Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko is the national coordinator, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA). He speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on the killings and political crisis in the South-East and other parts of the country, among other issues.
The South-East region is embroiled in crisis but some people are alleging that the treatment of the region by the Federal Government is the cause of the crisis. What do you make of this?
Yes, the conviction of the Human Rights Association of Nigeria is that the current administration of President [Muhammadu] Buhari has not been fair to all parts of Nigeria, not just the South-East alone, but virtually to the entire Southern Nigeria. The government seems to be paying attention to only issues that affect and concern the Muslim indigenes of the far Northern part of the country, because even the Christians in the North are as demoralised as those in the South-East. So this lack of trust and sense of belonging of the people in the government is the reason for all the agitations. It is not only in the South-East as even people in parts of the South-West too are agitating for self-determination. And I think the approach the government has been using to address the frontiers of the agitations is faulty.
The government instead of seeking for peaceful dialogue has resorted to the use of force. And that is why there has been a wide range of extra-judicial killings of innocent people, who had nothing to do with Biafra, because it is not every Igbo in the South-East that is a member of IPOB. But the government thinks otherwise. So what they have been doing is to kill anyone that they believe is associated with the organisation in any way.
But we are in a democracy, which is a government that is built around constitutionalism and respect for the fundamental human rights of every citizen, even those that do not agree that they belong to the country. But as long as they live within the geographical territory called Nigeria, they are entitled to every provision of the country’s law. As such, the government does not have a right under the law, Section 33 (10), to kill anyone who doesn’t want to have anything to do with the country, especially because there is a section of the country’s constitution that allows the citizen to freely renounce their citizenship.
If the men who drafted the 1999 constitution that is so faulty and distorted have kept in it provisions for renunciation of citizenship, recognising the fact that Nigerians may decide not to be part of the country again, especially when most of our government officials have multiple international passports of other countries, I see nothing really difficult in listening to the complaints of some people who wants a referendum for self-determination. Besides, it is allowed even under international laws and regulations for human rights. So, I don’t know why the government hasn’t addressed the matter in the manner it should do. And having been in the military for a long period of time, we expect that Mr President will be a statesman and look for ways to resolve the issues arising from the agitations without unnecessarily overheating the polity.
You said that it is not every Igbo man and woman that is in support of IPOB, but it has been observed that most times when the sit-at-home order is given, it is widely observed across the region. Doesn’t the high level of compliance show that the people are in total support of both IPOB and its agitation?
It is only someone who doesn’t have a molecule of rationality that will accept to be a slave. Besides, all of us are citizens of the country. So it is totally incomprehensible that anyone would be happy to see that a certain set of people have the impression that they are the number one citizens, while others are second class. Nobody in Nigeria should be classified as second class citizens, but the current administration is treating certain people as second class. And this is the fundamental basis of the agitation. You feel that because certain people did not vote for you, you will deny them certain infrastructure they deserve, but the fact remains that nobody will ever become the President of Nigeria without having both the positive and negative votes. In other words, nobody will ever become a president without some people voting against him.
Even the constitution makes provisions for the persons that will not agree with public office holders. In fact, it says a person might even decide to boycott the election. This implies that you cannot deny such a person his or her constitutional rights. I think the problem is not really with Mr President, but with the tribalistic warlords that are surround him, whose major concern is to safeguard the interests of people like the Miyyetti Allah and the like. But as the president is about to retire, we expect him to change the legacy of inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony in the country and embark on cross-pollination of ideas all over the country.
But back to your question, if at all there has been an order from IPOB as widely publicised, it is not true that the entire people of the region are in support of the order, because it is not every Igbo man that wants to leave Nigeria. In fact, if there is a referendum today, there will still be some persons that will not vote yes, because people of the South-East have bigger prospects in Nigeria.
But the issue is we need to restructure Nigeria, because the way the country is operating now is dysfunctional. And that is why people, especially the southerners, are not happy. For instance, you, being a graduate from the South, will see someone from the North, who does not even have the grades and degree you have, but he is occupying big public offices simply, because he is privileged to come from the northern region and connected in one way or the other to the ruling class. The other time, the government employed their children into the CBN. You being from the South will definitely not be happy with such an arrangement.
Same thing applies to those people observing the sit-at-home order in the South-East. The people are doing it simply because they are actually not happy with the situation of things in the country. They feel that the government is not recognising them as true citizens of the country. So the onus is on the President Buhari to address the plights of the people by summoning all the ethnic nationalities and agitators to a dialogue table and have a constructive negotiation with them.
That, to be very realistic, Mr President has to balance the structure of his administration, because it is not appropriate to have only Northern Muslims occupying 75 per cent of the key offices in his administration. It doesn’t promote federal character and national integration in any way. I think President Buhari still has time to do this. If these issues are addressed, I believe all the separatist agitations will die naturally. But it will get worse if the government continues to treat other parts of the country as if their views don’t matter and then rise to kill them whenever they step out for protest.
Most times before the day to observe the sit-at-home order in the South-East, the governors in the region often would ask the people in their states to disregard the order and go about their businesses. But the people would still observe the IPOB’s order. Can will say they trust the group more than their governors?
I think the state governors have lost it, because it is clear that they no longer hold the legitimacy. They have lost their place before the people. Look at what the South-West governors did when the Fulani herdsmen were killing everyone in their region. They stood up and formed Amotekun, which is working today across the states. Months after that, the South-East governors came out to say that they were going to form EbubeAgu, but up till now, they haven’t done anything. Now, they are shifting the commencement of the group to December. I really don’t think the governors are serious about protecting the people of the region. And if as a government, you consistently show an I-don’t-care attitude towards the people, the people will also abandon you. That is what is happening in the South-East now.
The people are no longer listening to the governors. They instead prefer to listen to IPOB. So, the governors really need to go back to the drawing board and map out ways to govern the region appropriately. It is sad that instead of doing this, the governors are only being concerned about what they can get for themselves. So it is a big problem. But I think the onus lies on the people of the South-East. The youth in the region should mobilise themselves and ensure that when election comes again, they don’t vote in people that will just throw peanuts at them to take their votes, because if they continue to vote in bribe-givers, they will continue to have thieves as governors.
Besides, this happens everywhere in Nigeria. The other time that election was held in Ekiti and Edo states, people were bribed. So Nigerians generally have to really think about the kind of people they empower to govern their states. The South-East is really in need of good political governance, because there is none in the region. Assuming we have good governance in the region, the people will be listening to their governments, because if someone cares about you, you too will care about him. So that is the issue.
And currently, it seems some of these agitators are beginning to occupy the void that the South-East governors have created due to corruption and misbehaviour. When IPOB issues the sit-at-home order, what stops the governor from using federal power to ensure that anyone who fails to comply with the order is not harassed? But the issue is that there is a big allegation that some persons in the Federal Government are involved in the killings, because IPOB is not killing anybody.
We believe that some persons with federal power are the ones sponsoring the killings in the South-East. That is our belief. And it is because these people want to de-market IPOB, which they feel is very popular. Even some of the Igbo top politicians are not comfortable with the operation of the group. They too will want to discredit the group ahead of the 2023 elections, so that they can turn to the people and say look at those you claim are working to create Biafra; see how they are killing your people. So we don’t think that IPOB is the one doing all the killings.
In fact, Miyetti Allah group can be one of those trying to destablise the South-East, because they are not happy with the South at all. They have even said that they will not respect the open grazing law. Their man said it days back and he even boasted about the South-East issue. So they have a hand in it. And the government is not interested in opening an avenue for a standard investigation. But if anything happens, they will say it is IPOB, instead of going to the crime scene and undertaking a forensic investigation. So Nigeria is not a very serious country and we are tired of the situation.
As someone who has been at the vanguard of human rights activism, how would you rate the Buhari government in terms of human rights protection?
It is really not about the president, but about the system, which to me, is highly dysfunctional. Even before the president came on board, some of these things were there; it is just that they have become worse since his administration came into power. You can see that the National Human Rights Commission is as good as dead. And that is why it often takes donkey years for the commission to begin investigation into the complaints they get from Nigerians whose fundamental rights have been trampled upon. A lot of things are wrong in Nigeria. Even the Public Complaints Commission is not working. The National Assembly has really been captured by the executive, while the judiciary is no longer efficient. So when you ventilate your anger against any organ or office of the government, the case will linger for years, because there is no justice anywhere in the country. So we need to address all these issues and restructure the country.
We also need to ensure that the people who directly own the mineral resources that bring finance for the country are well taken care of. For now, the government doesn’t seem to care about the wellbeing of the Niger Delta people whose land produces the crude oil. And it shouldn’t be, because the people of the region and their environment are daily being affected by the outflow of the crude oil. But despite this, a lot of their youths are not gainfully employed. Besides, a country that doesn’t have a planned future for its youths cannot be categorised as being serious with preserving human rights.
There is no human right when someone is not sure that if he or she is sick today, there will be a functional hospital that will give him or her good and affordable healthcare. Worst still, there is no health insurance policy anywhere. Though these are some of things the present government inherited, it has continued to see them as nothing to be worried about. There is no primary healthcare. And that is why villagers are dying every now and then over minor illnesses such as Malaria and the likes. Even the government didn’t use the prevalence of the COVID-19 as an opportunity to put the health care industry in good shape.
Even the educational system in the country too is ailing. There are no good public universities, while those who run private institutions are charging exorbitant fees. Every now and then, lecturers go on strike, because of the government’s inability to keep to its promises. That is why a student who is supposed to spend just four years in a Nigerian university will end up spending eight years, not because he had academic issues, but because the teachers are oftentimes nowhere to be found. These are some of the issues. But of them all, insecurity has proven to be the biggest challenge now as no one can safely travel around the country without the fear of being kidnapped or killed. It is really a terrible time in Nigeria now. So we need to quickly restructure the country, so that we can empower the states to have their own police and protect their territory.
And then the central government should not be as over-bearing as it is now. The extrajudicial killings by the police under the federal might is crazy. It is what led to the nationwide protest last year. Meanwhile the issues that led to the EndSARS protests have even escalated as more people have been killed by the police, educational facilities are still not habitable, while the police are still collecting their twenty naira bribe.
So amid all, what do you advise the government?
The government has to deliver justice to all equally, not just for only one set of people. For instance, the people of Southern Kaduna are still being killed as we speak, while citizens in different parts of the state are being attacked by Fulani herdsmen. And the government of that state seems to be an active participant in the genocide that is happening in Southern Kaduna. So if you are from the place and you are asked if you still want to remain in Nigeria that doesn’t care about your life, you will definitely say no and wish to leave. So these are the issues that the government has to address.
It is not only for the Igbos, but for everybody. There has to be equality of rights and access to justice. Nobody should be treated as Second Class citizens, while some get a first class treatment. That is what the angry Nigerian youths are clamouring for. And then, the government should restructure the country, because it is not working. So the government should listen to those agitating for restructuring, because if it doesn’t do this, those who want to break away will eventually get what they want.
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