I travelled by road from Yenegoa to Enugu in South and Eastern Nigeria last month, on February 14 to be specific. The south and Eastern region form the large chunk of Biafra land. I observed that the entire Biafra land is occupied by very young Nigerian troops. The troops are stationed at every distance of about one kilometre from one another. These troops are all armed to the teeth. It is not difficult to see that these soldiers are 100% Islamic Northern fundamentalist ethnic cleansers. They are all dark in complexion, with coloured and disarranged teeth, fluffy hair and dark marks on their foreheads. The marks on their foreheads are the marks they either acquired as they observe their Islamic prayers – confirming that they are muslims.
An interaction indicated that many of them cannot speak English language, which is the official language of Nigeria. Each station of the troops is led by only one person who barely understands English language while the rest were all obviously trigger-ready and aiming at the road users, only waiting to hear the word “fire” so that they unleash mayhem on the hapless people. An attempt to communicate with them by one of my colleagues who relocated from the north when Boko Haram looted his business premises clearly showed that they are neither Hausa nor Fulani, which means that they may not be Nigerians. These are likely to be mercenaries imported by Muhammad Buhari with the sole aim of exterminating the people of the Biafra.
These gun-toting soldiers conduct unofficial searches on road users. If they see any Biafran insignia in your possession, they whisk you the barrack and nobody will hear any story about you any longer. Reliable reports have it that these Biafrans are murdered and buried in mass graves at the end of the day. If they see the Radio Biafra App in your phone, they will shoot you on the spot. Abduction by these mercenaries has become very frequent in Biafra land. Many of our Traditional rulers have been murdered in their homes in the last few months for openly stating that they are Biafrans.
Apart from the ones on the roads putting on the army uniforms, many of the Buhari’s murderous agents are scattered all over Biafra land in one form or the other. Some masquerade as water vendors while some hide under the pretence of being beggars in the morning while they turn to assassins in the night. The most active among them in recent times are the ones that masquerade as cattle rearers or herdsmen. This group has infiltrated and occupied all the nooks and cranies of Biafra land, killing maiming and raping. Starting from last week, they have killed over 500 members (men, women and children) of one of our communities in the Idoma-speaking part of Biafra land and, as at the time of going to the press, the killing spree is still ongoing. The leader of the Cattle Rearers’ Association of Nigeria (the umbrella organisation of the Fulani Herdsmen and Fulani Militia) has told the world that his members are responsible for the mass murders because somebody in our community killed their cows. The governor has being crying to the deaf ears of the president Muhammad Buhari to no avail. Bearing in mind that President Buhari is the Life Patron of the Cattle Rearers’ Association of Nigeria, people are not surprised that the security agencies are yet to halt the killings. This is the first time in the history of Nigeria that a group of killers are bragging about their exploits unchecked, neither have they been disarmed, simply because their patron is in power.
The existence of these mercenaries on our roads has become a menace to the civilized existence of men, women and children in Biafra land. They have conducted several confirmed massacres in Biafra land. Some of the massacres took place at Onitsha in Anambra state, Port Harcourt in Rivers State, Aba in Abia State, to mention a few. These mercenaries have gone into clinics and forcefully removed critically-wounded survivors of their mass shootings to unknown locations. There are credible stories of mass burials conducted by these mercenaries to hide traces of their mass executions in Biafra land. The one that is not in contention is the dumping of several Biafrans murdered by these Buhari’s mercenaries in a borrow pit in Aba. I was there myself and I saw the dead bodies with their hands tied with the Biafran flags. They were shot dead with live bullets by these Islamic fundamentalists right at their prayer ground because they were praying in an unislamic way.
Buhari’s plan to end the Biafran question is to lay siege in major cities in Biafra land, seal all escape routes, and mow down as many Biafrans as possible to ‘teach them a lesson’. Those sceptical about this possibility should recall that the Nigerian military mowed down hundred of minority Shi’ite demonstrators in Zaria about three months ago and it was personally supervised by the Chief of Army Staff. They started it in the broad daylight and went back in the dead of the night to complete their master’s assignment. Men, women, children and grandparents were massacred. Even their forefathers were not spared as they exhumed their corpses and burnt everything to ashes, all in the bid kill them and also kill the evidence. They are poised to escalate their macabre act in Biafra land.
We have American and British ambassadors and UN representatives in Nigeria who have turned blind eyes while citizens are rotting in prisons for expressing their rights to free speech and self determination as enshrined in many charters and treaties to which Nigeria is a signatory. Protesters are being executed with live bullets. We have world leaders playing ostrich in various state houses while Buhari is committing ethnic cleansing in Biafra land.
All hope is not lost as Amnesty International has launched an investigation into the massacres.
The people of Biafra, under the umbrella of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have being protesting against the illegal detention of their leader, Prince Nnamdi Kanu. On his way from his London base to Biafra en route Nigeria on October 14, 2015, Prince Kanu was abducted by the secret agents of Buhari with the sole intention to secretly kill him. Luck ran out of them when Radio Biafra got the wind of their intention and blew it to the whole wide world. They reluctantly took him to court after several day days of unconstitutional detention, torture and starvation without trial. He has since met the stringent bail but the government of Nigeria flouted the order of court. Another court, also with competent jurisdiction, has quashed the terrorism charges brought against Prince Kanu, yet the government refused to let him go. The government then trumped up some charges of treasonable felony. Prince Kanu’s offence is that he is asking for the freedom and wellbeing of his Biafran people that have been acutely marginalised and serially killed in Nigeria since its amalgamation by Britain in 1914.
It is important to note that Prince Kanu was arrested for terrorism charges. Prince Kanu’s case is very outstanding in the history of mankind in the sense that he was arrested for terrorism but, ridiculously, is now being prosecuted for treasonable felony, a charge that is totally different from the offence for which he was arrested. One wonders the relationship or interrelationship between TERRORISM and TREASONABLE felony charges. Very funny!
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By Oghenevwe Onoriode
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