The Emene massacre!

Last Sunday in Emene, Enugu State, a massacre on a small scale of unarmed members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) took place tragically. According to reports online some members of the ‘proscribed’ Biafra nationhood agitators were having a meeting (some say Jewish praying session, others recruitment exercise) inside the Community Secondary School in Emene. And suddenly the Department of State Services (DSS) agents intervened and attempted to disperse the group and make arrests.

The young Biafrans put up a spirited resistance and that led to pandemonium breaking out. The DSS forces were overpowered and they called for reinforcements. Soon enough a detachment of the military, police and para-military security personnel arrived, armed to the teeth as if going to a war zone, engaging the IPOB boys in a bloody confrontation.

The forces fired live bullets into the surging crowd killing dozens and injuring scores! As the dust settled down the blood of the innocent Igbos flowed on the streets. Reports had it that some security elements were either killed or injured in the violent fracas as well.

The Emene massacre demonstrated yet again how not to quell a civilian non-violent gathering. It showed a callous manifestation of hate and low consideration for the lives of a strong ethnic group east of the Niger. Daily, provocative acts and actions tailored towards humiliation are dished out to a proud hard-working people.

Pray, why would the security goons (always) employ maximum force whenever issues arise involving IPOB members? Do they constitute greater threat to the so-called national security than the dreaded Boko Haram terrorists, armed and marauding Fulani herdsmen and other armed bandits terrorising Nigerians everywhere?

Whatever happened to the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of association, peaceful assembly and secularism in a democracy? Or has democracy in our land suddenly tranformed itself into despotism under Buharism?

President Muhammadu Buhari, in his presidential mediocrity, has demonstrated again and again his capacity to wage an undeclared war against ‘Biafrans’ in particular and Christians in general in Nigeria. Just two instances here would suffice.

Recently a Christian from Nasarawa State, Ali Silas Agara, was nominated by the President to be the Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC) only for his name to be replaced at the last minute with another man, Nasiru Isa, a muslim from the same state. Reports online had alerted us of subterranean moves and politics to drop Agara for a non-Christian for the post.

And recently too an incompetent President found it expedient to sign into law the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020 effectively repealing the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990. The controversial law (especially Section 839 (1) &(2)) among others empowers the Corporate Affairs Commission to suspend trustees of an association (in this case, the church).

Though the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) had angrily reacted to the presidential edict labelling it ‘satanic’ and thus condemning and rejecting same we believe that President Buhari is deliberately fanning the embers of religious conflict thus jeopardising national concord and cohesion by his sectional policies and nepotism.

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While he preaches peace and unity hypocritically his body language and actions portray him otherwise. When he advocates for equity and justice injustice and inequity prevails in the system he heads uneasily. When he claims to be fighting corruption graft-related issues abound assailing his regime taking in high-profile appointees.

When Bishop David Oyedepo recently rose and strongly condemned the CAMA nonsense a Buhari aide, Lauretta Onochie, took offense lambasting the Winners big-man for taking a hard position on the issue. She even asked Bishop Oyedepo to try to abide by the law or “manufacture” his own country and live according to his laws!

The Buhari dictatorial regime must respect the rights of Biafrans to freedom of association, assembly and mobilisation. The enemies of the state are found elsewhere up north. That is where the security priority of the state should be concentrated. Enough of the shedding of the blood of the innocent Igbos in their ancestral lands!

We hold in the final analysis that with this kind of hate-filled brutal clampdown happening often with impunity in our challenged national politico-social space the secession bid of Biafrans would become a reality sooner than later. And President Buhari and his security chiefs would have themselves to blame for quickening an idea, nay dream, whose time is now.

Author: SOC Okenwa…

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