A Memo to the Northern
Governors Forum by:
His Excellency,
V/Admiral Murtala H. Nyako (rtd.), CFR, GCON, rcds
Executive Governor Adamawa State
On On-Going
Full-Fledged Genocide in ‘Northern Nigeria’
April 16, 2014
The adverse
security situation in Northern Nigeria in particular and Nigeria in general is
being felt by all of us. While every State Government is doing everything
possible using virtually all its resources to stem the tide of near disaster
facing all of us especially in the North, it is a well-known fact that the
present Federal administration has now become a government of impunity run by
an evil-minded leadership for the advancement of corruption that is apparently
enjoying the protection of the Federal administration as a citizen of this
country should enjoy but is being denied by the administration using its mass
murderers/cut-throats imbedded in our legitimate and traditional Defence and Security
organisations. It is very clear that the protection of life and property of
innocent citizens in Northern Nigeria and recognising their Human rights and Voting
right in the forthcoming general elections is no longer a cardinal principle of
the administration.
The beginning of Genocide:
Clearly the
victims of the Administration’s evil-mindedness are substantially Northern
Nigerians. The administration is bent on bringing wars in the North between
Muslim and Christians and within them and between one ethnic group and another
or others in various communities in the region. Cases of mass murders by its
bloody minded killers and cut-throats are well known, but it attributes the
killings to so-called Boko-Haram. Thousands of our young girls and boys have
been kidnapped by clearly organised militia in the last few years and
kidnapping is now a random affair all over the far North. These organized
kidnappers must have the backing of the Federal administration for them to move
about freely with abducted children just as those who convey ammunitions and
explosives from the Ports to the safe-houses of so called Boko-Haram in the
North. Hurrah we are no longer being deceived! We no longer accept let alone
believe that our prominent Mallams in the Mosques in Kano and Zaria have been
killed by ‘innocent’ Boko-Haram members or Christians in the North, nor do we
believe that the killing of the Pastor and other worshippers in the Christ
Apostolic Church in Jimeta-Yola was done by any Muslim or Boko-Haram members.
We know where we are now pointing our fingers. There have also been attempts to
assassinate the Senate President (Northerner) in Imo State, two Executive
Governors of States in the North (the Governor of Benue State and my humble
self), two of our most prominent Traditional leaders (Shehu of Borno and the
Emir of Kano), Senators and others too numerous to mention, all from Northern
Nigeria. This is in line with the demonic policy of the evil-few in and around
the administration that have advocated how Northerners, both Christians and
Muslims, are to be so dealt with, ill-treated and oppressed!
No wonder, we
in the Northern Nigeria are now facing an organised ethno-religious campaigns
of hate fuelled by the Federal administration to make communities which hitherto
have remained peaceful for centuries to start killing the minorities in their
midst and to facilitate mass killings of the innocent and the arbitrary arrests
and torture of elders of minority ethnic groups in the various Northern
communities. The reader is please requested to note what has been happening in
Plateau State and the recent happenings in Benue and Nasarawa States. We, in
Adamawa State, have been battling this heinous machination in the last 3 years.
Yes, we noticed it! We also saw it as the Beginning of Genocide. Genocide
kingpins are now on prowl in Northern Nigeria!
Fulani
communities in parts of the North who have been in their locations for over 100
years are now being raided and uprooted by paid killers within the Nigerian
Army for the satisfaction of the Federal administration instead of being
protected as citizens with their rights and dignity safe-guarded. This has
happened to those communities at Keana L.G. in Nasarawa State and Laddoga and Kachia
in Kaduna State. It is presently extended to Benue, Zamfara and Katsina States.
Furthermore it is a well-known fact that virtually all the soldiers of Northern
Nigerian origin recently recruited to fight Boko-Haram have been deceived in
that aspect. They are being poorly trained, totally ill-equipped, given only
uniform and are killed by their trainers in Nigerian Army training centres as
soon as they arrive in the Nigerian Army camps being used by so-called
Boko-Haram insurgents. Virtually all the Nigerian Army soldiers killed/murdered
in these operations so far are of Northern Nigerian origin. The Administration
has also hired militia from all across especially North Africa who have been
deceived into accepting to come because they were made to believe that they
would be fighting infidels.
The Federal
administration’s affront to frame Northerners is also an open secret. Senior
Special Assistant to Mr President tried to hoodwink us into believing that
Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was kingpin of Boko-Haram. Typical bullshit from the
Federal administration. Mr Henry Okah, the convicted leader of MEND also stated
under oath that he was being put under pressure by the administration to
implicate senior Northern elements such as IBB and Buhari as financiers of Boko
Haram terrorism. We are in deep trouble. We have begun to sleep with ‘both our
eyes widely open’!
Let me paraphrase
what humanity has been humming over the ages:
A call to
Action
When they killed the Jews, we watched unconcerned because we were not Jews.
When they murdered the Blacks we were still unconcerned because we were not Black.
When they massacred the Asians we kept mute because we were not one of them.
Then we saw the Marauding Murderers coming and we realised
they were coming for us and we were not safe.
That was when we knew that if we had collectively
protested the Killings of the Jews,
the Murder of the Blacks and
Massacres of the Asians, we would
all have been safe.
Right here at
Home
They started killings in Borno State we kept quiet.
The hired killers got to Yobe State we remained mute
They proceeded to Adamawa State we watched
They attacked Kano, Katsina and Sokoto we said nothing
The North-East is under occupation
The North-West is under assault
Now their tanks and marauders have begun rolling into
the North-Central
The North is under occupation
Yet we are still silent!
Nigerians stand-up and talk! Injury to one is injury
to all!
Full-fledged Genocide
It is
fortunate that the people of Northern Nigeria and indeed Nigerians have friends
namely the good people of this country and other nations, International Court
of Justice and NGOs dealing with the protection of humanity against Genocide
etc. The International Criminal Court Charter broadly defines genocide as:
·
Mass killings of human beings
·
A deliberate action by a government that embarks on a policy
that denies a group basic social amenities.
·
A deliberate action by a government or group of people
who embark on campaign of hatred against the innocent.
The International
Criminal Court Charter also empowers any aggrieved person(s) or NGO to approach
the Court to intervene when a Nation/State party fails to prosecute
perpetrators of genocide or grave human right violation or human right
offences.
One must
confess that all these elements of genocide have been perpetuated by the
present Federal administration against the people of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe
States and is beginning to rapidly spread to other 14 States of Northern
Nigeria. The dead bodies being dragged daily from the Nigerian Army hitherto
armouries now turned into killing chambers as identified by Human Right
organisations and the last weekend massacre of inmates of SSS cells in Abuja
speak volumes on genocide being committed in our country today. Mass killings
of students and children in their schools’ dormitories and on their way to take
exams are now virtually daily occurrence in Borno and Yobe States. Below is the
chart on numbers and percentage of people killed in key trouble spots of the
world (Courtesy of Sunday Trust of April
6, 2014) and some of the gruesome pictures of the dead in our country
recorded by the Nigerian media and international NGOs.
 |
| In this picture dated Friday, April. 19, 2013 and released by Amnesty International, people look at bodies of civilians detained and killed by Nigerian security forces as alleged members of Islamic militant groups. | AP |
We in the
North must now have an open agenda to protect our people from acts against us
similar to those in the foregoing. We should demand our Human Rights; we should
demand protection against the evil acts being done to our people and environments;
we should demand the Right to Vote in forthcoming General Elections as the
people of war-torn Afghanistan did and were able to vote in smooth General Elections
on 5th April, 2014. If it could be done in Afghanistan, it should be
done in Nigeria, the whole of Nigeria!
It is overdue
for us to commence the very serious business of purging all Northerners and
fellow Nigerians of mutual hatred and suspicion against fellow countrymen and
to inculcate true love and patriotism in the minds of all of us. How could we
be nonchalant to the activities of the Federal administration which is involved
in the daily massacre of our young men and women, selected elders and
eventually all and sundry? It is also time to mobilize International NGO to
bring to an end all the atrocities being committed by the evil-few in Abuja
against millions of our innocent people. We need international support to
compile an accurate data on the dead, maimed, wounded, displaced and missing in
the North-East Zone especially Borno State and Yobe State and now other
Northern States for payment of full compensation for the loss of life and
property. We need the Red Cross to help us set up an efficient medical and
ambulance services etc. We need the services of other international organisations
such as UNICEF to assist us trace the whereabouts of our abducted children and
return them to their parents. They should also assist us to rehabilitate all
those who have been adversely affected by the evil machinations of the Federal
administration and those evil-few around it. We also need the services of
appropriate NGOs to help us arraign all those involved in the genocide before
the International Criminal Court at The Hague! We urgently require the services
of all those that could help us achieve the objective of the UN Millennium
Declaration 2000 where all parties agreed viz “We recognize that, in addition to our
separate responsibilities to our individual societies, we have a collective
responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity
at the global level. As leaders we have a duty therefore to all the world’s
people, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the
world, to whom the future belongs”. Nigeria is a signatory to this Declaration.
WE NEED ONE ANOTHER IN NIGERIA
Setting
Precedent
Nigerians, this is the
first time we have collectively elected a citizen of this country from the
former Eastern Nigeria as a President. Dear citizens of Eastern Nigerian origin
please note that this Federal administration under your son is giving you a
very bad name! He takes wrong decisions and seems to be heading us to the
abyss. Let’s therefore team up to save our freedom, dignity and rights. The
issue now is not between North and South or Northern Nigeria vs Eastern Nigeria
or Western Nigeria. We must save our communities, State and Nigeria from the Hitler-like
evil-mindedness of a few. Let me remind ourselves that when Hitler walked out
of the 1938 Olympics because a Blackman was winning all his events, humanity
pretended it did not notice the beginning of genocide; when he started tracking
and killing the Jews, it talked glibly about it as if it did not concern us; when
he embarked on his racial cleansing, humanity then began to shiver, but it was
too late to avert disaster that engulfed our world. The 2nd World
War became a reality! We have the duty not to allow our country to be taken to
the abyss! We should always condemn any action by any group of people that
would set our communities and nation aflame. One is quite sure that if you had
condemned the cold-blooded murder of political and military leaders of Northern
and Western Nigerian origins in the night of 15 January, 1966 by your sons it
would not have led to the subsequent massacre of the innocent and the Nigerian
Civil War. We should never be silent or tolerant of such action by anybody. We
have the duty not to be nonchalant or dormant on the fundamentals of our life. We
should never take any ethnic group however small or unorganized for granted!
The Federal
administration under present leadership has truly become absurd in its approach
to vital decision makings as it could be seen in its declaration of State of
Emergency and the deployments of the Armed Forces! How could such decisions be
made without Exit strategies? The administration should know that declaration
of State of Emergency is a very serious affair requiring proper analysis on all
items of its Check-list. Nigerians are wondering why the administration has not
yet declared a State of Emergency on FCT Abuja in view of the numerous
explosions attributed to phantom Boko-Haram, one at Eagle square on the 50th
Independence anniversary and others at United Nations Headquarters, Nigeria
Police Force Headquarters, ThisDay offices etc. and terrorist attack at SSS
Headquarter since the administration did declare such on Adamawa State where
there was not a single incident of explosion! Perhaps this would happen soon;
the absurdity of the administration’s conflict resolution is such that it is
wise for Nigerians and foreigners residing in Abuja to braze up for a
Declaration of a State of Emergency on Abuja in view of another carnage there
at Nyanya District a few days ago! God help us! We seem to be led by a bunch of
‘HuHun-ma-ahun’ (courtesy of Kwankwasiyya which is
being led by the one and only Dan Musa who was the former Minister of Defence)
Let me say,
on the final note, with all seriousness that each and every one of us whatever
is our religious or ethnic background and regardless of where we were born,
needs this country, Nigeria, for self-actualisation and greater possibility.
The various ethnic groups too by their individual traits require the space and
the great population of this country; such ethnic group as Fulani, who are
nomadic by vocation, require pasture and grains for their cattle; the Hausa and Igbos require further reach to
fulfil their commercial ambition; some other Nigerians e.g. Yorubas require
higher job opportunities for employment and profits that should exist in a
united Nigeria; the aristocratic Kanuri/Shuwa who are presently under siege
need the vocal amongst us to save them from further destruction by deliberately
recruited murderers embedded in our traditional Defence and Security
forces/organisation; and other groups would like expanding markets for their
yams (the Tiv/Munci) and other farm produce far beyond the boundaries of their
domains. Quite a number of us should simply be happy to have an erosion-free
area where we could build houses and offices of our desire and enjoy the
liberty to partner with persons of our choice regardless of primordial divides!
Even my father who by today’s standard could be said to be untutored fully
realised the need to seize the opportunities a greater Nigeria offered him from
the 1920s. His cattle business and commercial activities were spread to all the
big towns in Eastern Nigeria operating from Adamawa and northern Cameroon. So
let us please sort ourselves out and stop at all levels wicked leaders from
venting their evil hearts and committing genocide against fellow Nigerians. We
must not ‘walk together’ with the evil-few especially those located in Abuja.
Our late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo once said something to the effect that the consequences of breaking up of Nigeria
would be too traumatic to even be contemplated. We all should therefore
perish the thought of Nigeria falling apart. Let’s enjoy the opportunities Nigeria
offers to all!
Fellow good
people of Nigeria, we must now seek the intervention of the international
community, NGOs and all to save us from the evil before us! Mother Nigeria, the
leader of the Black race, is on the verge of disaster. The matter concerns all
of us; we must save it and save ourselves!
Fellow Governors
and Citizens of the North, we must face the daunting challenges of security and
development before us; we must face them squarely and must not remain dormant. In
addition to the aforementioned courses of action, should we not, after due
consultation with the families of the victims of the atrocities and appropriate
members of various communities, consider a declaration of Northern Nigerian
Amnesty to the culprits and consequently squarely address all other matters
connected with the Amnesty and Boko-Haram syndrome? It is my sincere opinion
that the Federal administration has no plan and Exit strategy for the
Boko-Haram disaster! Northern Nigeria is on its own. I am glad to state
categorically that so far there has never been a single Adamawa person caught
involving himself/herself in Boko-Haram; we have ensured that we have been
doing everything possible to reduce the poverty and the frustration facing the
youths in our State. Furthermore, let us all pledge to support maximally all
those who have been adversely affected by ‘Boko-Haram’ to sue the Federal
administration to Court for full compensation for any loss of life and property
as per existing Laws of Nigeria including those enacted from 1915. Enough of
impunity and induced calamity by the Federal Administration. We should in
addition launch a Trust Fund to effect this with donations
coming from all and sundry however big or small is the donation.
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