FOISTING A SIEGE MENTALITY ON NDIGBO IN NIGERIA The forcible removal of scores of Nigerian citizens of Igbo extraction from Lagos State, conceived, planned and cynically executed by the government of Lagos State, led by a man who was perceived to be perhaps the most thoughtful, concentrated, disciplined and enlightened governor among the class of 2007 has come as massive shock to Njiko Igbo in particular and to Ndigbo in general. This action is illegal, inhumane, immoral, wicked and prejudicial. It is an action that is offensive to the constitution of our republic and to the sensibilities of all decent thinking people. It is an action that negates the prescriptions of civilized conduct and has the potential to provoke ethnic tension. There can be no greater demonstration that Igbos are still regarded and treated as aliens in their own country than this beastly action by the government of Lagos State and the Nigerian Police. If healthy and legitimate citizens could be arbitrarily arrested, quarantined and forcibly repatriated to other parts of the country solely on the suspicion that they are Igbo, then a dangerous and ugly precedent has been set. Ndigbo will thus be entitled to ask: where is the spirit of the much vaunted integration which was one of the principal pillars on which a united New Nigeria was rested in January 1970? Njiko Igbo condemns this illegal action by the Lagos State government and the Nigerian Police without reservation. We call for its reversal and for the innocent victims to be returned, rehabilitated and adequately compensated for the humiliation, trauma and loss of human dignity inflicted on them without any justification by the government of Lagos State. The Minister of Internal Affairs, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, the Nigerian Bar Association, the Human Rights Commission and the Inspector General of Police, whose officers were complicit in this illegality, should instigate an immediate coordinated investigation into this matter and report their findings to the Nigerian people without a moment’s delay. Just yesterday in the Sabon Gari district of Kano State, the Igbo population was deliberately targeted, bombed, maimed and murdered in large numbers by fanatical criminal zealots whose rapacious demand for Igbo blood appear to know no end. We have reached a stage in this benighted nation where the ugly tastes of fanatical and Igbophobic Nigerians can only be satisfied by visiting punishment or suffering or death upon Ndigbo. The cumulative effect of all of this is to create a siege mentality moderated by a cowering attitude among the Igbo population in Nigeria. This is deliberate and, sadly, it is working. If any other ethnic group were subjected to the Igbo experience in this country, this nation would be up in smoke. The Government of Nigeria has an unqualified duty to protect the lives and property of all Nigerians with a particular attention to particularly vulnerable group such as Ndigbo. SIGNED: SENATOR EMMANUEL ONWE, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, NJIKO IGBO.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:01:04 +0000
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