The Aba IPOB massacre a pogrom against Ndi Igbo

By Uche Aguoru

The owl a usually dark coloured medium sized nocturnal moth, in the Igbo folklore is regarded as a carrier of bad news mostly associated with death, it is believed that any time the little creature cries in the night a sudden death of a prominent figure is imminent and so it was, before the biafran civil war of 1967 the proverbial Owl cried and thousands of Igbos were massacred in Jos , Kano,kaduna,maiduguri and other Northern Nigerian states and their properties worth millions of pounds looted.

It is believed that it was the pogrom of the innocent Igbos living and doing businesses in the northern part of Nigeria that led to the Great Ikemba Nnewi Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu then a colonel in the Nigerian army making a case for self determination and secession from the Nigerian state which eventually led to the civil war that lasted for three years and came to an end in the 15th of January 1970.

The United Nations human rights council of October 2010 in the United Nations Special Rapporteur adopted resolution 15/21 in which it:

1) “Reaffirm[ed] that everyone has the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and that no one may be compelled to belong to an association;
Recognizi[ed] the importance of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association to the full enjoyment of civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights;

2) Recogniz[ed] also that the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association are essential components of democracy, providing individuals with invaluable opportunities to, inter alia, express their political opinions, engage in literary and artistic pursuits; and

3) Recogniz[ed] further that exercising the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association free of restrictions, subject only to the limitations permitted by international law, in particular international human rights law, is indispensable to the full enjoyment of these rights, particularly where individuals may espouse minority or dissenting religious or political beliefs”.

on the 19th of jan. 2016 eight IPOB members were killed, 30 wounded, 26 arrested during the groups peaceful protest in Asaba Delta state, On the 3rd of December 2015 nine IPOB members and two policemen were killed in a supposedly peaceful IPOB protest that later turned bloody in Onitsha,Anambra state, On the 7th of December 2015 one IPOB member was shot dead by the Ebonyi state police command while trying to stop the the group from protesting the arrest and detention of their leader Nnamdi Kanu, On the 10th of November 2015 three IPOB members were shot dead by a joint anti riot team of the police and military in Portharcourt, rivers state, the military,police and other law enforcement agents has been arresting,intimidating, killing and detaining IPOB members and their leaders for holding peaceful protests thereby trampling on their rights as given to them by the UN human rights resolution 15/21 of 2010

And the most recent is the heartless,mindless and brutal murder in cold blood of ten IPOB members who were holding a prayer session in the national high school Aba on Thursday the 11th of February 2016 by a combined team of the military and police personnel, this is unacceptable and the ohaneze Ndi Igbo, all South East senators and house of representative members including the five South East governors should stand up and demand an explanation into this day light murder of innocent Igbo sons and daughters who did not commit any offence to deserve such an unjust murder, they should immediately institute a case of genocide in the international criminal court (ICC) against the commander in chief and the military authorities under whose watch and command this pogrom is being committed against Ndi Igbo, the Igbo leaders should immediately demand for a full scale investigation by the military authorities into this savagery aimed at bringing the culprits to justice

In all these killings one would have expected that the president and commander in-chief of the armed forces whose duty it is to protect the lives of every Nigerian should come out to condemn in strong terms the killings of innocent men and women who are holding peaceful unarmed protest and prayers which does not constitute into a threat to the sovereignty or peace of the nation and whose activities are protected under the United Nations human rights resolution.

I hereby call on the international community, and the United Nations to rise up in defence of the Igbos of South East Nigeria whose lives are no longer protected.

As the Igbo saying goes, "that owl that cried in 1967 has began to cry again in 2015"

Aguoru

Writes from Umuahia

Our president should do something about these killings here and there.

Iif you stay in your house, you won't get shot or killed

Let peace reign.

The idiot who said if u stay in ur house nothing will happen needs to be tied to tree nd flogged mercilessly