UNITED IGBO ELDERS COUNCIL
WORLDWIDE (UNIEC).
PRESS RELEASE:
ACQUITTAL OF “PRO-BIAFRA ACTIVISTS.”
The United Igbo Elders Council Worldwide (UNIEC) is gladdened by the release of 36 or so Igbo youths in Ebonyi state unjustly labelled “terrorists” and incarcerated for since more than four years for “agitating for Biafra.” It is estimated that possibly tens of thousands of Igbo and other Eastern youths were so deliberately profiled and murdered by the last administration in its unjust war against everybody in pursuit of their ethno-religious genocidal goals, with many now still languishing in various dungeons in Nigeria, awaiting their turns in alleged killings in batches after each round of kangaroo charges, with zero proofs and zero legal representations.
Many of these Igbo and Eastern youngsters were picked up on their ways to or from school, playgrounds, markets, physical exercises, farms, road paths, etc with no knowledge of their parents or loved ones, and either murdered on the spot or thereafter executed and their dead bodies that can no longer talk to defend themselves, displayed to the press with guns, “charms,” besides them as “IPOB/ESN soldiers” killed in “furious battles with our gallant forces,” over an “insurgency” concocted at Abuja and orchestrated by series of deliberately provocative Egwu Eke military exercises that left real theatres of war in the North in favour of bursting zones of peaceful business activity in Igbo built-up civilian areas. As these “exercises” and “wars against insurgency” were butchering the Igbo, their counterpart “Unknown Gunmen,” imported soldiers alias “herders,” were killing from other angles in close coordination.
The UNIEC is urging other state Governors and military-security services in other states to follow the example set in Ebonyi state, and release the young boys and girls, men and women, whether Igbo/Eastern or simply Nigerian still held captive in their hands and awaiting the usual kangaroo “trials” and/or alleged usual executions in connection with the last administration’s definition of good conduct and “nation-building.”
Many parents and relatives are still eagerly awaiting their wards, and no one is sure whether they ended up in the mass graves of Lokpanta and elsewhere, executed in batches elsewhere, or still held captive in sundry other horrible locations.
We appreciate not only the Governor and Courts system in Ebonyi state, but also the Army, DSS and Police there that exercised a long-desired civilized humanism that kept these innocent children alive till the good luck that saw them safe. Their example is a worthy one, and the people are rejoicing. We lastly add that the government still owes those children adequate compensation, rehabilitation, medical treatment, psychological support, education, jobs, and apology.
Prof. Obasi Igwe,
Director, Media and Publicity.
Sept. 29, 2024.
