By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has expressed fear that the South-East political bootlickers are, by their nefarious and immoral conducts, breeding ‘youth uprising’ against themselves, especially if the 2023 presidency of the South-East is scuttled and truncated in connivance with their external sponsors and collaborators.

Intersociety accused the said political class of spearheading the shrinking of democratic civil space against leading presidential candidates of the South-East origin.

Intersociety, in a statement signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman of the group, Chinwe Umeche, Esq, Head of Democracy and Good Governance and Chidinma Udegbunam Esquire, Head of Campaign and Publicity, disclosed that its recent findings have identified political bootlickers in the South-East to include sitting Governors of most, if not all the five South-East States, some serving ministers and federal legislators, as well as some former governors, ministers and federal legislators and troublesome billionaires from the region.

The statement partly reads: "These sets of persons are ‘South-East political bootlickers’ who engage in brazen acts of sabotage against collective interest of the people of the South-East fundamentally as they concern their socio-political well being and security and safety.

"They are also notorious when it comes to supporting external and internal authoritarianism and tyranny against their own people and landscapes. A typical case in point is their being fingered in ongoing egregious and grisly acts of sabotage at stopping their Region from popularly and credibly producing the Nigeria’s next president in 2023. They are also vicariously, directly fingered in insecurity and other unsafe conditions bedeviling the Region in connivance with ethno-religious enemies of the Region leading to unchecked wanton destruction of defenseless lives and properties of the citizens of the Region."

Writing on the subheading "South-East People Are Proud of Candidates Umeadi, Obi, Nwanyanwu And Osita,” Intersociety said that The Presidential Candidates of the South-East extraction, namely; Umeadi Peter Nnanna of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Nnamdi Charles Osita of Action Peoples Party (APP), Obi Peter Gregory of Labor Party (LP) and Daniel Nwanyanwu Deberechukwu of Zenith Labor Party (ZLP) should be commended and supported for making the South-East geopolitical region proud ahead of the Feb 25, 2023 Presidential Poll.

It regretted that instead of the South-East political bootlickers turning over a new leaf, they have continued to sabotage and work against their own people, to the extent of mortgaging and endangering their region and people’s ethnic, religious, political and economic identities and freedoms.

According to the group, they (bootlickers) do this by encouraging and supporting external enemies of the Region to perpetually conquer and enslave the Region or any of its part thereof.

"Instead of emulating the bold steps taken by the four South-East presidential candidates, the South-East political bootlickers are stopping at nothing to ensure that the greatest opportunity of the South-East in the history of Nigeria to produce the next president in 2023 is scuttled and truncated," it noted

Describing the destruction of South East candidates' Billboards as a height of sabotage and political intolerance, Intersociety observed that the South-East political bootlickers have been found to be maddeningly and futuristically dangerously going about engaging in indiscriminate defacing and destruction of South-East presidential candidates’ billboards and undermining the presidential aspirations of candidates of South-East extraction.

It said that they were also sabotaging those fielded by political parties they openly associated with or funded by the South-East political bootlickers holding elective public offices in trust for the people of the Region.

The group added: "It is dishearteningly observed especially in Anambra State where billboards belonging to candidates from outside the South-East Geopolitical Region are allowed to be erected and governmentally protected in key strategic public spaces while those of candidates of the South-East extraction are indiscriminately defaced or destroyed directly by the Government of Anambra State or remotely perpetrated using hired agents including private and Government thugs or touts.

"Campaign adverts and jingles of the non South-East presidential candidates are also governmentally promoted or allowed to be placed in public space mounted advert televisions. This is to the extent that there are little or no traces of open promotion by the Government of Anambra State of the presidential campaign of the presidential candidate of the APGA, Peter Nnanna Umeadi; an illustrious son of the State. His billboards are also minutely scanty, if not nowhere to be seen across the State.

"Apart from introduction of a dangerous dimension into democratic politicking and vindictive commercialization of electioneering or electoral campaigns by these public office-based political bootlickers of South-East extraction, they have also gravely converted their tenured elective offices into ‘private properties’ and ‘corridors of power for life’ and seemed to have forgotten that the seeds of discord, political intolerance and reprisal they are sowing today will boomerang or bounce back on them or society under their watch in no distant time.”

Intersociety further said that electioneering or electoral campaign gambling and deceit have become the trademarks of the political authorities of the five South-East States, especially in Anambra where the State Government now leads ‘free Nnamdi Kanu campaign,’ even when the same State Government is second to Government of Imo State as “IPOB Members” most wanted or hunted State Government in the South-East through the use of “Anambra Vigilante Services (AVG).”

It noted that Cases of late night abductions and disappearances of unarmed citizens in their sleep by the “AVG” across the State over “IPOB Membership” are being reported to Intersociety from left, right and center.

According to the group, such cases include the late night abduction of six defenseless husband-citizens abducted from their sleep in the presence of their wives and children on late hours between 29th and 30th Dec 2022 in Unubi, Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State, the six defenseless citizens were abducted and disappeared by the Anambra State Government “Vigilantes” and traced to “Awkuzu SARS,” now renamed “Anambra State CID Annex, Awkuzu, where they are still being detained since late night of 29th Dec 2022 without trial.

Intersociety added, "From Abakiliki to Enugu; Enugu to Awka; Awka to Owerri; and Owerri to Umuahia, circumstantially factual reports of fleecing and massive mobilization of public funds to sponsor insecurity or buy voters or disrupt voting and collection of results for purpose of scuttling and truncating the ‘2023 South-East Presidency Project,’ have been coming to us in torrents.

"There are also reports of massive mobilization of stolen or misappropriated public funds from outside the South-East by the country’s doyens of corruption into the waiting hands of the South-East political bootlickers who are now their errand boys and hatchet men and women. The South-East political bootlickers must therefore turn over a new leaf and refrain from obvious breeding youth uprising against themselves.

"Their turning over a new leaf must involve total discontinuation from all acts of sabotage and bootlicking and mobilization of stolen and diverted public funds to fund enemy-interests in the South-East Region including creation or sponsorship of insecurity to scare away millions of South-East voters and conniving with external enemy-candidates to ground South-East on Election Day so as to shrink or drastically reduce the voting capacity of the Region during the 2023 Presidential Poll."

It reminded the South-East public office political bootlickers engaging in indiscriminate defacing and destruction of INEC approved candidates’ billboards and posters especially those belonging to presidential candidates of South-East extraction that "it is a fundamental constitutional breach of the Fundamental Human Rights to political participation including rights to freedom from discrimination and freedoms of expression, assembly and association including rights to belong to any statutorily recognized political association and vote or be voted as contained Sections 39, 40 and 42 of the 1999 Constitution as amended and the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights of 1981, signed, ratified and domesticated by Nigeria in June 1983.

"Similar provisions in gross breach are also found in the International (UN) Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1976, signed and ratified by Nigeria in 1993. Citizens’ entitlement and enjoyment of these sacred human rights also impeach and prohibit any form of commercialization of electoral campaigns such as imposition and collection of “the so called election campaign billboard fees” by any Government or its agents."

Intersociety stressed that “it is unlawful, illegal, unconstitutional and morally or conventionally abominable for the Government of Anambra State or that of any South-East State to impose vindictive or statutory fees on electoral candidates’ billboards and use of the same as a cover to deprive him or her and his or her political party of constitutionally guaranteed exercise of their Civil and Political Rights.”