “It is sad and unfortunate that while retired professors remain a great asset to their countries after their active professorial service or retirement by setting up think tank or research centers with the state-of-art or world class manual and electronic laboratories or libraries or engaging in renowned consultancies in their professorial academic fields; retired Nigerian professors such as the likes of retired Professor Ango Abdullahi have not only damnably chosen the opposite, but also descended and decayed to the level of professorial senility.
“It is in this same country (Nigeria) that an active or serving university professor was sighted severally at official outings or events of a well known fraudulent billionaire and trickster somewhere in Imo State; carrying his bag and serving as one of his events’ ushers. He was later recommended to a political actor by his 419 boss leading to his appointment as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in-charge of Education.
“Academic professorship has been brought so low in Nigeria that professors are severally seen becoming senior special assistants or special advisers to Caretaker Committee Local Government Chairmen or their wives and wives of some State the Governors. A university professor whether serving or retired; that compromises or trades off his or her professorial integrity, quality, competence and authority for stomach infrastructure and long-throat; is a dreg of modern academic professorship and worst than a violent mad person with a sharp dagger or machete running amok in a crowded market or religious gathering.
“The latest primordialist, incoherent, jaundiced, un-academic, violence and genocide prone conspiratorial incitement or utterances of retired Professor Ango Abdullahi are a fundamental test case of the foregoing and a clear evidence of the rot that has befallen some retired Professors in Nigeria. They further expose the devastating effects of the principle of quarter system in the Northern Nigeria to the extent that a retired professor and former vice chancellor of a third pioneer federal university in Nigeria has chosen to become an instigator of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
The statement added, “Yet the authorities of SSS; likewise the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian Army who go about running riot and unleashing all kinds of psycho-physical violence nonviolently expressive voices; have till date, looked the other way by adamantly refusing to arrest and prosecute the likes of retired Prof Abdullahi, members of his Northern Elders Forum and their genocidal youths for treasonable felony or incitement to genocide. Till date, Nigeria is a State Party to the Anti Genocide Convention of 1948.
“The conspiratorial incitement to genocide utterances of retired Prof Ango Abdullahi are also a clear confirmation of the readiness of the northern butchers to repeat the 1966 anti Igbo pogrom in which at least 45,000 -50,000 citizens of Old Eastern Nigeria dominated by Igbo citizens were butchered in a yearlong butcheries across the Northern Nigeria, which also generated over 1.62million Igbo IDPs and a good number of others who crossed international borders and became refugees.
“It is so sad and shocking that the likes of retired Prof Ango Abdullahi and his Northern Elders Forum have dangerously chosen to give the northern youths a matching order to slaughter the Igbo citizens residing in Northern Nigeria starting from 1st October 2017. Retired Prof Ango Abdullahi’s professorial illiteracy as it concerns social, economic, political, cultural and military history of Nigeria was further exposed when he falsely and mischievously cited the 1966 bloody military coup, which he erroneously and provocatively tagged “Igbo Coup” as a justification for commission of a series of genocide and massacre against the Igbo People in Nigeria which started way back in 1945.
“If retired Prof Ango Abdullahi is not a victim of professorial moronism, he should have arithmetically known and understood that in military tradition, success in military putsch means victory and rise to power for those who planned and executed it, while failure attracts dire consequences from the operators of the existing military order against the coupists. In military tradition too, a group of military colleagues or peers or a group of officers of same ranks or academic military class can plan and execute a coup successfully or otherwise. A military coup is a cult or peer group exercise.
“Above all, actions and inactions in military circles are prohibited from being brought to bear on innocent civilian population or a race, which is why in internal or inter State armed conflict war, killing of non combatants or civilian populations or attacks on non military targets or necessity are out-rightly prohibited and punishable by the international law such as the Geneva Conventions or Laws of War of 1949 under the UN System. Such punishments are meted out through local criminal courts, special regional and international criminal or war crimes courts or ICC.
“Further, the patterns and trends of military coups in Nigeria clearly show that the infantile argument or defense or justification of retired Prof Ango Abdullahi is totally dead on arrival. Assuming but not conceding to retired Prof Abdullahi’s professorial illiterate argument or defense to the effect that 1966 Coup was Igbo Coup leading to killing of some northern political leaders and military officers; our questions are:
“What about the counter bloody coup of 1966 in which over 240 military officers dominated by Igbo officers were killed? Have Igbo People ever called it a Hausa-Fulani Coup? How many innocent civilian citizens of Hausa-Fulani stock have been massacred in retaliation by Igbo People or their military officers since then”
The groups posed the following posers: “What about the Col Dimka’s attempted bloody coup of 1976 and Major Gideon Orkar’s attempted Coup of 1990? If the two attempted coups are Middle-Belt Coups, how many innocent civilians of the Middle Belt stock have been massacred in Nigeria since then other than agro-Islamist violence so perpetrated? What about the Jos 1945 and Kano 1953 anti Igbo riots and massacres? Were they retroactively carried out in connection with the so called “Igbo Coup of 1966”?
“What of other anti Igbo massacres that took place in the following Northern Nigerian cities of: Kano 1980, Maiduguri 1982, Jimeta 1984, Gombe 1985, Zaria 1987, Kaduna and Kafanchan 1991, Bauchi and Katsina 1991, Kano 1991, Zango-Kataf 1992, Funtua 1993, Kano 1994, Kaduna 2000, Kaduna 2001, Maiduguri 2001 and Jos September 2001, Kaduna 2002?
“What about other anti Igbo massacres such as Kaduna’s Miss World Riot of November 2002 and Prophet Mohammed Cartoons Riot of February 2006 (Maiduguri), the Apo-Abuja Six killing by the Nigeria Police Force of (six young Igbo traders: Ekene Isaac Mgbe, Ifeanyi Ozor, Chinedu Meniru, Paulinus Ogbonna and Anthony and Augustina Arebu) of June 2005, the November 2008 Jos LGA Poll Riot/killings, the Jos 2010 Christmas Eve bombings, the Madalla Igbo Catholic Church bombings of 2011, the 2011 post general elections’ riots/killings that led to killing of 10 Igbo NYSC members and several other Igbo People in the North, the Mubi Igbo killings of 2012 and Nyanya Igbo Park Bombing of April 2014? This is just to mention but a few.
The statement of the group came after the emergence of what appears to be a crack in the leadership of NEF. This is as deputy chairman of the NEF, Chief Paul Unongo has faulted Professor Ango Abdullahi.
Unongo said that the septuagenarian is on his own as he had not been mandated to speak on behalf of northern elders, stressing that only he, as the deputy leader of NEF or Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Sule, as the leader can speak authoritatively on behalf of elders in the North.
Vanguard quoted Unongo as saying that Northern Elders Forum could not have adopted the position of ignorant youths, who were not there when Nigeria lost three million of its citizens to the civil war they fought for keep the country as one united nation.
According to Unongo, “I am the Deputy Leader of Northern Elders Forum and Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Sule is the leader. So, only the two of us can speak for the forum on sensitive matter like this.”
“Therefore, if Professor Ango Abdullahi is backing those ignorant youths, then he is speaking for himself.
“We cannot support the nonsense those boys said. We fought civil war with our blood to keep Nigeria one. So, any Nigerian can live in any part of the country he feels like. Igbos are welcome in the North, they are welcome in Yoruba land and my own village in Tiv land and they have right to pursue their daily bread and own property.
“We couldn’t have killed three million people to keep Nigeria one and come back and allow these kids (the Northern Youth Groups) to insult our intelligence. We knew why we fought the war, we knew why we killed the people we loved. We knew why we made the sacrifice of three million men dead. So, Northern Elders Forum cannot take same position as those young men, if at all they took a position.
“So, if the young men cannot build a nation, they should not destroy the one we put our lives on the line to build for them. We cannot allow young men who did not fight the civil war with us destroy our country, because Nigeria cannot afford another civil war,” he said.
NEF position is also supported by the Federation of Middle Belt People (FMBP). Its coordinator, Mr. Manasseh Watyil, speaking to Sundiatapost said that if for no other reason, the people of the Middle Belt have much stake in Nigeria that the core north because it was soldiers from the Middle belt that fought to keep the country one.
While describing the threat by Arewa youths as an empty threat, Watyil said Arewa youths cannot take a position on an issue that concerned the while region.
He said, “The threat is an empty on. After all they did not consult the people of the Middle Belt. The 19 northern states do not belong to the Hausa alone. In that meeting, no person from Middle belt was in attendance. We in the Middle Belt have no problem with the Igbo; after all they are Nigerians. How many people among the Hausa fought to keep the country one? Middle Belt did. Their threat is empty. We are not afraid of them.”