FEATURE ARTICLE

E O EkeWednesday, March 1, 2017
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MATTERS ARISING FROM THE VISIT BY NJIKO UMUNNA TO KUJE PRISON

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he federal government of Nigeria releasing Nnamdi Kanu and the many prisoners of conscience she is holding illegally in many prisons, police cells and army barrack would not be a compromise as I understand the word. It would be doing the right thing and ending an unjustifiable injustice. There cannot be a comprise between justice and injustice or right and wrong.

I endorse many of the positions of Njiko Ummunna on Nigeria. However, it baggers belief that governors of Eastern states do not know their duties in respect of the extrajudicial killings that have taken and continue to take place in their states and that the Chief Justice of these states do not care to discharge their statutory duties.

What the press statement ignored is the fact that Nigeria as it is governed today is a criminal enterprise, which has been taken over by a gang masquerading as a political party.

As at today, state institutions in Nigeria are moribund and unable to function as they are intended because of a culture of corruption, nepotism and sectarianism.

Most senior positions in Nigeria are occupied by northerners, many of who are unqualified and do not have what it takes to do the job. Their ascendency has coincided with the deterioration of Nigeria.

This is the case with the presidency. Nigeria today has a president who is not qualified for the job and do not have the intellectual capacity to confront and contain people like Nnamdi Kanu.

He reverted to the only thing he knows, brut force. In less than two years in power, he has killed more Nigerians than have been killed by all governments in Nigeria, since the end of the civil war.

Today president Buhari is very ill and receiving treatment in London, but his cabals made up of people from his ethnic group have Ceased power and are undermining the Vice President, who should never have suffered the indignity of serving under a man, who lacks the intellectual ability to sit in his class.

This cabal is the same cabal that midwifed the declaration of Islamic state by way of introduction of sharia law in all northern states. They are also behind, Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen terrorism, Islamic Bank, the bill seeking grazing grounds all over Nigeria. Their members are the ones benefiting from Nigerian oil and foreign exchange racket.

These are the elephants in Nigeria, which the press conference ignored.

Unless Nigerians are ready to confront this dark force, whose focus is Islam, domination, subjugation and exploitation of Nigeria for its own benefit and benefit of its region, Nigeria will implode.

In addition to the call by Njiko Umunna to the state governors and chief justice of States in Igbo region to become alive to their responsibilities, I call on the National Assembly to convey an emergency session on the state of the nation, and the chief judge of Nigeria to order investigation into police and military use of force and extrajudicial killings.

There cannot be peace in Nigeria, if those northern policemen and soldiers responsible for Ezu river bodies, extrajudicial killings of Biafra protesters and harassment and intimidation of Igbos at the numerous police and army road blocks in Igbo land are not brought to justice and the culture of impunity, nepotism and something for nothing brought to an end.

In confronting the Nigeria problem, it is clear to me that we are not trying to right a mistake, but confronting a human evil, hatched by men who do not wish for us, what they wish for themselves and their people. Without this realisation, many will continue to believe that Nigeria, in its present form, can deliver the Igbo or any other dream.

I speak out not because I have all the answers, but because Nigeria has become a society of moral cowards paralysed by poverty, ignorance, greed, sectarianism, loss of moral standard, principles, convictions and sense of justice as fairness.

The choice facing us may be hard, but there is only one choice for rational people in Nigeria- fight to overthrow the present order, that allows discrimination, corruption nepotism and impunity to fester and establish the rule of law.

This is the choice before all Nigerians, irrespective of ethnicity or religion. Anything apart from this is sectarianism and will lead to disintegration and suffering.

It is important to make the case for marginalisation, but the solution is to end marginalisation and not balkanisation.

Ending marginalisation will involve restructure and devolution of power, because a region has already voted for Islamic state and continue to seek to dominate the rest of the country. This is the simple and inconvenient truth.

This is why the present constitution must be abrogated and a new one, which will not legitimise injustices against any ethnic group nor seek to impose Islam on all written.

This is one path to a better Nigeria, if we are willing to try. If men, who have the ability and capacity to assert rational values fail to rise up to save Nigeria, another thug not troubled by values and questions of responsibilities will take over and the rot will continue. They are already regrouping in a so called 'mega party' and dangling the carrot of a turncoat Igbo man as president.

The only choice, before progressive Nigerians is to fight for the values that make for a peaceful and prosperous society.

There cannot be a Nigeria, where Igbos continue to pay the blood price, and Igbo youth discriminated against in employment and entrance examinations into federal government schools and institutions by way of different entrance scores.

The new Nigeria, if it will be viable, must recognise merit and hard work and pursue free society and economy and, no one should occupy a place he does not deserve because of his ethnicity and religion.

I wish Nigeria, well, the horse of freedom and self determination has already bolted from the Nigerian stable. It can only be brought back on its own terms. Nigerians must demand for a new constitution as the first step, if they want Nigeria to exist in any form as we see it today. At least, people have started making the right noise.

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