Leading rights group, the Int’l Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Intersociety (Intersociety) has accused Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari of prosecuting a “clearly disastrous policy of segregation and exclusion particularly against the Igbo Nation and its People”.

Intersociety in a statement issued on Wednesday in Onitsha, Anambra State, recommended “three defensive survival approaches and others they may deem fit” for Ndigbo. “It is now a great opportunity for the People of Igbo Nation to approach the goal post in the just entered Buhari’s last era and hit the net in his post era ‘Nigeria’,” the group said in the statement signed by the trio of Chinwe Umeche, Esq., Head of Democracy Programme; Chidinma Udegbunam, Esq., Head of Publicity; and Emeka Umeagbalasi, Chair of the Board.

It declared that “it is also height of sanctimoniousness or pietism for a Government that runs clearly disastrous policy of segregation and exclusion particularly against the Igbo Nation and its People to turn around, claiming to be “celebrating” “Democracy Day”; mechanically christened “June 12”; a corruption of a hallowed and sacred era dedicated for the fight for the abolition of the same heinous social crimes and maladies being repeatedly perpetrated today by the partners of those that perpetrated them 26 years ago.”

Intersociety was reacting to the just-held elections in Nigeria’s Senate and House of Representatives “during which the Igbo’s Southeast Region was segregated against by the federal ruling political party known as APC and denied plum legislative leadership positions.”

Continuing, Intersociety said: “We cosmically beg the spirits of those that died for the real June 12 to find a place in their heart to forgive the present dramatis personae in the country’s present political dispensation

“The Igbo People, therefore, must peacefully and intellectually congregate and adopt the three defensive survival approaches: general defensive survival, political defensive survival and intellectual defensive survival-so as to survive the just entered last era of the Buhari Administration in Nigeria; expected to terminate by 29^th May 2023; except if ousted judicially by the Electoral Supreme Court of Nigeria.”

On the way forward, Intersociety said: “For purpose of the Igbo People scoring or hitting the net in the post Buhari’s ‘Nigeria’, it requires the collapsing of the three defensive survival approaches into benevolent and cross harmless political power game approaches, Intersociety added. That is to say that the Igbo People, known for ages, for their nobility and respect for sanctity of political life and worship are better not be part of the ongoing rot at Nigeria’s central political leadership. They must never stand to be counted in the dark history that will surely follow the end of the Buhari’s era, unless there is a miraculous turn around for the Administration, forcing same to wake up and govern well.

“We also make bold to say that the electoral decision of the majority of the Igbo People and their Nation in the last general elections remain sacrosanct and irrevocable. By truly elected representatives of the Igbo People, they do not include those with fundamental minuses in their characters and credibility such as those who ran under platforms rejected by the Igbo People for their heinous crimes against them but deployed personal or state violence to snatch their present electoral positions.

“These branded black sheep of the Igbo Family include those whose gubernatorial or legislative or ministerial performances while in office are nothing to write home about; who brought miseries instead of relief to their people, squandered their States’ resources and got them riotously impoverished and serially indebted; all resulting in them either having corruption cases from right, left or center; or condemned roundly in the court of public opinion. Afraid of their dark past in public offices, they are presently hanging on dubiously secured senatorial seats and politically prostituting hiding under the false cover of “Igbo political leaders”.

“In the public knowledge, too, are those that sold the Region out so as to retain their second term seats that will surely fizzle out in no distant time. It got so bad, as independently reported, that they conspired to mutilate or mangle or suppress millions of original votes cast by own people; or deployed thugs, state and computer violence to stop their own people from voting the candidates of their choice and having their votes counted and demographically validated.

“Our silence on the National Assembly leadership question is therefore not an omission but deliberate. By that we are reinforcing the principle of nobility and excellence in public office. It matters more when the processes that brought people into elective and appointive public offices are unblemished than otherwise. In the world over, input electoral legitimacy begets output leadership legitimacy-whereas input electoral illegitimacy begets output leadership illegitimacy. It further follows that he or she that assumes leadership position through the backdoor will surely end disastrously in leadership. History has never been kind to them.

“Intersociety does not also regard or attach an iota of importance to the notion of the leadership position in Nigeria is a thieving enclave where as an Igbo man or woman you must steal to a pulp because an Hausa-Fulani or Yoruba or Ijaw or Tiv or Bini Man or Woman, etc, had stolen and stolen and gone scot-free. It is our insistence that politics and leadership belong to the people of nobility and must be seen so. This is more so when in the old Igbo Society, decency and uprightness functioned as part of its original foundation; to the extent that they were systematized and formalized in the form of Igbo Codes of Taboos and Decency; until the British colonialists forced the Eze Nri Obalike to abrogate them as recently as August 1911. Yet despite such British dastardly act, the ethical codes live on in Igbo Land till date.

“Intersociety as a nimble thinkable, truthful, research and investigative organization is known widely for seeing dangers ahead particularly in matters of dangerous public or government policies and conducts directed or targeted at the government itself or the people of the country or Government’s political opponents and dissenting voices; or a hated ethnic nationality, religious grouping or persons. We had severally warned Nigerians and the present central Government on such dangers, specifically, as far back late 2015 and early 2016. All the consequences of our warnings have come to pass. Nigerians can confirm these by accessing our late 2015 and early 2016 advocacy bulletins on: www.intersociety-ng.org

“It is therefore a truism that the Buhari’s civilian era had cost Nigeria an irreparable damage, if not destruction; such that Nigeria after him and his Administration is most likely going to be “Nigeria” or “former Nigeria”. “Nigeria” here connotes Nigeria in pieces while “former Nigeria” represents Nigeria in fragmentation. This is more so when the ethno-religious divisions in the country and under the Government’s watch have reached an irreconcilable point. The Constitution and it subject laws have also been brutally debased, desolated and decimated. Moral decency and uprightness are no more. Patriotism and national unity and cohesion have become past tense; with liberties chronically in chain. As a matter of fact, the Buhari Administration divides, fragments and balkanizes Nigeria far more than IPOB, LNC, MASSOB and other autonomy/self governance seeking groups are said to be doing.

“A clear case in point presently is the Administration’s grossly lopsided federal political establishments. Critics have linked their gross lopsidedness with the Government’s widely suspected policy of Islamization, Fulanization and Hausanization (IFH). The widely perceived IFH policy has specifically sectionalized and disfigured the following important federal establishments and the Constitution and other laws that created them and defined their duties and positions; all structured in line with the country’s multiplicity of religions and tribes:

“(a)Military (army, air force and navy), (b) SSS/NIA, (c) Police, (d) Service Chiefs, (e) Paramilitaries (prisons, customs, immigration, federal road safety, federal fire service, Nigerian security & civil defense corps, etc), (f) Federal Executive Bodies (INEC, CCB, FCC,FJSC, NDC, NEC, NJC, NPC, NSC,NPC,PSC and RMAFC), (g) Federal Ministries (Agric, Water, Housing, Defense, Interior, Education, Finance, Justice, Works, Power, Petroleum, etc), (h) Federal Agencies and their positions (NIMASA, CBN, NRC, NPA, FEMA, Vice Chancellors, Rectors and Provosts of Federal Universities and other tertiary institutions, Federal Airport Authority, Ambassadors and High Commissioners/UN Permanent Reps, etc) and (i) Judiciary (Federal High Court Judges and Appeal and Supreme Courts’ Justices including their oversight heads: CJN, PCA and CJ-FHCs).

“By flooding most of these federal establishments with persons of Northern Muslim background including those with stipulated tenures of office-and by excluding some important parts of Nigeria particularly the Southeast and South-south Regions from location of Government’s strategic projects such as railway, seaports, international airports and road networks, etc; no incoming central Government through rotational presidency will allow such dangerous and landmine policy to continue.

“Such Government, being mindful of “risked being flushed out or being in office but not on seat” may likely opt to toe the precedent of its predecessor-which will likely lead to crisis of unimaginable proportion. It may likely be correctly sealed and delivered to say that sectional or ethno-religious politics and leadership, the Buhari Administration’s modus operandi, have come to stay in Nigeria. Under Buhari, the “no state religion status”, provided in Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution is brutally undermined and breached with reckless abandon; with States allowed to indiscriminately and dangerously passing inferior and unconstitutional laws to undermine the freedom of worship and secularism contained in the Constitution and the Nigeria’s treaty laws.

“Therefore, the People of Igbo Nation must stop being misled by the uninformed or agents of some failed leaders into crawling round the cycles and irrelevancies but become a pseudo Nostradamus to “see beyond the time being”. The Igbo People should also worry less about the 2023 Presidency and ignore those ranting over it or claiming to be born to rule or solely share the country’s presidency with another tribe. This is because Nigeria of today is an egg in the hands of Buhari and his Administration, with its survival as Nigeria or otherwise; squarely laying bare in their hands.

“The meaning of pushing the Igbo Nation out of the Nigerian political equation is that it has made them a must married bride and a saint as the dark side of history being speedily created by the present dispensation will never record them as part of the rot to be left. The history of debt relief, for instance, can never be told in Nigeria without the Igbo Nation; likewise the history of consolidation and sanitization of the Banking system. But by 2023, an administration will be leaving Nigeria with a catastrophic debt burden of over $80b, from its present rate of over $40b incurred since June 2015, out of over $80b or N24.4 trillion cumulatively incurred presently in the country as a whole from 29^th May 2007 till date.

“Intersociety already foresees Nigeria going back to the status of the highly indebted poor country, as it is already approaching its final destination as “the world capital of poverty”. We also foresee a shambolic Nigeria as a political, religious, military, defense, security, economic, cultural, scientific or social legacy of the present political dispensation when it rounds off by 29^th May 2023. Except “miraculous turn around” takes place under Buhari, otherwise there is likely going to be “post Buhari era ‘Nigeria’ or Nigeria in pieces. The widely suspected Fulanization and Islamization policy with its legalistic, military, securitization, economic, political and cultural embryos rearing their ugly heads are likely to quicken Nigeria’s shambolic state and further push it the Somali way.

“In all these, the Igbo People and their Nation must not rigmarole or be found unprepared. While continuing to accommodate members of other ethnic nationalities, they must be extremely conscious of their own personal and collective security using the channels of self defense provided by Section 33 of the Constitution and Sections 258 of the Criminal Code applicable in Southern Nigeria and 60(a) of the Penal Code applicable in Northern Nigeria.

“The citizens’ right to self defense is generally defined as “justifiable when the actor believes that such force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting himself against the use of unlawful force by such other person on the present occasion.” Under Section 60 (a) of the Nigerian Penal Code, “every person has a right to defend his own body, and the body of any other person against any offence affecting the human body”

“The Igbo Nation and their People must therefore apply the above referenced three defensive survival approaches and others they may deem fit; provided they are lawful and peaceful. These must be done, borrowing a cue from the immortal words of the late Chinese Leader, Deng Xiaoping (leader of China from 1978-1992), who once said and advised that: it does not matter whether a cat is short, tall or tin or fat; black or white so long as it catches a rat. That is to say that all Igbo social and democratic forces must be congregated and aggregated, so as to heal, bind and build; using the Late Chinese Leader’s multi nonviolent approaches’ advice aimed at grandly achieving one goal, plated in Plan A or Plan B.”

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