•HURIWA condemns arrest of Igbo chief in Lagos, demands probe of FPRO Muyiwa Adejobi ‘for belittling MC Oluomo’s threat against Igbo voters’

The Police, the Department of State Service (DSS) and the armed forces of Nigeria on Saturday morning came under fire for their “selective and illegal show of brute force against the Igbo ethnic group”.

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), who lowered the hammer on the security forces in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, condemned the attitude of “the Police, the DSS and the armed forces of Nigeria who openly shoot to kill even unarmed Igbo youths for calling for the obedience of the Court of Appeal decision that freed Mazi Nnamdi Kanu the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB).”

The rights group strongly condemned “the state-sponsored assassination of five Igbo protesters on Friday in Aba just as it calls the night time arrest of the Lagos-based Eze Igbo as an affront to the constitutional freedoms of speech.”

The Eze Igbo of Ajao Estate, Lagos, Fredrick Nwajagu, was been nabbed in a midnight raid by the Nigeria Police and DSS after he vowed in a viral video to invite members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to Lagos to secure properties of Igbo people in the state.

Nwajagu, in a 49-second video shared on Twitter on Friday, said the move became necessary in the wake of attacks on some Igbo people in the state.

He had said: “IPOB, we will invite them. They have no job. All of the IPOB will protect all of our shops. And we have to pay them. We have to mobilize for that. We have to do that,” Nwajagu said.

“We must have our own security so that they will stop attacking us at midnight, in the morning, and in the afternoon.

“When they discover that we have our own security, before they come, they will know that we have our own men there.”

HURWIWA in its statement said: “"We demand that the Eze Igbo arrested illegally be freed forthwith unconditionally because he committed no crime by expressing an innocuous position. Why did the DSS and police sided with MC Oluomo who was guilty of incitement to violence against Igbos in Lagos but these busybody DSS and police are too quick to arrest the Igbo man because of his ethnicity and the official policy of President Muhammadu Buhari led administration of marginalising and hating on Igbos?

“Just like the Lagos deputy governor, Kadir Hamzat said, Oluomo must face the consequences of his actions.”

HURIWA in the statement also demanded that the Force Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, “should be cautioned and probed by the office of the Inspector General of Police, for downplaying the threat issued by transport union leader in Lagos, Musiliu Akinsanya, aka MC Oluomo, in the build-up to the March 18, 2023 governorship and state Assembly elections in Lagos State.”

The rights group said it is public knowledge that MC Oluomo threatened Igbos who won’t vote for the reelection of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress not to come out on election day but Adejobi deftly made an excuse for the rascal transport union leader, saying he made the threat as a joke.

HURIWA said “the whole world watched in horrific shock as Igbos were massively attacked and assaulted at polling units across Lagos State on March 18 during the governorship election because of their overwhelming support for the candidate of the Labour Party, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour.

“Igbo-dominated areas like Amuwo Odofin, Alaba in Ojo local government amongst others were seriously attacked which hampered the result of the Labour Party candidate.”

According to HURIWA, “However, instead of arresting MC Oluomo for fulfilling the marching order he issued to his army and lieutenants which are in their hundreds of thousands in Lagos, the FPRO is using surrogates and ethical-less Coalition of Civil Society Organisations for Good Governance to attack us for standing for the obvious truth and speak it to power.

“We reject this act of cowardice by the FPRO who had to go through a surrogate to respond to us. As far as he defended Mc Oluomo's attack of Igbos and dismissed the threat as a joke, he is a bigot. Did the threat against Igbo voters not led to fatalities in terms of violence by armed political thugs of APC in Lagos? So he has to apologise or he is consigned to history as an ethnic bigot.

“HURIWA does not blackmail anyone but we speak truth to power. Let the FPPRO stop flittering resources of the police to defend his alleged misconduct.

“We maintain our position that the FPRO is a hater of IGBOS unless he apologises for belittling the serious danger posed against Igbos by MC Oluomo who physically stopped Igbos from voting in his polling booth if they wished not to vote for APC. The video evidence is everywhere for even the blind to see. But the FPRO thinks that the threat issued by MC Oluomo was a joke even when he had told the TV interviewer that the commissioner of police was looking into the threat against Igbos by MC Oluomo.

“Adejobi also said the police is investigating Oluomo but nothing has been heard of the matter. Neither has Oluomo being arrested nor invited for the gross electoral violence he incited and sponsored during the polls. But the same Police and Department of State Services that kept mute to the brazen threats against Igbos have quickly arrested a respected elder of the Igbo community in Lagos for allegedly threatening to invite members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra to defend Igbos against incessant attacks by politically procured armed hoodlums.”

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