Alleged Genocide: Intersociety outlines 21 measures Nigerian Government should take

A rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Intersociety, has advised the Nigerian Government to take certain steps in order to end the controversy over alleged genocidal killing of Christians in the country.

The organisation listed 21 measures it said were required to return Nigeria to secularism, freedom of worship devoid of what it called ‘religicide’.

This comes amid allegations of genocide targeted against Christians in Nigeria.

The Nigerian Government had earlier dismissed the claims as unfounded.

But in its latest statement released on Sunday, Intersociety said its stance was vindicated by the findings of Mike Arnold of the City of Blanco, Texas, USA.

The statement was signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Head, Intersociety, Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Human Rights Lawyer/Head, Dept. of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Chidinma Udegbunam, Human Rights Lawyer/Head, Dept. of Campaign and Publicity, and Ogochukwu Obi, Deputy Head, Dept. of Int’l Justice and Human Rights.

It went ahead to advise the Nigerian Government to stop defending the indefensible, and that time was longer on their side.

Intersociety outlined the 21 measures to include: “Ensuring the supremacy of the provisions of the country’s 1999 Constitution above all domestically enacted auxiliary laws including supremacy of Sections 10 (no state religion) and 38 (freedom of religion and worship) and the entire constitutional Chapter Four above any other law passed or deemed to have been passed by National Assembly by way of an Act or House of Assembly of any State by way of a State House of Assembly Law.

“Ending all semblances of ‘State Jihadism’ in Nigeria and allowing the country to be operated and governed on secularism guarded by the provisions of the secular 1999 Constitution.

“Ending and abolishing all forms of ‘structural, physical and cultural violence’ and enthronement of ‘negative and positive peace’ and ushering the country into ‘Human Security Governance’ and massive growth and development.

“Mustering enough political will to convene an electoral constituent National Conference where the country’s 384 ethnic nationalities and its multi-religious groupings shall be converged to discuss and agree on how best to live in peace, religious harmony and ethnically-induced peaceful co-existence.

“Nigerian Government must end crude, brutish, clannish, illiterate, hate, discriminatory and ethno-religious soldiering and policing especially in Eastern Nigeria.

“Nigerian security forces’ operations and law enforcements must be intellectually and intelligence driven and maddening resort to indiscriminate killings, wanton destruction of properties, hate policing and soldiering, ethno-religious profiling, false labeling, mass arrests, indefinite detention without trials, prosecutorial vindictiveness, mass criminalization, hearsay conclusions and jungle justice must be stopped and discontinued.

“There must be an end to flooding of Eastern Nigeria with senior Northern Muslim officers from the country’s security forces as heads of key military and policing formations in the two regions; a case study of Imo State where despite being a State with more than 95% Christian population, all the four key security and policing establishments are manned by senior Northern Muslim officers till date.

“There must be an end to Igbo-phobia, hatred and ethno-religious profiling including hatefully tagging every Igbo or South-East respected and independent person or group of persons or bodies as ‘IPOB-affiliated/sponsored’; just to wickedly and violently verbally scare them from adding their credible and independent voices on issues of critical national or regional public importance.

“There must also be an end to indiscriminate killings, abductions and disappearances in the East by security forces on the grounds of ethnicity and religion or by way of mass labeling the victims ‘IPOB or ESN’.”

Intersociety also demanded that security agencies must account for estimated 5000 Easterners, especially Igbo-Southeasterners, which it claimed were secretly face-bagged and transported at late night and dumped from August 2015 till date in several secret military and other security dungeons scattered in different parts of Northern Nigeria.

It said further: “There shall be de-radicalization of the Nigerian security forces and their re-orientation and re-integration into Nigerian secularism and law enforcement professionalism.

“There must be an end to ‘lawless or above the law status’ accorded members of the Fulani population in Nigeria in which their jihadist elements must be routed out and disarmed.

“The Government direct or vicarious policy of facilitating the flooding into Nigeria of African jihadists of whatever names called, must end and jihadists presently quartered in the country’s mapped 11,129 forests disarmed and sent back to where they were directly or indirectly brought from.

“Nigeria’s indigenous farming communities displaced from their ancestral lands, must be restored and protected by the Nigerian Government.

“Nigerian Government and the country’s security forces must inexcusably give account of the whereabouts of more than 850 Christian hostages still held inside the Rijana Forest in Kachia County of Kaduna State.

“Abolishing Muslim-Muslim Presidency (occupation of offices of the President and the Vice President by Muslims) in Nigeria and restore power sharing arrangements between Muslims and Christians in places like Kaduna, Adamawa, Gombe, Kogi, Nasarawa, etc., using proportionality of Muslim and Christian population in the areas.

“Conducting a credible national census which has not been conducted since 2006 and identifying illegal aliens including gun-wielding jihadists among them and having them repatriated to their countries of origin.

“Putting national leaders of MACBAN, FUNAM and allied others on red notice, with a stated timeframe, by giving them matching orders to rout out jihadist elements within their foot-soldiers or herdsmen by having them disarmed, or be proscribed.

“Discontinuing jihad-enabler national policy of Fulani Cattle Ranching and flushing out Jihadists occupying vast areas of Niger State, Nigeria’s largest landmass State, recover the State from Jihadists and transform the State into Africa’s largest modern cattle ranching State, in the like of Ethiopia that recently inaugurated Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam worth not less than $5b.”