Special Reports Published Nov 25, 2015
Igbo Mandate Congress IMC wants to bring to the attention of all Biafran protesters and agitators that the greatest genocide ever under the guise of stopping separatist MASSOB agitators was under the tenure of Peter Obi, as Governor of Anambra State, Achike Udenwa as Governor of Imo State and Olusegun Obasanjo as President of Nigeria.
Biafran agitators should hold these three men responsible for killing thousands of innocent civilians in the guise of seeking for members of Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). Nigerian soldiers numbering over 200 were invited into Anambra State in June 2006 by Governor Peter Obi and in the process murdered estimated 5000 innocent Igbos in the guise of rooting out MASSOB agitators. This was done with the ever gleeful support of ex-president Obasanjo in the infamous operation ‘Shoot-at Sight Order.’
During these periods that spanned till early 2009, Nigerian soldiers were on rampage at Onitsha, Nnewi, Oba, Ihiala and environs shooting, killing, and maiming anything that has a suspicion of being MASSOB. As the shootings were going on, real MASSOB members escaped into various dens while stranded travelers, unsuspecting trader and residents were branded MASSOB and shot. By the time the exercise was over, estimated 5000 people were killed and the affected families took the remains of their relatives and buried quietly to avoid being killed too by the rampaging soldiers. All these wickedness was at the behest of an APGA Governor claiming to be a follower of ex Biafran leader Odumegwu Ojukwu.
It is curious to the leadership of Igbo Mandate Congress, IMC, that the same people who ordered the massacre of thousands of Igbos under the guise of anti-Biafra stance in the past have now come out to secretly fund aspects of the pro Biafra agitations, and aspects of hate speeches against other tribes due to political downturn.
Therefore, as Igbos negotiate their way out of the Biafra quagmire in the Nigerian context, we must remind ourselves that the greatest enemies of Igbo common good is not Buhari, Tinubu and their APC. as being bandied now. It is Igbo politicians who corner the lot of their people for personal aggrandizement. It is Igbo politicians who invited Federal Troops to kill unarmed civilians without exhausting avenues of negotiations and diplomacy.
MASSOB issued a statement to that effect when its then Director of Information, (now factional leader of MASSOB), Mr. Uchenna Madu, speaking on behalf of the leader of MASSOB, Chief Ralph Uwazuruike on the 12th of November, 2013,said that Peter Obi and Achike Udenwa are responsible for numerous death of Bafran agitators. According to Madu, “We hold Peter Obi responsible for the killings. This reminds us about the 2006 shoot-on-sight order by Governor Peter Obi who massacred about 2,000 MASSOB members.
“We shall arrest him and pay him back in his own coin in our own way immediately he steps down as the governor because his recent action of killing MASSOB members will heavily affect APGA chances of winning this election.”
In another statement issued by the leader of MASSOB, Chief Ralph Uwazurike, and signed by MASSOB Deputy National Director of Information, Mazi Chris Mocha on the 12th of Aprili, 2014, the group alleged that the former governor and his Imo State counterpart, Dr. Achike Udenwa, had between 2003 and 2006 deployed federal troops from different states and allegedly ordered them to shoot MASSOB members at sight. According to the new MASSOB spokesman “Mr. Peter Obi and former Imo State governor, Dr. Achike Udenwa, had ordered the killing of MASSOB members between 2003 and 2006 and would be tried in court in due course. Obi had on May 11, 2006 under the Presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo deployed over 200 federal troops most of who were of Hausa and Fulani tribes to Onitsha and issued a shoot-at-sight order to them. Thousands of our members were killed, including a pregnant woman and 65 others still missing.”
Kenneth Anyanwu, MASSOB director of information, told Newswatch that MASSOB was on its way to a solidarity rally in Okigwe in support of American war against terrorism in Iraq when a combined team of the armed mobile policemen laid ambush and opened fire on them. Anyanwu accused Governor Achike Udenwa of Imo State of being behind the killing of MASSOB members. He said Ralph Uwazuruike, MASSOB leader, was arrested and detained at the Imo State police headquarters near Government House, Owerri, before the Presidency ordered his transfer to Force Headquarters, Abuja , on Monday, March 31, 2005.
Soon corpses of MASSOB members were allegedly killed under the nose of Peter Obi and Presidency of Goodluck Jonathan and thrown into Ezu River. According to MASSOB Director of Information, Mr Uchenna Madu’s statement of February 6th, 2013, the corpses found floating on Ezu River in Amansea community were MASSOB members, who were arrested in the state and secretly executed by the security agents without proper trial to cover their tracks.
Madu said: “MASSOB with deep sense of grief and sorrow wishes to inform Mr. Ban Ki Moon (UN Secretary General), President Goodluck Jonathan, US president, Barrack Obama, United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) and Amnesty International about the gruesome murder of MASSOB members by the Special Anti-Robbery Squared SARS, of Nigeria Police Force, Awkuzu Anambra State.”
He said some of the MASSOB members identified as Basil Ogbu, Michael Ogwa, Sunday Omogo, Philip Nwankpa, Eze Ndubisi, Ebuka Eze, Obinna Ofor, Joseph Udoh and Uchechukwu Ejiofor were arrested at the MASSOB security office Onitsha, Anambra State on November 9, 2012 by a combined team of Nigeria security agents (Army, Police and SSS) and were later handed over to SARS headquarters, Awkuzu Anambra State where they were detained until their suspicious disappearance.
Igbo Mandate Congress demand a public inquiry into all the killings of MASSOB, IPOB, Biafra Zionist and other Biafra groups to determine who invited the soldiers, levels of atrocities and levels of culpability at various levels of authority.
The inquiry should also determine whether all avenues of diplomacy and peace were exhausted before the violent use of force was authorized. The inquiry should determine the identity of all the thousands of non-MASSOB members gruesomely murdered and let the indicted public officers be made to apologize publicly.
This public inquiry will definitely expose the level at which Igbo politicians paved the way for all the bloodshed. We have never heard that any Yoruba Governor invited soldiers to kill OPC members. We never heard that any South South Governor invited soldiers to kill militants.
Blaming President Muhammadu Buhari, whose government is just six months, for all the atrocities against Ndigbo, while the real culprit meanders away, is not correct and not according to the laws of natural justice.
Olusegun Obasanjo, Peter Obi, Achike Udenwa and their cheer leaders must apologize for genocide against innocent people, and then the healing process can start.
The Federal Government should release Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB Protesters. They should also release Ben Onwuka of Biafran Zionist Movement languishing in Enugu Prisons for hosting Biafran Flag in a Radio Station and all MASSOB members in detention, rehabilitate them and send them home.
They should speed up an inquiry to audit the causes of death of thousands of innocent civilians under the guise of stopping MASSOB agitations. If these steps are taken urgently, lots of tempers will cool down and the agitators can come to a round table. Any advice to the contrary is self serving and will compound the already waiting time bomb.
Rev Obinna Akukwe
Director General, Igbo Mandate Congress (IMC)
cc: Barrack Obama, President United States of America
David Cameron, British Prime Minister
