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Petition

The Violations of Human and Civil rights of Ndi Igbo in the Federation of Nigeria (1966 - 1999):
A Call for Reparations and Appropriate Restitution, A Petition to the Human Rights Violations Investigating Committee, by Oha-na-Eze (The Apex Organization of the Entire Igbo People of Nigeria) for and on Behalf of the Entire Ndi Igbo, October 1999

by
Oha-na-Eze

THE VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

1. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

1.1 Preamble

1.2 Historical Background

2. OVERVIEW OF MARGINALISATION IN NIGERIAN POLITY

2.1 Preamble

2.2 Marginalisation

2.3 Origins and Victims of Marginalisation

3. VIOLATIONS OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI IGBO DURING

THE IMMEDIATE PRE-CIVIL WAR PERIOD

3.1 Preamble

3.2 Misplaced Aggression

3.3 Waves of Pogrom

3.4 International Law

3.5 Genocide

3.6 The Cost

3.7 The Refugee Problem and Federal Government Insensitivity.

3.8 Prayers

4. VIOLATIONS OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI IGBO DURING

THE CIVIL WAR

4.1 Preamble

4.2 Continuation of Genocide

4.3 Land War: Concentration on Civilian Targets

4.4 Bombing: Concentration on Civilian Targets

4.5 Scorched Earth Policy

4.6 Rapes

4.7 Maltreatment of War Prisoners

4.8 Hunger as Nigeria’s Weapon of War

4.9 The Final Solution

4.10 Prayers

3

5. VIOLATIONS OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI IGBO IN THE

IMMEDIATE POST-WAR ERA

5.1 Preamble

5.2 Social Strangulation

5.2.1 Physical Liquidation

5.2.2 Continuation of Starvation Policy

5.2.3 Mass Dismissal of Igbo Public Servants

5.2.4 Destruction of Education

5.2.5 Social Ostracism

5.3 Economic Strangulation

5.3.1 Denial of Pre-War Savings

5.3.2 Exclusion from the Commanding Heights Of the Economy

5.3.3 Abandoned Property Policy 5.3.4 No Reconstruction

5.3.5 Denial of Source of Livelihood to Poor Igbo Traders

5.3.6 Excision of Igbo Mineral-Rich Areas From Igboland

5.4 Political Strangulation

5.4.1 Exclusion from Political Apex

5.4.2 Political Manipulation of Census Figures

5.5 Prayers

6. VIOLATIONS OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI IGBO IN THE

LATER POST-WAR ERA - TO 1999

6.1 Preamble

6.2 Political Disempowerment

6.2.l Creation of States

6.2.2 Exclusion from Political Apex

6.2.3 A New Height in Marginalisation in Obasanjo’s Regime

6.3 Social Disempowerment

6.3.1 Employment in the Federal Sector

6.3.2 Racial Discrimination

6.4 Economic Disempowerment

6.4.1 Denial and Delay of Infrastructural Facilities

6.4.2 Petroleum Trust Fund: Conduit Pipe for Inequitable Resources Transfer

6.4.3 Discriminatory Industrial Policy

6.4.4 Revenue Sharing

6.4.5 Prayers

4

7. SUMMARY OF REMEDIES

7.1 Violation of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo During the Immediate Pre-

Civil War Period

7.2 Violation of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo During the Civil War

7.3 Violation of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo in the Immediate Post-war

Era

7.4 Violation of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo in the Later Post- war Era

7.5 Grand Total Monetary Compensation

8. CONCLUSION

5

1. IGBO RACE IN NIGERIA

1.1 Preamble

This is a petition by OHA-NA-EZE Ndi Igbo (the apex organisation of the entire Igbo people of

Nigeria) on behalf of Igbo people (hereinafter referred to as Ndi Igbo) articulating some of the

many violations of the human and civil rights of the Ndi Igbo and other forms of injustices

meted to them by groups and/or governments in Nigeria from 1966 to 1999. We are by this

petition seeking reparations and appropriate restitution in compensation for the injuries which

Ndi Igbo have suffered (owing to these injustices and violations of their rights), restoration and

guarantee of all their rights, full reconciliation, and integration into the Nigerian Federation so as

to give Ndi Igbo the necessary sense of belonging as Nigerians to enable them give their best for

the overall development of our great country.

We have in this petition articulated some of the violations of human and civil rights of

Ndi Igbo and other crimes and injustices against us as only illustrative of the numerous

deprivations, discriminations and violations of rights which Ndi Igbo have suffered and continue

to suffer in our country. This petition, containing our compendium of charges, is organised as

follows:

1. Historical Background,

2. An overview of marginalisation in the Nigerian policy,

3. The violation of rights (the immediate pre-war period),

4. Violation of rights (the civil war period),

5. Violation of rights (the immediate post-war period),

6. Violation of rights (the later post-war period - ‘mid-70s to date)

7. The reparations and appropriate restitutions sought.

1.2 Historical background

Ndi Igbo are one of the three largest ethnic groups in Nigeria. Pre-independence non-politicised

census figures show that Ndi Igbo with a population of about 5.5 million constituting 16.6% of

the country’s population are the second largest ethnic group in Nigeria (Estimation from 1952/53

to 1991 population census, vide Table 1). Igbo land of South-East Nigeria is generally

recognised as the most densely populate land area in the whole of Africa comparable only to the

Nile Valley. For instance, an aerial survey (1989) gives the population density of Imo State at

700 people per square kilometre compared to 276 and 59 people per square kilometre for Niger

and Bornu States respectively. (Ref: In-Nigeria Profile of Agriculture Potential, Overseas

Development Natural Resources Institute UK 1989).

Ndi Igbo have common boundaries with the Igala of Kogi State and the Idoma of Benue

State in the North, the Edo and Urhobo in the West, the Ogoja in the East, the Efik and the Ibibio

in the South-east and the Ijaw in the South. Ndi Igbo are the occupants of the present Abia,

Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States. They partially occupy Delta State (7 LGAs) and

Rivers State (8 LGAs). Of the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, the five core Igbo-speaking

6

States make up one zone (South East). [LGAs – Local Government Areas].

Ndi Igbo have lived peacefully and in harmony with their neighbours, intermarrying and

doing business without any history of war. The Igbo Ukwu archaeological finding of Professor

Thurstan Shaw of the University of Ibadan and his associates (1976) [see An account of

Archaeological Discoveries in Eastern Nigeria, Faber Ltd, London] showed artifacts which

revealed Igbo association with the Hausa/Fulani since the 9th century AD.

Ndi Igbo are a dynamic people, democratic, freedom-loving and achievement-oriented.

They are ever open to new ideas and initiatives and are also adaptable, hospitable, egalitarian and

abhor injustice. It was, however, in the economic sphere that the Igbos were at their best in the

game of competition. In industry, commerce, transportation and services, Igbo businessmen

demonstrated unparalleled initiative. This drive is often misconstrued as undue aggressiveness by

other Nigerians.

On January 6, 1914, the British colonial masters amalgamated the Northern Protectorate

(later called the northern Region) with the Southern Protectorate (comprising the Eastern and

Western Regions) into the polity called NIGERIA. By this amalgamation about 400 ethnic

groups were brought into this state. The late 1930s marked the beginning of national

consciousness in Nigeria. Although early activists were Yoruba (Herbert Macaulay and

associates), those who spearheaded the struggle and sustained it until self-government in the

1950s and political independence in 1960 included educated Igbos, many of whom had returned

from United States filled with the ideals of American war of Independence. Dr. Nnamdi

Azikiwe, soon joined by other Igbo educated elite, was in the forefront of the struggle. He took

over the leadership of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroon (NCNC) after the death

of its founder Herbert Macaulay in 1946. NCNC was the only national party in the country, with

strong support from every part of Nigeria while the other parties were essentially ethnic and

regional.

However, Nigeria’s journey to nationhood, which began on such a hopeful note on the

wings of militant nationalism, was increasingly marred by an upsurge of ethnic irredentism. This

upsurge heralded the rapid ascendancy of regionalist and sectionalist orientation as a dominant

factor in the political struggle. Soon, Nigeria attained independence as a tripod of three ethnic -

based regions. But the flames of ethnic/regional mistrust and rivalry continued unabated, to

threaten a conflagration that could consume the Republic. The young state stumbled from crisis

to crisis until the military staged a coup d’etat and seized political power in 1966.

This background draws attention to two noteworthy points. One is that the history of Ndi

Igbo, like that of other ethnic groups in Nigeria, antedates the birth of Nigeria. Ndi Igbo are as

indigenous to this Republic as other groups. The second is that Ndi Igbo, like other ethnic

nationalities, have their cultural/political system and character traits. Our traditional republican

system encapsules a spirit of individual freedom, drive and fair play which seemed to predispose

Ndi Igbo more than many ethnic groups to easy absorption of the values of modern democracy

and demands of nationhood. It is no surprise that Ndi Igbo, embracing these values, are the most

widely travelled in Nigeria. It is also noteworthy that the first noteworthy public rebuke to these

presumptions of nationhood about Nigeria came to Ndi Igbo (through tribally-inspired sabotage

7

of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s electoral win of the Premiership of Western Nigeria, so early in the

morning of national political evolution).

2. OVERVIEW OF MARGINALISATION IN NIGERIAN POLITY

2.1 Preamble

Marginalisation is the most topical issue in Nigerian Polity in recent times. There have been

claims and counter claims of marginalisation from ethnic groups, States, and geopolitical zones

of the polity. It is, therefore, necessary at this stage to define the following:

What is marginalisation?

Who is the marginaliser?

Who is the marginalised and

When was marginalisation introduced into Nigerian polity?

2.2 Marginalisation

We define Marginalisation as the deliberate disempowerment of a group of people in the

federation politically, economically, socially and militarily, by another group or groups, who

during the relevant time frame wield power and control the allocation of materials and financial

resources at the Centre of the Federation. Therefore, it entails the apparent deliberate exclusion

of any particular group(s) by another similar group or groups from either having access to and or

taking due possession of common key positions and common resources, as manifested in the

political, economic, military, educational, media and bureaucratic realms. (In other words, the

five realms above could be seen as occupying commanding heights of any polity or society.) In

essence, for a group to marginalise the other, that group must of necessity, have a functional

apex control of combination of these commanding heights of the polity or society.

It is necessary to distinguish at this stage between marginalisation and marginality. The

two are liable to be innocently, but dangerously, treated as though they were interchangeable.

Adedeji (1993) has defined marginality as:

“The relative or absolute lack of power to influence a defined social entity white

being a recipient of the exercise of power, by other parts of that entity.” [Ref: In

Marginalisation and Marginality: Context, Issues and View points “ in Africa

within the World. Edited A. Adedeji].

Marginality, so defined, refers to the state of being peripheral, without attributing blame to any

particular external factor or marginaliser. Thus, a group, which for instance, by systematically

insulating itself from the forces of modernity (e.g. Western education) becomes peripheral in

terms of such indices of social development as enrolment in tertiary educational institutions, and

the supply of high level manpower to the system, and is appropriately described as marginal, if it

is outstripped in terms of those parameters by other groups, which have embraced modernity in

8

manpower development. Such marginal groups will be hard put to identify an external

marginaliser. The first step out of marginality is for the group to recognise that its status derives

from its relative underdevelopment.

Unlike marginality, marginalisation necessarily presupposes the existence of an agent,

group or groups, which possess the capacity to disempower others or systematically exclude

them from the seat of power, where the group’s decisions are made. In general, whereas any

given group can attain a state of marginality endogenously, endogenous marginality, for a group,

with respect to any given index of socioeconomic development derives, in the main, from the

dynamics of that group’s intrinsic or self-inflicted under-development. This lends credence to the

view expressed by a prominent Northern politician, Balarabe Musa (former civilian Governor of

Kaduna State) that the domination of power by the North has not bridged the gap in development

which exists between the North and the South of the polity since independence in 1960. In an

article entitled “The Tragedy of Power” he has this to say:

This is because the clique from the North which dominated and still dominates

political power, Is selfish, shortsighted, unpatriotic and corrupt, just like Its

counterpart In the south. It seems that the clique, in fact, wants the continuation

of the relative backwardness of the North for Its survival as a ruling class [TELL

Magazine No. 46, November 14, 1994].

The author of this article concluded that the backwardness of the North is due to her leadership.

This conclusion may also apply to many claims of marginalisation by some other ethnic

nationalities where in fact self-induced weakness in some attributes caused marginality in the

corresponding areas of public life.

It is clear from the clear distinction between marginality and marginalisation that the plight of

Ndi Igbo differs in kind and scope from the claims of most ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. In the

case of Ndi Igbo, there is no evidence of a deficit of attributes in any area of modern

development. But for other entirely different and sinister reasons, the abortive attempt at ethnic

cleansing directed at the race through a civil war has ever since transformed into an on-going

policy of systematic disempowerment in all sectors.

2.3 Origins and Victims of Marginalisation

The process of marginalisation of Ndi Igbo is about to run a full circle. It began in earnest with

the civil war which was concluded by Gen. Obasanjo’s marine commandoes. It has hit an ugly

climax with the most blatantly partial political appointments of President Obasanjo as elected

leader of the Republic.

The history of Marginalisation in Nigeria divides neatly into two periods:

the period up to 1960 and

the period since 1970.

9

In the first period, pre-independence, marginalisation was perpetrated against all Nigerians

irrespective of ethnic or regional affiliation by the colonial master, Britain. There were ethnic

and regional rivalries, but no group(s) had the power to marginalise the other(s). All ethnic

groups operated on a level playing field.

However, since 1970, the Igbo ethnic group has been jointly marginalised by the

Hausa/Fulani and the Yoruba groups. It took the intervening period (1960-1970) for the forces of

ethnic particularism, which had been artificially repressed during the colonial regime, to burst

forth, gather momentum, and culminate in a civil war in 1967 which ended in 1970.

By the end of the civil war in January 1970 the control of power and the dispensation of

economic resources at the centre had fallen absolutely into the hands of the concert of the war

victors - a combination of the other ethnic groups, major and minor. The capacity acquired by the

victors to marginalise the vanquished was total. Since then, in contravention of the official policy

of “no victor, no vanquishedNdi Igbo have been systematically disempowered in all spheres

and excluded from all top echelons of governance in the Nigerian polity, despite the popular

slogan of the Nigerians during the civil war that “to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be

done.”

A cursory look at tables 2a, 2b and 3 clearly suggest that (a) the instruments of

governance have been the preserve of Northern (mainly Tarawa Angas, Hausa- Fulani, Gwari

and Kanuri ethnic groups, so far) and Western ethnic nationalities (Yoruba). Ndi Igbo were

totally excluded from executive authority. The Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s civilian government

(October 1979 to Dec. 1983) tried to reverse this ugly situation by giving due regard to federal

character in the distribution of offices, but before this could take any root he was overthrown by

the military and the agenda of marginalisation of Ndi Igbo was put in place once more.

With the advent of civilian democracy, once more, in Nigeria in 1999 Ndi Igbo heaved a

sigh of relief, for they hoped that it would mean the end of marginalisation of Ndi Igbo. Dr. Alex

Ekwueme, an eminent Igbo son and former Vice President of Nigeria (1979-83) and one of the

founders of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), invited all Nigerians to join the party. General

Olusegun Obasanjo (Rtd) emerged as the Presidential candidate and won the Presidency on the

PDP platform. Ndi Igbo of the South East political zone voted for him massively, and he

obtained 70.29% of the votes cast in the zone. The zone was only second to the South-south

Zone which gave 76.39% of the total votes cast in that zone. His ethnic group, the Yoruba of the

South West Zone, gave him the least support and came last out of the six geopolitical zones with

only 22.3% of the total votes cast in the zone.

Despite these political facts and the provisions made in the Nigeria 1999 constitution for

appointments into the federal services to show the Federal character of Nigeria, it would appear

that the present government has thrown these principles overboard once -more, and is determined

to continue to marginalise the Igbo, thus reminding them that they were conquered and therefore

must remain second class citizens in Nigeria, 30 years after a civil war in which General Gowon

had declared “No Victor no Vanquished.”

10

3. VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI IGBO DURING

THE IMMEDIATE PRE-CIVIL WAR PERIOD

3.1 Preamble

We wish to believe that the setting up of the Justice Oputa panel on human rights abuses marks

the dawn of a new era in addressing rights abuses in Nigeria. The regime of Gen. Abacha readily

attracts attention as the era of worst rights violations partly because of the calibre of personalities

whose rights were abused but to a large extent, we suspect, because of the ethnic origin of the

persons involved. Condemnable as these violations are, they do not compare in magnitude and

essence to the atrocities against the Ndi Igbo during the pogroms that proceeded the civil war.

We earnestly hope as we present our case to the panel, that the extension of the period of its

mandate to cover the era of these heinous atrocities would not be merely “to fulfill all

righteousness.”

3.2 Misplaced Aggression

The pretext for the unleashing of mayhem on Ndi Igbo was an imaginary conjecture of a grand

conspiracy by Igbo race. This is untrue. January 15, 1966 coup d’etat was a purely military event

outside the knowledge of the civilian population. We denounce the anti-racial slander that the

massacres were provoked by this coup d’etat and by Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi’s Unification Decree.

The political crisis in the West in particular and the other political considerations that led to this

coup are well known. We have it on good authority that the 15 January 1966 coup was in fact a

counter-coup preemptive of another coup planned for 17 January, 1966. We also have it on good

authority that the main aim of the coup planners was the installation of Chief Awolowo, a non-

Igbo, as Prime Minister. Later accounts of the sad event have, finally, confirmed that the fact that

the leading politicians of Eastern Nigeria escaped executions was due to a miscarriage of coup

plan and the quick suppression of the revolt by the bulk of the Army, and not the outcome of an

imaginary Igbo conspiracy.

We concede that this coup was poorly executed and that because of the ethnic origin of

the persons killed as well as the eventual assumption of power by Gen. Ironsi (an Igbo) the coup

d’etat was capable of being misunderstood as an ethnic-biased coup organised mostly by Igbo

officers. We insist that the coup was purely a military affair and that Gen. Ironsi was not part of

the coup plan and was only invited to office by the circumstance of his position as the most highranking

military officer and the General Commanding the Nigerian Army at that time. We note

that there have been subsequent coups in our history (some were abortive, yet the ethnic kinsmen

of the perpetrators were not visited with pogrom). We also note that subsequent military

governments—all, headed by non-Igbos—used exactly the same command structure of unitary

system as Ironsi tried to do through the Unification Decree.

We contend that May 29, 1966 genocidal massacres are indefensible and unjustifiable.

11

3.3 Waves of Pogrom

We contend that what was supposed to be a revengeful response (the waves of pogroms of 1966

May 29, July 29, and September 29) to January 15 coup d’etat and Decree 34, was in fact a

grand plan of genocide against Ndi Igbo. In July 29, the ethnic cleansing which began with the

murder of Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi and over 300 military officers and men of Igbo origin escalated

into the massacre of surprised and unsuspecting Igbo civilians in many towns. Conservative

Police estimate of casualties was 3,300. Following assurances of their safety, Ndi Igbo who fled

the North as a result of May and July atrocities, returned to their Northern places of domicile,

only to be lured two months later into more bloody massacres on September 29. About 50,000

Igbos were killed in the orgies.

Were the killings genocidal in intention and execution? Yes. Many independent sources

clearly provide strong evidence. One is the report of the judicial Tribunal of Enquiry appointed

by the Government of the then Eastern Nigeria. A Justice of the Court of Appeal, Hon. Justice

G.C.M. Onyiuke, headed the Tribunal, which collected and collated evidence from 235 victims

and eyewitnesses. The second source is Nigeria’s political history, which has abundantly

documented the genocidal declarations of some leaders of Nigeria. The third is the petition of the

then Government of Biafra to the International Committee for the Study of the Crimes of

Genocide.

We therefore summarise the genocidal attempts under the following headings—

intentions, scope of the killings, methods, cost and character of the genocide—against the

illuminating guidance of international law and civilized behaviour.

3.4 International Law

According to Article 11 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime

of Genocide adopted on 9th December 1948, “genocide” means any of the following acts

committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group,

as:

(a) killing members of the group;

(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its

physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III of the same convention stipulates that the following acts should be punished:

(a) Genocide

(g) Conspiracy to commit genocide

(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide

(d) Attempt to commit genocide

(e) Complicity in genocide.

12

Nigeria’s efforts to solve political and other differences with Ndi Igbo have invariably employed

a combination of the measures listed in the above definition.

3.5 Genocide

3.5.1 Intentions

The public statements at the height of every political crisis have consistently revealed a

predisposition of other Nigerian leaders to ethnic cleansing as a solution to any differences with

Ndi Igbo. In the Northern Region, increasingly frequent threats of property dispossession and

physical elimination by its leaders against Ndi Igbo reached a crescendo in the sabre-rattling of

members of the House of Assembly in March 1964.

The Speech of the Minister of Lands and Survey, Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Gashash, was

illustrative of the unanimous view of members. He declared:

Mr. Chairman, Sir, I do not like to take up much of the time of this House in

making explanations, but I would like to assure members that having heard their

demands about Ibos holding land in Northern Nigeria, my Ministry will do all It

can to see that the demands of Members are met. How to do this, when to do it, all

this should not be disclosed In due course, you will all see what will happen

(Applause).

The situation in western Region was no less threatening. A booklet, entitled UPGAISM

was published by the Western Government. In it were displayed photographs of stores and shops

run by “Igbo traders in Lagos” and Western Nigeria were invited to accept the inflammatory lie

that these “(Igbo) strangers had expropriated Western land and the fruits thereof.” The

Government of Western Nigeria, like their counterparts in Northern Nigeria, “organised and

conducted a campaign of hate against (Igbos)” (Committee an Genocide, Ekwe Nche

Organization, Chicago reporting Complaint by Biafra Government to International

Commission of Jurists, 1969).

3.5.2 Scope of the Genocidal Massacres

The pogroms of 1966 registered the first full determination of Nigeria to carry out her genocidal

threats against Ndi Igbo. An outline of the scope is instructive. Besides the concentrated venom

of many ethnic groups of Northern Nigeria, many southern ethnic nationalities were also

involved.

On the involvement of rulers, Enoch Ejikeme, an Igbo businessman who lived in Katsina

for 15 years, told the Onyiuke tribunal “Round about 6 am. (on May 29, 1966) they all burst out

from the palace carrying sticks, matchets, daggers, axes, etc and all other dangerous weapons,

spread themselves all over the town, looting and burning houses and shops. Some of the NA

Police took active part, while others made no attempt to bring the situation under control...

While the attack continued, the Emir of Katsina, Usman Nagogo, the former Minister (of

13

Education) Isa Kaita, Musa Tafida Yar’ Adua, former Minister of Lagos Affairs, and Magajin

Gari, the Emir’s son, were parading the town up and clown cheering them up.

Mr. V. O. Ekwealor, an Igbo motor mechanic and motor transport owner on the role of

the Emir and his aides at Gombe where he had lived for nine years (1957-1966): “On the 1st of

June the Emir of Gombe was collected by plane for a meeting in Kaduna. On his return he held a

meeting of the councillors on the 3rd of June, which was attended by Waziri Jallo, the ex-Speaker

of the Federal Parliament, Mohammed Kumoi, Isiaku Gombnor and the village Heads. After this

meeting, at about 5.30 - 6 p.m. of the same day, as a person living in the centre of the town

opposite the famous -Jubilee Bar, Gombe, I heard noise from the Victory Bar. I saw people with

bow sand arrows machetes and guns shooting at the same time. Suddenly there was shooting on

my windows ... N.A. lorries were transporting many people from the interior into the town,

mainly hunters...”

On foreign involvement, another eyewitness, Dr G. E. Ezekwe, an Igbo Senior Lecturer

in Mechanical Engineering at Ahmadu Bello University, told the Tribuna1: “It was after the May

(1966) visit of the British High Commissioner (Sir Francis Cumming-Bruce) ... that I realised

how general must be the feeling among the English staff that the East should go out of the

Federation... I was stunned to hear them declare that the Easterners resident in the North should

go back to the East and apply their technical ability there...

On the involvement of other ethnic groups, another eyewitness, Mr Paul 1. Okwara

revealed to the Tribunal the plot behind the death train ride, reminiscent of the Jewish holocaust:

“…It was announced over Kano Rediffusion Network that a passenger train would be leaving

Kano for Eastern Region on 2nd October (1966), and that all those wishing to travel should

report on 1st of October at the Railway Station (the waves of pogroms of 1966--May 29, July 29,

and September). George, the Senior Trainer Officer who is a native of Idoma... He was a

member of Nasara Club, and attended all the meetings where it was decided to kill all the Ibos in

Kano. They drove in to the Loco running shed: it was the same sad story of massacre... (Also),

all the Ibo workers who had reported for duty were killed… (By) the 4th of October there were

still isolated cases of shooting and beating up of people suspected of being Ibos. We went back to

Sabon Gari, but the Yorubas we met refused to give me protection... I tried one or two European

friends but each of them swore they would rather die than give me protection, since they were

warned previously not to give any Ibo man or woman any protection...

Many Igbos who managed to escape from the far north were massacred in the thousands

by Idomas and Tivs as they passed through the Middle Belt on their flight to Igboland. The

Igbos met similar fate in the hands of the Yorubas in Western Region. In the second waves of

massacres during the civil war, the Binis and other non-Igbo military officers of Mid-West

origin led the murderous attacks on Ika Ibos (Blood On The Niger, E. Okocha).

On the involvement of the Army, we quote again Mr Paul 1. Okwara: “Exactly at 6.50

p.m. soldiers in green shirts and trousers invaded the Airport. I had a presentiment that

something bad was in the air... Soon shots were heard everywhere. That day was declared a

public holiday, and as usual many Ibos came to the Airport... One soldier ordered me outside

and asked me where I came from. When I told him I was a Mid-Westerner he told me I was

14

lying... what I heard was ‘About turn! Quick March! I heard a shot behind me and I fell down

and passed out...

...Somebody emerged from under the big table on hearing me. It was Mr Lekettey, a

Ghanaian who apparently was hiding from the savage soldiers. He was my uncle and I his

nephew. This strategy worked wonderfully, and when the soldiers heard us out, they shouted in

unison, ‘why have you been hiding? We don’t want to kill Ghanaians. We are after Okpara’s

brothers. We are going to finish them off. They took us upstairs, where we saw more dead

bodies, some of whom I recognised. Lekettey and myself gave them ten pounds for drink. They

drank until 6.30 am the following morning, 2” October. These soldier had some harsh things to

say about Okpara and Ibos: ‘Okpara was their arch enemy who must be destroyed... All other

Igbos must be destroyed.’ At 7 a.m. that same Sunday morning, they asked Mr Lekettey and

myself to get ready because they were going to show us how we have dealt with Okpara’s

brothers and sisters.’ They took us to the Railway Station in an army landrover and there we saw

a sight I would never like to see again till my dying day. Over 700 men, women and children had

been mowed down - they had been killed while they were waiting for a train to take them to our

Region. A few of the children were still creeping over their dead mothers, shouting, ‘Mama, I am

hungry; I want to drink.’ Some were trying to suck their dead mothers’ breasts...’ Next we were

taken round Sabon Gari. It was the same massacre of Ibos in Hotels where they had gone to

relax because it was public holiday. All the hotels were literally filled up with dead bodies. In

Sabon Gari, everywhere we went, we saw dead and dying Ibos. No tinge of compunction ever

touched the conscience of these soldier, who on the night of October 1 “joined their civilian

brothers to loot, pillage, and kill our kith and kin...

Methods: The methods of the physical liquidation were more bestial and gruesome than

the worst holocaust in history.

The Report of the International Committee of Jurists on Genocide recorded reports of

cases involving the slitting of throats and the chopping of heads in the market place, the slitting

open of stomachs of pregnant women and killing of unborn babies, and the plucking of eyes out

of their sockets. A witness to Onyiuke Commission, Mr. S. I. Udeng, saw in Makurdi how Igbo

victims “were buried alive in two deep wells. Each well was given a gun shot before it was

actually closed up with stones and sand.” Another, Daniel Agu, testified how one “Mai Yanka

took his two-edged sword and cut his (the Igboman’s head like a goat...and the man’s blood

spread all over our bodies like water spouting from a tap... we were all both horrified and

gripped by fear.” In Ikeja Barracks (Western Nigeria) Igbo captives were forcibly fed on a

mixture of human urine and faeces.

One method was a throw-back to the infamous Inquisition of the Dark Ages: according to

a witness, Dick Iwobi: “This punishment is one of the most dreadful ways of crucifying a person.

A heavy rod is tied across the back of the chest of the victim with the hands stretched and

secured firmly on the rod. While the victim may still be standing on his legs, he is as helpless as

a man nailed to a cross. In this position, they then proceeded to torture the victim by plucking his

eyes, cutting his tongue or cutting his testicles.

But the tormentors reserved the most horrendous dehumanisation for Eastern (mostly

15

Igbo) women. According to one witness (Erif Spiff) to the Onyiuke Tribunal: “Many (Igbo) girls

in the training school in Kano were collected and taken to the leper colony to live with the

lepers.” Many other young girls were abducted from their homes, workplaces and schools and

forced into sexual intercourse with sick, demented men.

3.6 The Cost:

In its complaint to the International Commission, the then Biafran Government estimated as

follows: “Properties and investments worth over thirty million pound, owned by the then

Easterners—hotels, churches, schools, shops, buildings—were damaged or set fire on after

looting.

This covers the cost in only narrow material terms. The psychological cost is far higher.

This sketch depicts the outline of the most heinous crimes in human history - crimes committed

with such absolute impunity that even dangerous vermins that exist outside the law seem to

enjoy more rights. The crimes were as wide in scope as the genocide against the Jews but more

sadistic and inhuman in implementation than the holocaust.

3.7 The Refugee Problem and Federal Government Insensitivity

Sequel to the waves of pogrom, Ndi Igbo in the North fled to the East, many of them maimed

and traumatised. They fled the North not because they wanted to but because they had to protect

themselves from the massacres that were undoubtedly genocidal in scope. Over 2,000,000 Igbo

were involved. This influx of dispossessed and destitute Easterners created an enormous refugee

problem in Igbo land. All appeals to the then Federal Government to assist in the rehabilitation

of the refugees yielded no results. The Federal Government made matters worse by refusing to

pay the salaries of Federal Public Servants who had fled to the East. The obvious consequences

of the fleeing of Ndi Igbo to the East include the loss of jobs and property. Many of the returnees

died under these circumstances. The Aburi meeting (and accord) of the Supreme Military

Council, the first after the July 29 1966 mutiny-massacre, and the subsequent collapse of the

attempt to broker a modus vivendi through the instrumentality of an Ad Hoc constitutional

conference agreed amongst many other things on the rehabilitation of the displaced persons:

“On employment and recovery of property, that civil servants and corporation

staff (Including daily paid employees) who have not been absorbed should

continue to be paid their full salaries until March 31, 1967, provided they have not

got alternative employment and that the military governors of East, West and

Midwest should send representatives (police commissioners) to meet and discuss

the problem of recovery of property left behind by displaced person” [Ref: C

Odumegwu Ojukwu, Biafra; Selected Speeches, Perennial Library, Harper &

Row, New York, Vol. 1 (1969)].

That the Federal Government reneged on this agreement was obviously in very bad faith. The

plight of Eastern Nigeria was worsened by the economic blockade of the Region by the Supreme

Military Council on 24 April, 1967.

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3.8 The 27 May, 1967 Creation of 12 States

The creation of the 12-States structure by Col. Gowon on May 27, 1967 was an act of

expediency aimed primarily at completing their siege of Ndi Igbo and frustrating their survival

and struggle for self-determination. It dismembered the Igbos as they were split into fragments

and put into different non-Igbo States. Thus, there were Ndi Igbo of Port Harcourt, Ahoada,

Ikwerre/Etche divisions placed into Rivers State, Ndi Igbo of Asaba, Aboh and Ika placed in the

Mid-West, some other Ndi Igbo from Azumini and Opobo put in Cross River State. The rest of

Ndi Igbo were isolated and land-locked into East Central State. This act was calculated to

paralyse Ndi Igbo and incite our neighbours against us.

3.9 Prayers

We demand that:

1. The Federal Government of Nigeria render a public apology to Ndi Igbo for the

genocidal pogroms of thousands of innocent unarmed Igbos killed in 1966.

General Yakubu Gowon had in September, 1992, taken a lead in this direction on

a personal capacity to purge his conscience. (Source, Champion Newspaper

26/10/99, pp. 30-31)

2. The individual perpetrators of the pogroms should be tried before courts of law.

3. Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria, as

compensation on behalf of the civil populace of Ndi Igbo for:

(a) Estimated 50,000 Ndi Igbo killed in the pogroms in the North

(b) Estimated 10,000 Ndi Igbo who were killed in other parts of Nigeria in

1966-1967, with the Federal Government’s acquiscence

4. Payment of Nl,000,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria, as

compensation on behalf of the civil populace of Ndi Igbo for:

(a) Estimated 30,000 Ndi Igbo who were maimed in the pogroms of 1966-

67, in the North and other parts of Nigeria.

(b) Estimated 2,000,000 Ndi Igbo who were psychologically traumatized in

the pogroms of 1966-1967 in the Northern and other parts of Nigeria.

5. Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria on behalf

of 2,000,000 Igbo refugees in lieu of Rehabilitation and resettlement.

17

6. Payment of N3.6 billion as compensation for properties and investments owned

by Ndi Igbo in the North (These include Hotels, Churches, Schools, Shops, Cars,

Lorries, Tippers, Buses, Homes) which were destroyed and looted.

7. Payment of

(a) Nl,000,000 as per a person as compensation on behalf of Igbo women for

50,000 severely raped during the war.

(b) N500000 as per a person to 50,000 assaulted and maimed.

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4. VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI IGRO DURING

THE CIVIL WAR

4.1 Preamble

After months of unbridled pogrom unleashed on Easterners, mostly Ndi Igbo by the Northerners,

those who survived the pogrom ran back to the East for their safety. About 50,000 lost their lives

and 2 million fled back to the East. With the threat of annihilation of Easterners in general and

Ndi Igbo in particular through economic strangulation still looming large, the Eastern Region

government declared the Independent Republic of Biafra on May 30 1967 essentially to protect

the lives of Easterners and non-Easterners who were still in the East.

Consequently, a full scale war broke out on 6th July 1967. The Nigerian soldiers moved

into the Eastern enclave to force the Easterners back to Nigeria. The war was largely fought on

the Biafran soil particularly Igboland, with enormous wanton destruction of life and property

including dislocation of people.

4.2 Continuation of Genocide

With these dislocations the Biafrans lost their food producing areas. The refugee problem was

soon compounded: food shortages, hunger, malnutrition, starvation, disease and death ran riot.

But of more deadly concern to the average Biafran, especially the Igboman, was the deep hatred

of Igbo race and the reckless abandon and total disregard for any restraints of war convention

with which the Nigerian soldiers pursued the war. They showed so much disdain for life and

property and destroyed everything in sight with so much glee that Ndi Igbo were confirmed in

their worst fears that the war was nothing but a continuation of Nigeria’s genocidal pursuit.

Most of the atrocities committed by Nigerian troops during the civil war were evidently

outside the legitimate demands of combat and conquest. Nigeria’s “Code of Conduct” for her

soldiers was a propaganda stunt designed to draw foreign attention away from the enormity of

massacres and scorched earth destructions being perpetrated in the guise of war. Most foreign

observers saw through this smokescreen in spite of the disinformation of Nigeria’s own

appointed and one-sided “International Observer Team” which never went behind the battle line.

We outline here some of the atrocities which mock the Geneva Convention and violated all the

Human Rights laws on war.

4.3 Concentration on Civil Targets

The Nigerian soldiers, in strict obedience to their genocidal objective of physical extermination,

concentrated their attacks on civilian targets. Indeed their war slogan, used in daily broadcasts by

government radio to motivate both the soldiers and the civilians, was an unabashed declaration

of genocidal intentions: “Let us go and crush them. We will pillage their property ravish their

womenfolk, murder their menfolk and complete the pogrom of 1966.

19

A survey of some of the massacres is revealing: We attach affidavits by eye-witnesses of

some of the wanton killings. We hereby describe a few—only a few—of the acts of inhumanity:

ABA: On entry into Aba, the Nigerian soldiers massacred more than 2000 civilians.

Susan Masid of the French Press Agency reporting this horrifying incident had this to say:

Young Ibos with terrifying eyes and trembling lips told journalists in Aba that in the villages

Nigerian troops came from behind, shooting and firing everywhere, shooting everybody who was

running, firing into the homes.

Another foreign journalist, McArthy William who visited the devastated area of Aba said

he saw the Federal Army move in. This eye witness account says: “The villages were strewn

with the corpses of the peasants caught unawares. The smashed bodies of children cast aside like

broken dolls, lay on the rain ditches running alongside the main street. The women, old and

young, lay huddled and dead among the wreckages, some with their hands tied behind their

backs.”

Thus, Susan Garth, moved by what she saw in Biafra, remarked: “We are all guilty of a

murder of a million children in Biafra.

In Ogwe the Newsweek correspondent describes how a Nigerian, Lt. Lamurde treated a

poor and lonely boy who went in search of his parents in Ogwe, Aba. This unfortunate victim of

genocide had his hands tied to his legs. The boy pleaded: “‘I am not a soldier. Sweet Jesus, save

me.’ This did not register any sympathy, instead Lamurde pumped bullets into his body...”

In ONITSHA, the 300 strong congregation of the Apostolic Church decided to stay on

while others fled and to pray for deliverance. Col. Mohammed’s Second Division found them in

the church, dragged them out, tied their hands behind their backs and executed them. This

Onitsha massacre was also reported by another foreign journalist, William Morris, in the Times

of London of Thursday, April 25, 1968. He wrote: The Hydes... tell a horrifying story of the

Apostolic Church near their home, where the congregation decided to stay and pray for

deliverance instead of fleeing from Federal advance...” One of the attached affidavits in the

Appendix (I i-x) - from Frank Chukwuma Ibegba, an eye-witness - records the Onitsha atrocities.

CALABAR: Rev. David T. Craig, writing in the Presbyterian Record of December 1967

(Scotland) gave more revelation of Nigerian acts of genocide under the caption of ‘Operation

Calabar’: “A group of Efik people (the local inhabitants) brought two young men in civilian

dress to the soldiers. The young lads looked like secondary school students. With the Northern

soldiers was an Efik-speaking soldier. It was his duty to question prisoners In the Efik language.

His job was to see if any spoke Efik with an Ibo accent. These two young lads did. The soldiers

took aim and they were shot on the spot.

UYO: On entry into Uyo, the Nigerian soldiers embarked on systematic elimination of

leaders of thought and their families in a scope reminiscent of the Asaba massacres.

OJl RIVER Killing of Hospital Staff and Patients: The Times of London 2nd August

1968 carried on pages 5 and 9 gruesome stories of Nigerian atrocities against Ndi Igbo. In these

20

it indicated that “in a hospital outside Enugu, the soldiers shot all the fourteen civilian nurses

who stayed behind and then went down the wards killing the patients as well.

OKIGWE: 30th September 1968: The Nigerian army that entered Okigwe, murdered two

delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegates, two missionaries, several

other relief workers and over 100 Biafran civilian men, women and children.

ASABA MASSACRES. Asaba was one of the centres of mass killings. The soldiers

lured out the civilians into an open field to welcome them. In a pre- meditated plan, they sprayed

the civilians with bullets, killing over 700 males. The Asaba massacres were reported in

Observer and documented in E. Okocha’s Blood On the Niger (Lagos, 1994). Jack Shepheredi

the Senior Editor of Look Magazine said in November 26, 1968 that “perhaps 8000 Ibo civilians

died when the Mid-West was ‘liberated’ by troops under Col. Murtala Mohammed. The Asaba

massacres were replicated in WARRI and SAPELE. General Yakubu Gowon, the then Head of

State, acknowledged this incident recently at an audience with the Asagba of Asaba (Daily

Champion, 26 October 1999, pp. 30-31). He did also acknowledge and apologise to the Igbo for

the atrocities, abuse of their human rights during the war at a function (Nigeria Prays) in Ebonyi

State in 1998. Massacre of all was a general pattern of Nigerian troops whenever they entered a

town.

A detailed and carefully documented account of the massacres in Asaba and the then

Mid-West is BLOOD ON THE NIGER by Emma Okocha (Washington, 1994) - an account

which a Jew, Naomi Siegel of New York, described as a “reminder of my own people’s travail,

the Jewish holocaust.

Emma Okocha concludes: “Throughout the week in scattered locations the

exterminations continued. Because it was beyond understanding, we shall close by inviting here

David Astor who on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising explained that ‘mass

exterminations are themselves related to lesser killings... We must learn more of the fatal fearful

process of thought which makes people feel not only justified but that they have a duty to destroy

others. We cannot tell what may excite this process of mass psychology. Its next form may not

be racial or religious but political as has happened before in times of revolution or civil wars ...

Indonesia, Asaba, My Lai, Pakistan... Asaba!” (page 72)

4.4 Bombing, Concentration on Civilian Targets

The testimony of Ndi Igbo that Nigerians have concentrated on non-military targets is well

illustrated by the following records which are intercepts of coded messages from Nigerian

communications revealing that the instruction to bomb civilian targets are official:

[1) “Co/Calabar/Ca: Aba Airforce base. Co (Calabar - You go straight to Arochukwu.

Do not allow anything to stand. Calabar Airforce Base: Roger All right, Sir. (Received

13.50 bra 30/5/68)

[2] Nigerian CO at Calabar (from) Calabar Airforce Base (to) Calabar CO Bombing

21

should be done on the fishing port area and all the areas of .Ikot-.rfi-at and Ikot

Offiong. Calabar Airforce Base—Roger All Right Sir. (Received 11. 05 hrs 23/3/68).

[3] From: Lt. Col. Adekunle (PH) - To NAF Commander (Calabar) NAF (Calabar) -

We will only do one mission because the bombs are not enough. Which is the important

one? Lt. Col. Adekunle (PH): Go to Azumini and Aba: Bomb the bastard civilians like

mad. (Received 10-30 his 18/6/68)

[4] NAF PH/NAF Calabar; NAF/PH.- What is the weather like? NAF/CAL: Fair, Sir.

NAF/PH: Ok, go and bomb Azumini and Akwete and follow it until the river. NAF/CAL:

Ok, Sir, Tiger-fighter bomber. NAF/PH: When you come back, the tiger should go to Aba

area. NAF/CAL: What targets, Sir? NAF/PH: The town itself. Chase them like mad.

They should run away. Received 09:08 hrs 18/6/68.

After the bombing of Aba on the 25/4/68, William Norris writing in the Sunday Times of

London on April 26, page 12, under the caption Nightmare in Biafra had this to say: “I have

seen things in Biafra this week which no man should have to see. Sights to search the heart and

sicken the conscience. I have seen children roasted alive, young girls torn in two by shrapnel,

pregnant women viscerated and old men blown to fragments. I have seen the ethingsandi have

seen their cause.- high sounding Russian Ilynshin lets operated by Federal Nigeria, dropping

their bombs on civilian targets throughout Biafra.

As mentioned in the intercepted messages, the object of Nigerian daily bombing missions

in the war is to destroy all civilian lives. Itu Leper Colony was razed to the ground by air attack

on Jan 23 1968 (International Herald Tribune of Paris 1st Feb 1968). On 21/12/1967, two

Nigerian jets bombed the heart of the residential area of Aba, killing 15 people including a

prominent medical practitioner, Dr. Augustine Onyejiaka. A foreign journalist, Walter Partington

of Daily Express reported on 23/4/68 issue of how 70 civilians died in a hit and run attack on

Aba by the Nigerian bombers. In Onitsha (November 19-24, 1967) massive bombing by

Nigerians targetted solely civilian institutions—Christ the King College, Dennis Memorial

Grammar School, Anglican All Saints Cathedral Onitsha, General Hospital, the Magistrates

Court and scores of various residential areas in the town.

4.5 Scorched Earth Policy

The famous order of the Commander of the Marine Commanders, Lt.Col. Adekunle, to his

troops to shoot anything that moves summarises the Nigerian military attitude of total and

indiscriminate destruction of Igboland during the war. As most of the affidavits attached here

reveal, this Scorched Earth policy was religiously implemented. The report of the International

Commission of jurists on Genocide observes (p.18): “A number of witnesses testified to the fact

that especially In the villages predominantly populated by Biafran citizens, there was utter

destruction of all structures for human habitation, livestock and farms, Witnesses mentioned

villages around Onitsha, Owerri and Nsukka where this method of extermination was extensively

used.

22

The policy also had the underlining sinister objective of the Final Solution a la Nazi. The

Report of the International Committee on Genocide records: “There are witnesses who testified

to the fact that in most areas where troops of the Federal Authority entered, peoples of Biafran

(most Igbo) origin were loaded on to trucks and taken out of the towns. It was explained that

these people were sent into jungles where the older ones were assembled and shot, and their

bodies were left to be disposed of by the wild beasts that roam the jungles. The younger men

were sorted out and posted to the units of the Federal Army where they were used as cannon

fodder in attacks on Biafran positions. It was testified to me that the children were sent to the

Northern region to be sold into slavery, and the women were made to serve in the camps of the

Federal troops, where they were ravished.

The area where this method was first used was Nsukka. A number of other witnesses

mentioned other places, such as Asaba, Onitsha, and Owerri.

4.6 Rape and Dehumanisation of Igbo Women

Some of the attached affidavits contain stories of rape and humiliation of women. Detective

Police Corporal in Police Headquarters, Onitsha, Frank Chukwuma Ibegbu, saw women being

raped on the streets before they were killed. In Lejja in Nsukka, Mr. Sylvester Mabubuattah

certified that they (the soldiers) busied themselves burning houses, looting peoples’ property and

raping women. The witness declared: “One Omeke family comprising eleven people was met

intact by the Hausa. They killed the husband and the wife of the family eliminated seven other

children and relatives of the family and carried away two grown up girls from this very family.

Till today, the whereabouts of these girls has not been known.” In Unwana, another eye-witness,

Samuel Inyang, deposed that in the village square “near the salga latrine, I saw five women and

eight children all lying down dead... each and everyone of the five women and three girls of the

eight children had long sticks pushed through their external genitalia.” This hostility, a part of

large-scale massacre of the villagers, was discovered after a five-day conquest occupation of

Unwana by Nigerian troops.

4.7 Maltreatment of War Prisoners

Igbo war prisoners received the most gruesome treatment from their Nigerian captors. The

International Commission reports one witness as being “the last of a queue of Biafran Prisonersof-

War who were having their eyes plucked out, and that he was able to run away with one eye

because when it came to his turn, an alarm was given of a Biafran advance and the plucker had

to run for his gun, thus making it possible for him to escape with one eye...

One of the factors that compelled Nigeria to draw a Code of Conduct for her soldiers was

international outcry against the reckless killings. Before proclamation of the Code of Conduct,

the International Red Cross had lodged protests with the Federal Military Authority in January

1968 and March 1968, with regard to the inhuman excesses of its army concerning treatment of

Biafran prisoners of war and civilian population. Even after the proclamation of the Code,

Nigeria’s International Observer Team had to admit allegation of “treatment of Biafran prisoner

23

of war in a manner inconsistent with the Geneva Convention.” It also admitted “some evidence

of the non-observation of this Convention.” (Report of the International Jury, 30). It was

Nigeria’s practice to kill her war prisoners).

4.8 Hunger

Nigeria’s famous policy that “starvation is a legitimate instrument of warfare, ensured the

existence of condition of maximum food shortage in Igboland through capture of the food

producing areas, wanton destruction of farmlands and crops, and obstruction of supplies of

foreign aid. Consequently, mass starvation and death became the order of the day in Biafra. In

Daily Telegraph (London) of 1st August 1968, a German doctor, shocked by the appalling

famine situation in Annang Province said: “I estimate that 30 percent of the children in Annang

Province will die from disease caused by malnutrition. Other doctors with more experience of

Africa that I put the figures as high as 80 percent.” The relief that trickled from International

Organisation into Biafra was insufficient. The International Herald Tribune (p.5, 12th July

1968) reported: “The supplies for Biafra are only a fraction of those stored in Lagos a waiting

distribution to needy persons on the Federal side of the battle fronts...” A minimum of 1,000

persons died everyday in Biafra because of hunger, according to the Committee on Genocide.

Besides deliberate denial of food, Nigeria also tried food poisoning. In November 1967,

the Biafran health workers and other scientists discovered arsenic acid in bags of salt, sugar and

tins of milk and tomatoes infiltrated into Biafra through the Mid-West by the Nigerian

Government.

4.9 The “Final Solution”

That all the bestialities sketched above have the character of the Final Solution is underlined by

the style of disposing of the dead. The Investigator of Committee of the International Committee

notes in the Report: “I had evidence from eighteen witnesses who mentioned themselves as being

eyewitnesses to burials From two of this number, I obtained the testimony that, especially in the

mass graves at Asaba, the wounded and sick Biafrans, and a few suckling, were dumped together

with the dead, and that during the sealing of these trenches with their loads of the dead, the cries

and the waiting of the sick, the wounded and the babies, could be heard from a long distance

away. In this testimony, It was also mentioned that, when these mass graves had been covered,

the Federal soldier, danced native war dances over them.

Evidence of conduct of the war in a manner inconsistent with Geneva Convention is

overwhelming. The International Committee in the Investigation of Crimes of Genocide carried

out exhaustive investigation of the evidence, interviewing 1082 people representing all the actors

in the dispute (the two sides of the civil war and international collaborators). After a thorough

painstaking research, the Commission concludes, through its Investigator (Dr. Mensah of

Ghana): “Finally I am of the opinion that in many of the cases cited to me hatred of the Biafrans

(mainly Igbos) and a wish to exterminate them was a foremost motivational factor.

24

4.10 Prayers

We demand that:

1. The perpetrators of the war crimes be tried before courts f law.

2. Payment of accumulated salaries and allowances due from May, 1966 to 1970, as well as

N100,000 per person, as compensation by the Federal Government of Nigeria for

unjustified inconveniences suffered by all Igbo who were forcibly displaced and lost their

jobs.

3. Payment by Federal Government of N500 billion as compensation for investments and

businesses owned by Ndi Igbo but destroyed in various parts of Igboland from 1967-70,

including Enugu Market, Onitsha Market, Aba Market, Oguta Market, Orlu Market,

Owerri Market, Umuahia Market, Nnewi Market, Afikpo Market, Otuocha Market,

Abakaliki and Okigwe Markets, Industries, Factories and Corporate businesses, by the

Federal Government of Nigeria.

4. Construction of at least fifteen (15) Secondary Schools, twenty (20) Primary Schools, one

(1) Hospital, four (4) Markets, one (1) Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)-

recognised Church, in each of the one hundred and five (105) Local Government Areas

of Ndi Igbo and Igbo-Speaking areas, by the Federal Government of Nigeria, as

reparation for the bombing of these targets.

5. Payment by Federal Government of N500,000 for each of the estimated 600,000 Igbo

civilians killed, from 1967-1970, as compensation for targetting unarmed civilians who

were not involved with war.

6. Payment of N500,000 per child as compensation on behalf of an estimated 900,000 Igbo

children who died as a result of malnourishrnent due to the economic blockage against

the Biafrans, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

7. Payment of Nl,000,000 per child as compensation, on behalf of an estimated 2,000,000

Igbo children who suffered permanent intellectual retardation due to malnuourishment,

from 1967-1970, as a result of economic blockage against Biafrans, by the Federal

Government of Nigeria.

8. A public apology and financial compensation at Nl,000,000 each by the Federal

Government of Nigeria for the unique and gruesome massacre of over seven hundred

(700) unsuspecting Ndi Igbo of Asaba origin in Asaba, who were lured to a reception and

massacred on the 7th of October, 1967, by the Nigerian soldiers.

9. (a) Payment of Nl,000,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria as

compensation on behalf of other estimated three hundred (300) Ndi Igbo maimed

in Asaba.

25

(b) Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria in respect

of 700 Asaba indigenes killed on the 7th of October, 1968.

10. Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria as compensation

in respect of an estimated eight hundred (800) Igbo civilians killed by Nigerian soldiers

in other parts of Mid-West State on 26th November, 1968.

11. Allocation of a special grant of N500,000 for the immediate completion of the

reconstruction of University of Nigeria, Nsukka and its entire library destroyed during the

civil war.

12. Payment of N1,000,000 per person as compensation by the Federal Government of

Nigeria in respect of an estimated 500,000 raped and savaged women during the war.

26

5. VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN AND CIVILIAN P.IGHTS OF NDI IGBO IN

THE IMMEDIATE POST-WAR ERA

5.1 Preamble

The Gowon regime offered the world a cheerful hope of immediate return of peace, speedy

reconciliation and purposeful healing of war wounds through its declared policy of “No Victor

No Vanquished” and “Reconciliation Rehabilitation and Reconstruction.” But the activities on

the ground clearly showed that the reconciliatory posture was a smokescreen behind which acts

of injustices and cruelty against Ndi Igbo continued. Infact the barrage of atrocities raged with

so much intensity after the ‘end” of the war that observers concluded that the Federal authorities

were continuing the war by other means and that the 3 R’s were indeed three S’s (Strangulation!

Strangulation! and Strangulation!). We hereby itemise some of the atrocities beneath the cloak of

3 R’s in the following three S’s:

5.2 Social Strangulation

5.2.1 Physical Liquidation:

Although the Nigerian Civil War ended officially on January 15, 1970, the Nigerian troops

continued to kill defenceless civilians in Igboland during the first few months of the post-war

era. It was during this period of ‘reconciliation’ that our distinguished Political Scientist, Dr.

Kalu Ezera, was killed by Nigerian soldiers. It was also in this peacetime that Col. Tim

Onwuatuegu was killed in cold blood by Nigerian soldiers in the domain of the First Division

commanded by then Col. Theophilus Danjuma (who incidentally is Nigeria’s Defence Minister

today). These two instances are only illustrative. The widespread murder violated internationally

accepted norms and ethics of civilised conduct of wars.

5.2.2 Continuation of Starvation Policy:

At the end of the war, Igboland lay prostrate, battered and devastated from the horrors of the war.

Its social and economic infrastructure was in utter ruins. Massive food shortages and serious

absence of medical facilities and services resulted in avoidable deaths. The destitution, famine

and deprivation in the first months after the war were more distressing than during the war. This

pathetic situation followed the insensitivity of the Federal Military Government. It rejected and

turned away sources of foreign help; South Africa, Portugal and Southern Rhodesia (later

Zimbabwe) and humanitarian organisations, perceived to have aided Biafra during the war, were

turned down by the Federal Government (Ref. John d. Jorre: The Nigerian Civil War-London

1972. p. 403). The Federal Government seemed to be continuing to wage the war by other

means, in accordance with its war policy that starvation is a legitimate weapon of war.

5.2.3 Mass Dismissal of Igbo Public Servants

27

By the “Public Officers (Special Provisions) Decree No. 46 of 1970,” thousands of Igbo officers

were denied reinstatement in the Armed Forces, Prisons and the Police, were denied reabsorption

into the Nigeria Public Service. In the Police Forces alone, 4000 personnel were dismissed. It is

on record that in what can be regarded as a symbolic gesture, a Police officer, Charles Mashie,

got his job back after he took his case to General Gowon who ordered his immediate reinstatement

in accordance with the declared policy, yet thousands of others (many of them are

still alive) lost their jobs. Besides mass dismissals, there was silent but evident policy of

exclusion that ensured that no Igbo man emerged in any commanding position in the armed

forces, police and other paramilitary forces.

5.2.4 Destruction of Education, Our Invaluable Heritage

Education plays a more critical role among the Igbo as a life source than in the world view of

any other ethnic nationality. Aware of this, the Federal Government tried though various

insidious means to destroy this heritage. University of Nigeria, Nsukka received total neglect -

and has, to-date, been subjected to a policy of benign neglect. There was also silent embargo on

new educational projects: during his first tenure of rule, Obasanjo established six polytechnics,

sited them all over Nigeria and located NONE in East Central State (Igboland).

The war-time technological achievements of Ndi Igbo were allowed to rot away. The

Federal Government took over Biafra’s war-time scientific outfit (which made such famous

inventions as remote-control bombs (ogbunigwe), refined petrol and petroleum products and

distilled wines and spirits, among other break-throughs) and stifled its growth.

A generation of Igbo youth, among them the most talented and skilled in Black Africa,

was thus suffocated by victorious Nigeria.

In expression of this disposition, churches and foreign Christian educational institutions

which owned and managed most of the post-secondary schools in Igboland, were not allowed to

return to provide sorely needed rehabilitation. Furthermore, other channels of education and

educational contacts were closed. The U.S Embassy was not allowed to reopen its library in

Enugu. The same fate befell the consulate of U.K. High Commission in Enugu.

5.2.5 Social ostracism

Throughout the length and breath of Nigeria, Igbo citizens were treated as pariah, helpless

objects of derision and discrimination. Traders and artisans had, like untouchables and third-class

citizens, to beg to sub-rent shops and occupational facilities from other Nigerians, generally

contracted as the legal and acceptable tenants.

5.3 Economic Strangulation

5.3.1 Denial of pre-war savings

28

The Civil War, writes Chinua Achebe (The Trouble with Nigeria, 1983, p. 45 and 46) gave

Nigeria a perfect excuse to cast Ndi Igbo in the role of treasonable felons and wreckers of the

nation. Some hard-liners in Gowon’s regime, successfully got the regime to adopt a banking

policy which nullified any bank account which had been operated during the war. A flat sum of

twenty pounds was approved for each Igbo depositor of the Nigerian currency, regardless of the

amount of deposit. It should be noted that only a microscopic fraction of Biafrans had Nigerian

currency, and even of this number only few were able to deposit their money with the Central

Bank of Nigeria representatives supervising the exercise. The injustice of the whole exercise is

obvious. An equitable arrangement, if the period from 30 May 1967 to 15 January 1970 during

which Biafra existed was assumed to be a period of illegality, would have been to restore all

bank accounts to the status quo ante-Biafra that is, to their balances as at 29 May 1967.

5.3.2 Exclusion from the commanding heights of the economy

The indigenisation Decree which followed soon after the arbitrary award of N20 completed the

routing of Ndi Igbo from the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy. Only two years

after the war, when Ndi Igbo were still in their economic doldrums, the Finance Minister Chief

Awolowo contrived to auction off the Nigerian economy to the “indigenes” via the so-called

Enterprises Promotion Decree (1974). The timing of the policy ensured the effective exclusion of

Ndi Igbo from ownership in Nigeria’s industrial sector, as they lacked the financial muscle to

participate. As the vanquished were dispossessed of what they had, the victors were deliberately

empowered through the banks to purchase our national patrimony.

5.3.3 Abandoned Property Policy

Before the war, Port Harcourt was essentially an Igbo town, the original land having been owned

by the Ikwere sub-group who had leased it to Britain. It was strongly occupied and developed

mainly by hinterland Ndi Igbo who owned most of the houses in Port Harcourt. Politically, Port

Harcourt and present Rivers State had been part of Owerri Province, until the creation of Rivers

Province around 1946, with Port Harcourt as headquarters. So there was that feeling by Ndi Igbo

that they were free to reside and pursue their life endeavours in Port Harcourt, as indeed all

Nigerians should be free to reside and pursue their livelihood in any part of Nigeria. Ndi Igbo

therefore threw their weight behind the development of Port Harcourt. The first Mayor of Port

Harcourt municipality was Chief Richard Nzimiro of Oguta, the second Mayor was Chief

Allagoa of Nembe while the third was Chief F.U. Ihekwaba of Ikwere. In other words, Ndi Igbo

were very deeply involved in the political and economic life of Port Harcourt.

When Port Harcourt eventually fell to the Federal troops, hinterland Igbo had no choice

than to leave Port Harcourt because of the fear of continuing genocide. At the end of the war, the

residents naturally returned to Port Harcourt to repossess their properties and businesses. To their

surprise, the riverine people, hitherto residing mainly in their creeks and islands domains, had

been instigated to come to the mainland and take possession of the houses belonging to Ndi

Igbo. This was made possible by the initiative of the Rivers State Government with the active

support of the Nigerian troops. Some of the Igbo landlords who went back to Port Harcourt to

29

argue their legal rights and insist on regaining their properties by resisting the possession of their

houses, were either brutally assaulted or killed. Shocked by this violation of their rights, the

property-owners turned to Federal Government to assist them to re-possess their houses.

The Abandoned Property Issue remained unresolved until the overthrow of General

Gowon.

Upon the accession to power by General Murtala Muhammed, he set up the Col. S. F.

Daramola Panel (September, 1975) to look into the issue. Many Igbo felt that General Murtala

would be more humane than his predecessor because of his revolutionary utterances. The

decision of Murtala’s government as announced on 3rd February, 1976, shocked Ndi Igbo. The

government arrived at the following decisions: The allocation of N14 million to enable Rivers

and South-eastern States to pay a flat rate of N500 a year on every building property confiscated

from the Igbo as rent arrears for a period of five years from 1970-1975. The Federal and State

governments were to purchase compulsorily some of the building properties concerned for their

respective use [Ref: “Former rulers found Guilty” Lagos Daily Times, February 4 1976, p 31.

The remaining ones were to be sold to the indigenes of the state who would require to pay a fair

price to respective owners. The government white paper also authorised the Rivers and Southeastern

State which they have had to face since the end of the war. Those who dared return to

claim their homes after the war were killed and buried in mass graves.

The Ikwerre Aros live as refugees in their own country, another arrow at the conscience

of the nation, another reminder that Ndi Igbo do not live on the lee side of the law.

5.3.4. No Reconstruction

The ‘R’ for Reconstruction was, like all the other Rs, meant to deceive the outside world. No

reconstruction of any facility - schools, road, health institution, communication network or any

other infrastructural works - was undertaken by the Federal Government. The signal which the

Federal Government and the rest of Nigeria pointedly gave to the defeated distressed Igbo people

was “Good for you. Stew in your juice” - in spite of their loud rhetorics about reconciliation. The

Administrator of East Central State, Mr. Ukpabi Asika, announced a conservative estimate of

400 million for reconstruction of war damages. The Federal Government did not release any

substantial share because it claimed that it had no money. Yet, within the same period, the then

head of the military Government, General Gowon, announced that revenue was not a problem for

Nigeria (because of the oil boom), was lavishing money aids on foreign countries, and was

spending colossal sums on preparations for the hosting of Festac. Evidently, the denial of

economic reconstruction help to war-torn Igboland was prompted by reasons other than poor

treasury.

5.3.5 Denial of source of livelihood to poor Igbo traders

The 1971 Federal government ban on the importation of second hand clothing and stockfish was

calculated to throw the ordinary Igbo masses whose livelihood depended on the petty trade into

30

penury and disarray.

5.3.6 Excision of Igbo Mineral-Rich Areas from Igboland and Neglect of Mineral Finds in

Igbo Areas

Through boundary adjustment, some mineral - rich areas of Igbo land were transferred to Rivers

and former Cross Rivers State (now Akwa Ibom area). As the TSM (October 4, 1993) reported,

the Obasanjo regime in its boundary adjustment exercise in 1976, pushed the Ndoni/Egbema

area and parts of Ndoki South of the Imo River, which harbour the highest petroleum deposits in

Nigeria, into Rivers State.

Besides this, the Federal Government ignored, as a non-issue, mineral finds within

Igboland (probably because the sites could not be merged with non-Igbo areas). Oil find in

Nsukka area by SAFRAP (a Federal Oil Company) was sealed up with the expulsion of the

Company during the war, and to date the Federal Government has not ordered resumption of

activities. Natural Gas find in Ugwuoba, the largest deposit in Nigeria, has been sealed up as

strategic reserve.

5.4 Political Strangulation

5.4.1 Exclusion from Political Apex

With the exception of the Administrator of East Central State, Mr. Ukpabi Asika (1967-1975)

Ndi Igbo had no representation in all the political and security organs which constituted the apex

of political authority - Supreme Military Council and Security Council. Igbo “citizens” were to

be seen, not heard.

5.4.2 Political Manipulation of Demographic Figures

A survey of Nigerian demographic exercises revealed a studied attempt to depress the population

of Igbo race Lithe two other major ethnic groups.

In the 1952-53 non-politicised census (Table 1), organised by the British, lVdi.rgLio

rated the second largest ethnic group - and this, in spite of the fact, as the British themselves

admitted, Ndi Igbo were under-counted by 10-15% because of two factors (the unhealed

alienation of the people as a result of the Aba riots and the general fear of taxation). Ndi Igbo

suffered the same under- enumeration in 1963 census.

But from this period, political manipulation of census figures, to inflate the population of

the North and the Yorubas of the West, and to reduce the population of Igbos, has become a

standard practice. Table I points up certain absurdities:

(i) the phenomenal rabbit-like increase of the population of the Northern tribes and

31

West’s Yoruba, as against the growth performance of the population of Ndi Igbo.

(ii) the increasing reduction of Igbo race to a minority ethnic group. Compare, for

example, the demographic growth of two groups, Igbos and Yorubas. Figures in

Table 1 show that the population of Igbos in Eastern Nigeria decreased from

17.16% in 1952/53, to 13.48% in 1991, of the total population of Nigeria. This

represents a decrease of about 3.68% over a period of 38 years, a decrease of

0.10% per year. Therefore, in 1999, the figure is projected to decrease by

12.68%.

In the same period, the population of the Yorubas in Western Nigeria (including Lagos State)

increased from 16.00% in 1952/53 to 17.60% in 1991, of the total population of Nigeria. This

represents an increase of about 3.88% over a period of 38 years - an increase of about 0.05 =

0.1% per year. Therefore, in 1999, the figure is projected to increase by 20.68%.

5.5 Prayers

We demand:

1. A restoration of all Igbo land carved into Rivers State and Akwa Ibom State, by

re-delineation of State boundaries, and to incorporate into the appropriate Igbo

States all Igbo towns exercised from such States during the creation of States.

2. Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria as

compensation on behalf of 10,000 Igbo civilians and Biafran soldiers who

surrendered and were killed within three months after the official declaration of

the end of the war on 15 January, 1970.

3. A restoration of all bank accounts of the Igbo, with accrued interest, who had

been operating account within Biafra, as at 29th May, 1967, by the Federal

Government of Nigeria.

4. Payment of an average of N300,000 per adult Igbo, by the Federal Government of

Nigeria, as compensation to two and half million adult war survivors, for either

underpayment of a flat rate of C20 to depositors in 1970, irrespective of their war

savings between 29th May, 1967 – 15th January, 1970, or non-payment of even the

flat rate because of difficulties of access to CBN representatives.

5. Payment of N900 billion as compensation to Ndi Igbo, by the Federal

Government of Nigeria, for the willful damage to their purchasing power, as a

result of the flat rate P-20 payment and other savings irrespective of the amount in

1970, which gravely damaged their ability to compete fairly with other Nigerians

in purchase of assets during the indigenisation exercise (1974 Enterprises

Promotion Decree) and in all other spheres of the economy.

32

6. Payment of accumulated salaries and allowances due from 15th January, 1970 to

date, to all public officers; reinstatement of displaced Igbo public officers; and

formal disengagement of those not re-instated (including the payment of their

retirement benefits) as the case may be, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

7. Payment of accumulated salaries and allowances due from 15th January, 1970 to

date, to all Igbo Military, Police and other para-military officers who were

displaced as a result of the pogroms; re- instatement or formal disengagement of

those not re-instated (including the payment of their retirement benefits) as the

case may be, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

8. For equity and balance, the creation of at least one more State and at least

additional 50 Local Government Areas in the South-East Zone.

9. The repossession by Ndi Igbo of their properties which were compulsorily

acquired in contradiction of the provisions of the 1963 Constitution, Section 31

(1), No. 20, which was in operation at that time, by the Rivers State Government,

Cross River State Government, and the Federal Government of Nigeria after the

Civil War.

10. Payment of rentable values including the interests thereof from 1970 until the

repossession of these properties by their rightful owners by the appropriate

Governments and other parties for properties compulsorily acquired.

11. Payment of N500,000 per child by Federal Government of Nigeria in respect of

an estimated 250,000 Igbo children who died immediately after the war as a result

of the continuation of the starvation policy.

33

6. VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF NDI IGBO IN THE

LATER POST-WAR EPA (MID-SEVENTIES TO DATE)

6.1 Preamble

From the pattern of marginalisation of Ndi Igbo in distribution of employment and infrastructure

since the end of post-war “reconstruction” to date, it seems that there is in place an unwritten

policy of total disempowernment of Ndi Igbo in economic, political, military, bureaucratic,

social and media spheres. The undeclared policy seems to enforce total exclusion of Ndi Igbo

from all sensitive posts. Observed persistent pattern of appointments confirms the allegation that

exclusion from high military command should last for at least fifty years from the end of the civil

war (30 years after the civil war, army has not produced a high-ranking Igbo officers considered

fit and safe to head a division).

Our constitution (1979, 1999) are most eloquent on administration of equity and justice in

distribution of rights. Decree No. 34 of 1996 make elaborate provisions on equitable distribution

of jobs and facilities. Under the fundamental objectives and directive principles of State policy,

1999 Constitution, Section 14. 3) states that “the composition of the Government of the

Federation or any of its parts and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner

as to reflect the Federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and

also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of

persons from a few ethnic or Other sectional groups in that Government or any of its agencies.

Pursuant to the above provision, the Federal Character Commission, which was set up, worked

out a guideline which provides that:

at the national level the indigene,, of a state sl7all constitute not less than 2.5%

and not more than 3% and the indigenes of a zone sl7all constitute not less than

15% and not more than 18%.

The distribution of employment and facilities in major sectors will show a consistent

violation of the Federal Character provisions and a pattern of disempowerment against Ndi Igbo.

6.2 Political Disempowerment

6.2.1 States Creation

The process of marginalisation of Ndi Igbo was ab initio built into a gross injustice perpetrated

through the creation of states and local governments, as they are the basic units of sharing of

Federal amenities. The official mind-set of preemptive malice and genocidal siege strategy,

which prompted the maiden national exercise of war-winning12-states structure of 1967, has

apparently continued to guide subsequent exercises. Accordingly, Ndi Igbo of South East zone

who rank in population with the Yoruba of South West zone and Hausa/ Fulani of North

West zone have continued to be allocated a number of states pointedly lower than the

shares of these zones.

34

At present, the table below summarises the distribution of states and local governments

among the six geopolitical zones in the country.

State and Local Government Area Distribution Amongst the Geo-political Zone.

S/ NO ZONE NO. OF STATES NO. OF LOCAL

GOVERNMENTS

1

2

3

4

5

6

North-Central

North-East

North-West

South-West

South-South

South-East

6 (16.67%)

6 (16.67%)

7 (19.44%)

6 (16.67%)

6 (16.67%)

5 (13.89%)

116 (15.19%)

110 (14.36%)

181 (23.69%)

138 (18.01%)

127 (16.58%)

94 (12.27%)

Total 36 766

Ndi Igbo have 5 States and 94 Local government areas, out of 36 States and 766 Local

government areas. Clearly, Ndi Igbo of South East zone have the lowest number of states and

local government areas, yet the zone is by no means the least populated. From being one of the

three main racial groups in Nigeria Ndi Igbo are being progressively reduced through

geopolitical maneuvers and demographic manipulations to a minority status.

6.2.2 Exclusion from Political Apex:

With the exception of Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi, no Igbo man has occupied the political apex

of Nigeria (Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was merely a ceremonial President). Table 2a tells the story of

exclusion. Table 2b underlines the ethnic and regional character of this exclusion.

Two points are clear from these tables:

(a) Of all the ethnic nationalities, major or minor, whose members have

occupied the political apex, Ndi Igbo, acknowledged as one of the three

majorities in Nigeria, have lagged behind a distant last.

(b) Of all the former Ethno/Regional “Establishments,” the Hausa- Fulani/Northern

Regional Establishment produced 8 executive heads and ruled for 34 out of the 39

years, the Yoruba/West produced 2 executive heads and ruled up to the time of

this write-up) 31/2 years, the Igbo/East produced only one executive head and

ruled 6 months less than one, year! Table 3, illustrating the pattern of distribution

of other top political posts below the apex - governors and ministers - establishes

35

a similar truth.

6.2.3 New Heights in Marginalisation (Obasanjo regime):

If the history of skewed appointments since independence leaves any one in doubt about the

emergence of a pattern, the Obasanjo regime has cleared such doubts. No regime has betrayed so

much disdain for the rights of Ndi Igbo in its appointments as the Obasanjo regime. We review

the appointment so far.

i National Security Council: -

South West (Yoruba) 4 (including the President)

North Central 3

North East 2 (including Vice-President)

North West 2

South South 1

South East (Igbo) 0

The absence of any person from the South-East zone contravenes section 14(3) of the

1999 constitution, especially as paragraph (1) of section 25 of part 1.1 3rl schedule of the 1999

constitution dealing with the composition of the National Security Council provides that two

additional members may be appointed to the National Security Council at the President’s

discretion.

ii. Armed Forces:

The South East does not presently have any Major-General or the ranks above it in the Nigerian

Army, or the equivalent rank in the Nigerian Air Force and the Nigerian Navy and therefore,

cannot produce any of the Service Chiefs. Moreover, the number of officers of South-east zone is

far short of the one sixth of the total as required by Section 14(3) of the 1999 constitution.

iii. Nigeria Police:

Out of 16 top Police officers, viz, IG, DIGS & AIGS, there is only one AIG of South-East origin,

contrary to the constitutional requirements in Section 14(3).

Also, the South-East Zone under the present structure of the Nigeria Police Force, would

appear to be a colonised territory because:

Anambra State Command reports to the AIG based in Benin (South-south zone).

Enugu State Command reports to the AIG based in Makurdi (North- central zone).

Abia, Ebonyi and Imo States Commands report to the AIG in Calabar (South-south

zone).

There is need for the zonal structure of the Nigeria Police Force to be changed so that the

36

Police State Commands in the South East Zone constitute its own zone with its zonal office

based in the South-East zone, to which all the state commands of the 5 South Eastern States will

report, as is the arrangement in other geopolitical zones.

iv. Allocation of Ministries

We quote the protest of South East Zone of ruling Peoples Democratic Party:

We note that in the allocation of Portfolios to the Ministers appointed, there is a

gross imbalance against the South-East Zone in the number and importance of the

portfolios. Persons from the South- East Zone were given 3 Cabinet Ministerial

positions, which is the lowest number of all the Zones, and 4 Ministers of State.

For comparative purposes, it may be noted that

South-West has 5 Cabinet Ministers (excluding Petroleum under The President) and 4

Ministers of State.

North-West has 6 Cabinet Ministers and 4 Ministers of State.

North-Central has 4 Cabinet Ministers and 3 Ministers of State.

North-East has 4 Cabinet Ministers and 4 Ministers of State.

South-South has 4 Cabinet Ministers and 4 Ministers of State.

It is a matter of regret that the President did not follow the zoning of ministerial offices

as approved by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Party at its meeting of 18th

May, 1999.

The zoning was as follows:

Group A Group B Group C Group D

1. Petroleum 7. Internal Affairs 13. Education 19. Science & Tech

2. Finance 8. External Affairs 14. Health 20. Information

3. Defence 9. Communications 15. Water Resources 21. Aviation

4. Transport 10. Industries 16. Solid Minerals 22. Youth & Sports

5. Works 11. Agriculture 17. Commerce 23. Urban Affairs

6. F. C. T. 12. Power and Steel 18. Justice 24. Labour

This would have ensured each geopolitical Zone getting a Ministry from each of the four groups

of Ministries.

But as it turned out the Ministries allotted to the various Zones were as follows:

37

North-West North-Central North-East

1. Agriculture and Rural 1. Commerce 1. Defence

2. Communications 2. Industries 2. Environment

3. Foreign Affairs 3. Police Affairs 3. F. C. T.

4. Solid Minerals 4. Sports and Soc. Devt 4. Finance

5. Water Resources

6. Women and Youths

South-West South-South South-East

1. Aviation 1. Justice 1. Culture and Tourism

2. Education 2. Labour & Productivity 2. Health

3. Information 3. Science and Tech 3. Transport

4. Internal Affairs 4. Works and Housing

5. Power and Steel

From the above, it can be seen that not only has the South-,East been short-changed

in the number of Cabinet Ministers allotted to it, but also from the Zonal distribution of

Ministries, it has suffered as no ministry from Group 8 was allotted to it.

The Igbo in absolute bewilderment are asking when they will be properly integrated back

into the Nigerian Polity and given their rightful position in the running of the affairs of their

beloved country?

6.3 Social Disempowerment

6.3.1 Employment in the Federal Sector

(a). In spite of this elaborate provision of the constitution that there should be no predominance

of a few ethnic or other sectional groups and in spite of the powers given to the Federal

Character Commission in this regard, some ethnic groups and some sectional groups have

continued to have predominance in share of employment at the expenses of some other ethnic

groups especially Ndi Igbo.

38

The deliberate under-representation in aggregation of States, effected by giving Igbo

ethnic group less number of States than its population merits is a predictable ploy to ensure that

Ndi Igbo will be permanently short-changed in the distribution of employment and other

resources. Today, Ndi Igbo (South-East) lag, in the distribution of employment and amenities.,

behind the Yorubas (South-West) and the Hausa-Fulani (North-West), the two other major ethnic

groupings with which Ndi Igbo rank in population.

The situation in representations and employments in International Organisations in

Nigeria shows a similar pattern of marginalisation. Even among the three southern zones Ndi

Igbo have been the worse off. It is a major part of the marginalisation plan and cynical divideand-

rule tactic that for all positions coming to the southern zones, those at the helm of affairs

have always contrived to head such positions away from the Igbo zone (South East) in favour of

the other two zones especially the South West (Yoruba) in furtherance of the marginalisation of

Ndi Igbo.

Admittedly, some other zones from the north are also disadvantaged in terms of number

of staff, but the reason, unlike the case of the South-East (where there is abundant and available

relevant manpower in all fields of human endeavour), is that the zones have a paucity of the

requisite manpower. In this respect, we had earlier made the distinction between marginality and

marginalisation.

6.3.2 Racial Discrimination

(a) Exploitation

The presence of Ndi Igbo, a diaspora people, boosts the population figures of their resident

States in census counts. Also, the contributions of the Igbo residents help the economy of the

States. Yet, the Igbo residents are denied the full benefits of citizenship in all such States in

many subtle but effective ways. Such ways include:

(i) Exclusion from the benefits of Federal Character Law:

Dispensations (such as scholarships and employments) which flow to States which means

explicit geopolitical basis of States, not tribes) are shared by their governments exclusively to

the indigenes, as against the stranger residents, normally Igbos.

(ii) Differential civil obligations:

Different tax assessments and school fees operate in favour of the indigenes, against the

detriment of “stranger elements”, mainly Igbos. The heaviest loser in this legal network of

exploitation is Igboland. In a country where population size is a vital variable in revenue sharing,

Igboland loses the head-count of millions of her children in diaspora during national census

(Igbos in diaspora constitute at least 50% of the overall Ndi Igbo population). Yet, she is made

to bear and suffer the grim natal obligations for these millions whom Nigeria denies the full

39

protection of citizenship and residency rights through the manipulations of “State of origin”

proviso.

(b) Discrimination and attacks in business

Igbo businesses suffer also from many other discriminating laws. In Katsina State, there was

unprovoked molestation of Igbo entrepreneurs in August 1999, resulting in arson on Igbo hotels,

restaurants and businesses. This was followed soon after by similar destruction in Zamfara State

following the islamation of the State. Again, all these acts seemed to enjoy immunity from the

law. The nearest which Ndi Igbo got to an official acknowledgement of injustice was President

Obasanjo’s reply to the letter of protest of Dr Orji Uzo Kalu, Governor of Abia State, in which

he expressed his satisfaction that Katsina State Government had taken measures against a

recurrence of such incidents. Officialdom was, as usual, coldly silent on compensation for

destroyed business or punishment of offenders.

(c) Society’s Scape-goats

Finally, the Ndi Igbo have always been the favourite scapegoats of the various ethnic political

and religious conflicts and clashes in the country. The property of Ndi Igbo are frequently looted

whenever there is group conflict, whether or not an Igbo is involved. Such conflicts and violent

clashes include

(i) The Kano Riots of December 1980 and October 1982;

(ii) the Buluta Maiduguri riot of 1982;

(iii) the Yola riot of February 1984;

(iv) the Gombe riot of April 1985;

(v) the Kaduna Religious crisis of March 1987;

(vi) the Zaru Religious Crisis of May 1988;

(vii) the ABU Religious crisis of June 1988,

(viii) the Bauchi Riot of 1992;

(ix) the Zango Kataf uprising of May 1992;

(x) the June 12 1993 crisis, etc.

(d) Protection of the Law

In all these riots Ndi Igbo were made victims as they were killed and their property destroyed or

looted. In the history of Nigeria, no government has ever offered compensation or any other form

of redress to Ndi Igbo even in few cases of perfunctory official inquiries. Ndi Igbo enjoy less

protection of the law than any other ethnic group in Nigeria. A blood-chilling celebration of the

license of impunity to the rest Nigeria in their treatment of Igbo citizens was the confident action

of the mob who hoisted the head of a murdered Igbo citizen, Mr. Akaluka on a pole in a macabre

street procession of triumph right in the presence of law enforcement agencies, in Kano, during

an orgy of days of Igbo racial-baiting and massacres.

6.4 Economic Disempowerment

40

6.4.1 Denial and delay of infrastructural facilities

The unwillingness of Federal Government to repair or reconstruct the bad infrastructural

facilities damaged during the war hardened into cold indifference or indeed opposition to the

existence of any infrastructures in Igbo land. The roads in the five states of South East have been

acknowledged by all observers as the worst in the Federation.

The attitude of the Federal Government is clearly illustrated by one incident. The Onitsha

market, the commercial knob of Nigeria with links of patronage to most states of West African

sub-region, was burnt down in a fire disaster. The evident value of this market to the economy

and foreign image of Nigeria should have been enough strong reason to move the Federal

Government to remedial action. But she remained indifferent. The Onitsha market traders’

request for federal assistance to Federal Government met with cold rebuff. The traders then

asked for a loan in place of grant. This was also turned down. But at the same time, the Federal

Government released mi.6b, more than the estimated cost of reconstruction of the Onitsha

Market, for the Kaduna Trade Fair project.

This incident is typical of Federal Government’s policy of cold indifference (indeed,

subtle but outright antagonism) to the infrastructural development of Igbo states.

The few Federal utilities in Igbo suffer total neglect, even when their appropriate

maintenance will have meant increased revenue to the Federal Government. Oji River Power

Station has suffered virtual abandonment at a time of critical power shortage in Igboland and

Eastern area. The Coal Corporation at Enugu has suffered the same fate.

The Federal Government’s policy of total neglect of Igboland has become so glaring that

some conscientious non-Igbo Nigerians have been shocked. Alhaji Balarabe Musa, an articulate

conscience of the nation, publicly condemned it. Recently, the Speaker of the Federal House of

Assembly, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’Abba, was moved by his experience in a recent travel on the

neglected roads of Igboland to observe: “It is very sad that... this (Anambra State) still suffers

federal neglect after 29 years of civil war... Let me use this opportunity to express our heartfelt

sympathy with Anambra State and South-East zone for suffering such a very serious federal

neglect...” (This Day, Nov. 22, 1999, p. 42)

6.4.2 Inequitable Resources Transfer Through The Conduit-Pipe of The Petroleum Trust

Fund (PTF)

The former Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, in his October 4, 1994, broadcast to the nation

promised that the resultant gain accruing from the new pricing of petroleum products would be

put into a special account to be “invested in Social and Infrastructural Projects for the Benefit of

Nigerian People.” The promulgation of the PTF Decree No. 25 of 1994 and the subsequent

inauguration of the Board of Trustee on March 21, 1995 fulfilled this promise.

The PTF’s distribution of funds to the States in the areas of:

41

(i) Roads, road transportation and water ways

(ii) Education

(iii) Health

(iv) Food Supply

(v) Water Supply

(vi) Other projects

can only be described as unequitable, and with total disregard of the geopolitical Zone II

comprising the Igbo States-Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo. Geo-political Zone III got

nearly twice as much of the allocation as given to the Igbo States, in all the areas enumerated

above, for no obvious reasons; while the other Zones were favoured in all the aspects above the

Igbo Zone.

Below are the figures supplied by PTF itself:

Zone Index to Composition of Zones

1

2

3

4

5

6

Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo

Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo

Jigawa, Kaduna,.Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara

Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Tarabe, Yobe

Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nassarawa, Niger, Plateau, FCT

Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Rivers

Source: PTF Sector Overview (March, 1999)

42

TABLE 1

SUMMARY OF ROADS

REHABILITATION PROJECTS

Zone Kilometers Zonal Percentage

Zone 1

Zone 2

Zone 3

Zone 4

Zone 5

Zone 6

Total

North

South

1,984.50

977.9

5,020

4,299.44

4,551.03

1,478.03

18,310.9 km

76%

24%

10.84%

5.34%

27.42%

23.48%

24.86%

8.07%

Source: PTF Situation Report on PTF Programmes, Vol. II (Dec, 1998)

TABLE 2

EDUCATION SECTOR – NATIONAL HEALTH

AND EDUCATIONAL REHABILITATION

PROGRAMME (NHERP)

TERTIARY SECONDARY

TOTAL NUMBER OF

Contract Packages

Federal State Federal State PRIMARY

VOCATIONAL

No. %

Zone

Zone 2

Zone 3

Zone 4

Zone 5

Zone 6

Total

North

South

10

4

13

13

13

5

58

6%

33%

-

-

12

-

9

-

21

100%

-

-

-

14

3

4

12

33

64%

36%

-

-

8

22

-

14

44

68%

32%

-

-

126

32

37

27

222

88%

12%

-

-

-

14

17

1

32

97%

3%

-

39

336

212

139

188

965

71%

29%

-

4.4

34.82

21.97

14.40

19.48

Source: PTF Situation Report on PTF Programmes, Vol. II (Dec. 1998)

43

TABLE 3

HEALTH SECTOR – NHERP

NUMBER OF BENEFICIARY INSTITUTIONS

TOTAL NUMBER OF

CONTRACT PACKAGES

Teaching

Hospitals

Specialist

Hospitals

General/

State

Hospitals

Health

Clinics

No. %

Zone

Zone 2

Zone 3

Zone 4

Zone 5

Zone 6

Total

North

South

-

2

5

1

2

3

13

62%

38%

-

3

9

-

3

2

17

71%

29%

-

-

19

-

19

30

68

56%

44%

-

-

47

-

13

-

60

100%

-

-

31

263

2

116

63

475

80%

20%

0.00

6.53

55.37

0.42

24.42

13.26

Source: PTF Situation Report on PTF Programmes, Vol. II (Dec. 1998)

TABLE 4

SECTOR: FOOD SUPPLY SUMMARY

ZONE AMOUNT ZONAL PERCENTAGE

Zone 1

Zone 2

Zone 3

Zone 4

Zone 5

Zone 6

NATIONWIDE

North

South

1, 432,629,978.19

792,359,989.20

11,945,11,806.46

2,322,171,532.81

2,198,878,675.21

1,039,920,544.49

19,731,080,510.00

85.3%

17%

7.26%

4.02%

60.54%

11.14%

11.14%

5.27%

44

A survey of PTF’s performance in all areas indicates that South-East Zone was placed a

distant LAST - in the lowest rung of the ladder This deprivation is not only an unjust exclusion

of one zone (South-East) from the share of federal resources, but also a cruel exercise in

resources transfer.

To add insult to injury, the South-East States are now to share the burden of liquidation

of PTF debt for development which was carried out in other Zones. On its liquidation at the

advent of the democratic rule of President Obasanjo, PTF was said to be owing N25 billion

(press report put the figure at N156.74 billion). The Imo State Governor, Chief Achike Udenwa,

in an interview with TELL Magazine of September 6, 1999 stated that at their last Council of

State meeting of June, 1999, it was decided “that this money owed by the PTF would be

deducted from the federation account, which means that all the States and Federal

Government will pay this debt.” What is most unjust is that the South-East Zone, which did not

benefit from this project, will now share the liabilities of PTF equitably with the lion-share

beneficiaries of the North-West, North-Central, North- East Zones!!!

So, what the preceding regimes perpetrated as an unjust exclusion of South- East Zone

was turned by the successor regime into a cruel RESOURCE- TRANSFER!

The present democratic regime of President Obasanjo has set up an Interim Management

Committee for the scrambled PTF. The Chairman, Malam H. Adamu, is from the North, five

members of the Committee are from other geopolitical zones, but none from the South-East

Zone. The Secretary, a civil servant, who is not a member of the Committee, is mischievously

appointed from the South-East Zone. The whole scheme is a grand plan to exclude the South-

East Zone, Ndi Igbo, from sharing in the benefits of this programme, which has benefited other

zones, particularly the Northern zones. Thus, in accordance with the policy of continuity of

marginalisation against Ndi Igbo by successive governments, the present successor government

of President Obasanjo is perpetuating PTF’s policy of Igbo exclusion through the Interim

Management Policy.

6.4.3 Discriminatory Industrial Policy

The law of comparative advantage which should guide the Federal Government’s industrial

policy in overall development of the Federation and assignment of roles to the zones has never

worked in favour of South East zone. In converse, the law is stood on its head whenever it

threatens to work to favour the zone. A few examples will prove this point.

(a) Iron and Steel complex and Petrochemical industry

Igboland has so far been cheated out of at least two basic industries, which should ideally have

been located in the zone, namely an iron and steel complex and the petrol-chemical industry.

Studies have already shown that Igboland satisfies the raw material, transportation, market, and

other requirements for the successful establishment of these industries. The artificial locations, in

the North and the West, of these industries have been calculated to deny Igboland of the usual

45

linkage and other opportunities.

(b) Niger River Inland Port and Second Onitsha Bridge

The most potent catalyst which Nigeria can forge for a big industrial leap-forward is the release

of the industrial potential of the Onitsha-Nnewi-Aba axis through the dredging of River Niger,

construction of an inland port, and construction of the long proposed second bridge across the

river. If the early establishment of the Cross River Export Zone and other facilities recommended

by recent Eastern Economic Summit is made, Igboland will reassuringly be hooked once again

into the national grill of Nigeria’s economic development.

Studies have confirmed the wisdom of this vision. But the projects which have been on

the drawing board seem to have received a quiet verdict of indefinite postponement.

(c) Federal Boycott: There is no single Federal industry in the South East Zone!

It is a situation of silent boycott of this Zone.

There is a depressingly deep cesspool of infrastructural destitution which has been brought about

by the abysmally low level of federal provision and maintenance, since the end of the civil war,

of roads, bridges, telecommunications, medical, educational and other facilities. Only lip service

was paid to the post-war slogan of “reconciliation, rehabilitation, and reconstruction.” Thus, out

of 91 national industries and business only 16 or a mere 17.7% were sited in the entire East

and NONE in Igboland. There has, of course, been an occasional token donations especially to

educational institutions towards infrastructural provision/upkeep or an, equally, occasional

adoption of an infrastructurally-deficient educational institution. These, however, pale into

insignificance when put side by side with the massive infusion of federal funds into

infrastructural projects located in the Yoruba and Hausa-Fulani Zones of the country.

(d) Double Standards

There has been a negligible federal concern for the major ecological problems of Igboland,

erosion, as compared to the impressive desertification, locust and flood relief programmes

sponsored by the Federal government in the North. The ban on wheat importation along with the

pursuit of wheat production in the Northern states received the priority attention of the federation

Government in contrast to virtual lack of interest in equivalent boost to the production of rice and

cassava in the South East or the South generally.

6.4.4 Revenue Sharing

.

Manipulation of revenue -sharing arrangements is another of the means being used to

economically disempower Ndi Igbo.

Between the Phillipson Commission Report (1946) and the Dina Committee Report

(1968) the principle of derivation had always enjoyed pride of place among the criteria for

revenue allocation in Nigeria. During this period agricultural produce was the major source of

46

revenue in the country; and it was very convenient for the West and the North, whose cocoa and

groundnut were, respectively, bigger revenue-earners than the East’s palm produce, to

derivation. Since the late sixties, when petroleum, which was located in the East, showed signs

of replacing agriculture as a major revenue source, the West and the North, in a dramatic voltface,

and to the embarrassment of the East, ensured the down-grading of the principle of

derivation, to the point where, today, it has all but completely vanished as a criterion for

revenue-sharing.

It is significant that in the same year that the war ended, the principle received its deathblow

through Decree No. 13, 1970, which recognised only two equally weighted principles,

namely population and equality of States. Of course, the principle of derivation has, since, been

revived to appease the oil-producing areas (which now happen to be some of the minority States)

but in a grossly attenuated form, and after the assurance of exclusion of Ndi Igbo through the

excision of their oil-producing lands. Originally directed against the Igbo, prior to the

dismemberment of the East in the name of State-creation, the distortion of the principle of

derivation has unfortunately backfired into the current Ogoni debacle and, presently, into the

Ijaw Youth problems.

The manipulation of revenue-sharing arrangements against the Igbo is clearly brought out

in the following illustration. The contribution of the East to the national wealth rose steadily

from the early fifties to well over 80% in 1972. Treinically, allocation to the East from the

federal purse declined from 26.5% in 1954/55 to 23% in 1991; while, in contrast, the North’s

share rose from 34% in 1954/55 to 50% in 1991, even though its contribution to what revenue

could be shared nose-dived! Again, in 1972, all the Eastern States were allocated 22.4% of what

was shared, while the Northern States took the lion’s share 55% of the national cake. The

discriminatory manipulation of the principles of need and derivation has ensured that, at all

times, the East in general, and the Igbo in particular, are down-trodden, and to that extent grossly

marginalised.

The pattern of disempowerment and the cold indifference of the Federal Government to

all pleas for remedy have planted in the minds of Ndi Igbo the conviction and fear that Nigeria

has not yet drawn the final curtain on the civil war. Rather, Nigeria seems to be continuing the

war by means of political, economic and social strangulation aimed at reducing Ndi Igbo to

junior and unrecognised stake- holders of Nigeria - contributing their maximum to Nigeria’s

corporate development through virtual slave labour and reaping nought in return. The strongest

reassurance which the Federal Government can give to Ndi Igbo is a complete reversal of the

policy and practice of disempowerment along with redemptive correction of past injustices.

6.4.5 Prayers

We demand:

1. (a) Implementation by Federal Government of the report by a Commission of

enquiry on the Kano religious riot of 1995, in which so many Igbos were

killed and their properties were lost.

47

(b) Implementation by Federal Government of all the other reports of enquiry

of the various ethnic and religious riots which took place across the

country in which Igbos were targeted from 1980-1999.

(c) Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria,

as compensation in respect of an estimated 5,000 Igbos killed in other

ethnic and religious riots which took place across the country between

1980-1999.

(d) Payment of N100 million by the Katsina State Government to the affected

Ndi Igbo in Katsina as compensation for losses and damages incurred by

Ndi Igbo in the city of Katsina during the religious and ethnic riot of

Friday, 20th August, 1999. A press release by the Commissioner of Police,

Katsina State Police Command dated 23rd August, 1999, confirms these

losses and damages (see attached report).

2. That employment in the public service should be fairly re-distributed by the

Federal Government of Nigeria to reflect Federal Character and accord the Igbos

their due share in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the

Federal Republic of Nigeria.

3. (a) The reversal of the discriminating siting of Federal Industries to the

disadvantage of Ndi Igbo by:

(i) siting of Steel Rolling Mill in the South-East Zone.

(ii) siting a Petrochemical Industry in the South-East.

(b) The rehabilitation of the neglected industries in the South-East Zone such

as the Science Equipment Manufacturing Centre at Akwuke in Enugu, and

the Project Development Institute (PRODA) in Enugu.

(c) The reversal of the discriminating siting of Federal Infrastructures to the

disadvantage of Ndi Igbo by:

(i) The construction of the second Niger Bridge across Otuocha.

(ii) The dredging of the River Niger, Imo River, and Oguta Lake.

(iii) Dualization of Onitsha-Calabar road;

Enugu-Abakaliki- Ogoja road;

Enugu-Cboloafor-Makurdi road.

(d) Rehabilitation of all existing Federal roads in the South-East Zone.

4. The compensation for the discriminating PTF programme in Health and

Educational sectors, Roads and Water projects, by providing these infrastructures

in the South-East Zone to be commensurate with the provisions made in other

geopolitical zones.

5. The release of an estimated sum of N3.8 million, by the Federal Government of

48

Nigeria, to the Onitsha Main Market Traders Association as repair assistance for

the fire disaster of the Onitsha Main market, the Commercial knob of Nigeria, in

1997.

6. That the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should take appropriate

measures to make the necessary appointments in his government to apply equity

and justice to Ndi Igbo as a marginalized and oppressed ethnic nationality, by

doing the following:

(a) National Security Council

Appoint at least 2 persons from the South-East Zone into the Security

Council in accordance with the 3rd schedule Part 1, Section 25, Paragraph

(1) of the 1999 Constitution dealing with the composition of the National

Security Council.

(b) Armed Forces

Appoint at least one officer of the South-East origin as Chief of one of the

arms of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and General

Officer Commanding (GOC’s).

(c) Nigerian Police Force

Appoint at least one more Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG) and 2

more Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of South- East origin to satisfy

the Constitutional requirements in Section 14 (3).

(d) That the Zonal structure of the Nigerian Police Force be changed so that

the Police State Commands in the South-East Zone constitute their own

reporting zone with its zonal office based in the South-East Zone.

(e) That the South-East be declared a militarily disadvantaged zone in terms

of the Military personnel, Military hardware, installations and Military

base and provisions made in these regard just like the educationally

disadvantaged States. It is indefensible that thirty (30) years after the end

of the Civil War, a geopolitical zone (the South-East Zone) is deficient in

these areas.

7. The guarantee of Human Rights, Citizenship Rights and Residency Rights for Ndi

Igbo in all parts of Nigeria.

8. The law on census should be amended to allow movement of Nigerians resident

in States other than their States of origin to returning to their natal States for headcount

during census. Alternatively, the full and effective enforcement of the

citizenship and human rights of the Constitution, prayed for earlier, should also

focus on equal treatment for ALL the Nigerian citizens living in a given State –

indigenes or non-indigenes - in the areas of Federal Character dispensation, tax

assessment, school enrolment and fees and other forms of state protection.

49

This will eliminate injustice and exploitation to which a diaspora people such as

Ndi Igbo are exposed.

9. Consider a constitutional arrangement whereby a Nigerian who has lived in a

State other than his State of birth can, after living for a stipulated period (say, 10

years), as a matter of choice, acquire an indigenous citizenship of that other State.

50

7. SUMMAPY OF PRAYERS

7.1 Violations of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo During the Immediate Pre-

Civil War Period

We demand:

1. That the Federal Government of Nigeria render a public apology to Ndi Igbo for

the genocidal pogroms of thousands of innocent unarmed Igbos killed in 1966.

General Yakubu Gowon had in September, 1992, taken a lead in this direction on

a personal capacity to purge his conscience. (Source: Champion Newspaper

26/10/99, pp. 30-31).

2. The individual perpetrators of the pogroms should be tried before court of law.

3. Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria, as

compensation on behalf of the civil populace of Ndi Igbo for:

(a) Estimated 50,000 Ndi Igbo kiled in the pogroms in the North;

(b) Estimated 10,000 Ndi Igbo who were killed in other parts of Nigeria in

1966-1067, with the Federal Government’s acquiesance

4. Payment of N1,000,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria, as

compensation on behalf of the civil populace of Ndi Igbo for:

(a) Estimated 30,000 Ndi Igbo who were maimed in the pogroms of 1966-67,

in the North and other parts of Nigeria.

(b) Estimated 2,000,000 Ndi Igbo who were psychologically traumatized in

the pogroms of 1966-1967 in the North and other parts of Nigeria.

5. Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria on behalf

of 2,000,000 Igbo refugees in lieu of Rehabilitation and resettlement.

6. Payment of N3.6 billion as compensation for properties and investments owned

by Ndi Igbo in the north (These include Hotels, Churches, Schools, Shops, Cars,

Lorries, Tippers, Buses, Homes) which were destroyed and looted.

7. Payment of

(a) Nl,000,000 as per a person as compensation on behalf of Igbo women for

50,000 severely raped during the period of the pogrom.

(b) N500000 as per a person to 50,000 assaulted and maimed.

51

7.2 Violations of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo During the Civil War

8. The perpetrators of the war crimes be tried before the court of law.

9. Payment of accumulated salaries and allowances due from May, 1966 to 1970, as

well as N100,000 per person, as compensation by the Federal Government of

Nigeria for unjustified inconveniences suffered by all Igbo who were forcibly

displaced and lost their jobs.

10. Payment of N500 billion as compensation for investments and businesses owned

by Ndi Igbo in various parts of Igboland from 1967-70, including Enugu Market,

Onitsha Market, Aba Market, Oguta Market, Orlu Market, Owerri Market,

Umuahia Market, Nnewi Market, Afikpo Market, Otuocha Market, Abakaliki and

Okigwe Markets, Industries, Factories and Corporate businesses, by the Federal

Government of Nigeria.

11. Construction of at least fifteen (15) Secondary Schools, twenty (20) Primary

Schools, one (1) Hospital, four (4) Markets, one (1) Christian Association of

Nigeria (CAN)-recognised Church, in each of the one hundred and five (105)

Local Government Areas of Ndi Igbo and Igbo-Speaking areas, by the Federal

Government of Nigeria, as reparation for the bombing of these targets.

12. Payment of N500,000 for each of the estimated 600,000 Igbo civilians killed,

from 1967-1970, as compensation for targetting unarmed civilians who were not

involved with war.

13. Payment of N500,000 per child as compensation on behalf of an estimated

900,000 Igbo children who died as a result of malnourishment due to the

economic blockage against the Biafrans, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

14. Payment of N1,000,000 per child as compensation, on behalf of an estimated

2,000,000 Igbo children who suffered permanent intellectual retardation due to

malnourishment, from 1967-1970, as a result of economic blockage against

Biafra, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

15. A public apology by the Federal Government of Nigeria for the unique and

gruesome massacre of over seven hundred (700) unsuspecting Ndi Igbo of Asaba

origin in Asaba, who were lured to a reception and massacred on the 7th of

October, 1968, by the Nigerian soldiers.

16. (a) Payment of Nl,000,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria

as compensation on behalf of an estimated three hundred (300) Ndi Igbo

maimed in Asaba.

(b) Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria in

respect of 700 Asaba indigenes killed on the 7th of October, 1967.

52

17. Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria as

compensation in respect of an estimated eight hundred (800) Igbo civilians killed

by Nigerian soldiers in other parts of Mid-West State on 26th November, 1968.

18. Allocation of a special grant of N500,000,000 for immediate completion of

reconstruction of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and its entire library

destroyed during the civil war.

19. Payment of N1,000,000 per person by Federal Government of Nigeria as

compensation in respect of an estimated 500,000 Igbo women raped and savaged

during the war.

7.3 Violation of the Human and Civil Rights Of Ndi Igbo in the Immediate Post-war

Era

20. Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria as

compensation on behalf of 10,000 Igbo civilians and surrendered Biafran soldiers

who were killed within three months after the official declaration of the end of the

war on 15th January, 1970.

21. A restoration of all bank accounts of the Igbo, with accrued interest, who had

been operating account within Biafra, as at 29th May, 1967, by the Federal

Government of Nigeria.

22. Payment of an average of N300,000 per adult Igbo, by the Federal Government of

Nigeria, as compensation to 2.5 million adult war survivors, for gross underpayment

of a flat rate of 20 to each adult Igbo in 1970, irrespective of their war

savings between 29th May, 1967 – 15th January, 1970.

23. Payment of N900 billion as compensation to Ndi Igbo, by the Federal

Government of Nigeria, for the willful damage to their purchasing power, as a

result of the flat rate 20 payment in 1970, which gravely damaged their ability

to compete fairly with other Nigerians when the Enterprises Promotion Decree of

1974, indigenized and privatized assets.

24. Payment of accumulated salaries and allowances due from 15th January, 1970 to

date, to all public officers; reinstatement of displaced Igbo public officers; and

formal disengagement of those not re-instated (including the payment of their

retirement benefits) as the case may be, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

25. Payment of accumulated salaries and allowances due from 15th January, 1970 to

date, to all Igbo Military, Police and other paramilitary officers who were

displaced as a result of the pogroms; re- instatement or formal disengagement of

those not re-instated (including the payment of their retirement benefits) as the

case may be, by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

53

26. A restoration of all Igbo land carved into Rivers State and Akwa Ibom State, by

re-delineation of State boundaries, and to incorporate into the appropriate Igbo

States all Igbo towns exercised from such States during the creation of States.

27. For equity and balance, the creation by the Federal Government of at least one

more State and at least additional 50 Local Government Areas, in equal in status

with the earlier ones created by the Federal Government in the South-East Zone.

28. The repossession by Ndi Igbo of their properties which were compulsorily

acquired in contradiction of the provisions of the 1963 Constitution, Section 31

(1), No. 20, which was in operation at that time, by the Rivers State Government,

Cross River State Government, and the Federal Government of Nigeria after the

Civil War.

29. Payment of rentable values including the interests thereof from 1970 until the

repossession of these properties by their rightful owners by the appropriate

Governments and other parties for properties compulsorily acquired.

30. Payment of N500,000 per child by Federal Government of Nigeria in respect of

an estimated 250,000 Igbo children who died immediately after the war as a result

of the continuation of the starvation policy.

7.4 Violations of the Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo in the later Post-war Era

31. (a) Implementation of the report by a Commission of enquiry on the Kano

religious riot of 1995, in which so many Igbos were killed and their

properties were lost.

(b) Implementation of all the other reports of enquiry of the various ethnic and

religious riots which took place across the country in which Igbos were

targeted from 1980-1999.

(c) Payment of N500,000 per person by the Federal Government of Nigeria,

as compensation in respect of an estimated 5,000 Igbos killed in other

ethnic and religious riots which took place across the country between

1980-1999.

(d) Payment of N100 million by the Katsina State Government to the affected

Ndi Igbo in Katsina as compensation for losses and damages incurred by

Ndi Igbo in the city of Katsina during the religious and ethnic riot of

Friday, 20th August, 1999. A press release by the Commissioner of Police,

Katsina State Police Command dated 23rd August, 1999, confirms these

losses and damages, see attached report.

54

32. That employment in the public service should be fairly re-distributed by the

Federal Government of Nigeria to reflect Federal Character and accord the Igbos

their due share in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the

Federal Republic of Nigeria.

33. (a) The reversal of the discriminating siting of Federal Industries

to the disadvantage of Ndi Igbo by:

(i) siting of Steel Rolling Mill in the South-East Zone.

(ii) siting a Petrochemical Industry in the South-East.

(b) The rehabilitation of the neglected industries in the South-East Zone such

as the Science Equipment Manufacturing Centre at Akwuke in Enugu, and

the Project Development Institute (PRODA) in Enugu.

(c) The reversal of the discriminating siting of Federal Infrastructures to the

disadvantage of Ndi-Igbo by:

(i) The construction of the second Niger Bridge across Otuocha.

(ii) The dredging of the River Niger, Imo River, and Oguta Lake.

(iii) Dualization of Onitsha-Calabar road;

Enugu-Abakaliki- Ogoja road;

Enugu-Oboloafor-Makurdi road.

(d) Rehabilitation of all existing Federal roads in the South-East Zone.

34. The compensation for the discriminating PTF programme in Health and

Educational sectors, Roads and Water projects, by providing these infrastructures

in the South-East Zone to be commensurate with the provisions made in other

geopolitical zones.

35. The release of an estimated sum of 113.8 million, by the Federal Government of

Nigeria, to the Onitsha Main Market Traders Association as repair assistance for

the fire disaster of the Onitsha Main Market, the commercial knob of Nigeria, in

1997.

36. That the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should take appropriate

measures to make the necessary appointments in his government to apply equity

and justice to Ndi Igbo as a marginalized and oppressed ethnic nationality, by

doing the following:

(a) National Security Council

Appoint at least 2 persons from the South-East Zone into the Security

Council in accordance with the 3rd schedule Part 1, Section 25, Paragraph

(1) of the 1999 Constitution dealing with the composition of the National

Security Council.

(b) Armed Forces

55

Appoint at least one officer of the South-East origin as Chief of one of the

arms of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and General

Officer Commanding (GOC’s).

(c) Nigerian Police Force

Appoint at least one more Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG) and 2

more Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of South- East origin to satisfy

the Constitutional requirements in Section 14 (3).

(d) That the Zonal structure of the Nigerian Police Force be changed so that

the Police State Commands in the South-East Zone constitute their own

reporting zone with its zonal office based in the South-East Zone.

(e) That the South-East be declared a Military disadvantaged zone in terms of

the Military personnel, Military hardware, installations and Military base

and provisions made in these regard just like the educationally

disadvantaged States. It is indefensible that thirty (30) years after the end

of the Civil War, a geopolitical zone (the South-East Zone) is deficient in

these areas.

37. The guarantee of Human Rights, Citizenship Rights and Residency Rights for Ndi

Igbo in all parts of Nigeria, ensure protection to the lives and properties.

38. The law on census should be amended to allow movement of Nigerians resident

in States other than their States of origin to return to their natal States for headcount

during census. Alternatively, the full and effective enforcement of the

citizenship and human rights of, the Constitution, prayed for earlier, should also

focus on equal and the same treatment for ALL the Nigerian citizens living in a

given State - indigenes or non-indigenes - in the areas of Federal Character

dispensation, tax assessment, school enrolment and fees and other forms of state

protection.

This will remove the injustice and exploitation to which a diaspora people such as

Ndi Igbo are exposed.

39. The Federal Government considers arrangement where by a Nigerian who has

lived in a State other than his State of origin can, after living for a stipulated

period (say 10 years) as a matter of choice, acquire an indigenous citizenship of

that other State.

7.5 Grand Total Monetary Compensation

The following Grand total Monetary Compensation does not include and is without

prejudice to numbers 9, 11, 21, 24, 25, 29, 31 (a) and (b), and 34:

56

Total Amount

S/N Description of Monetary Compensation (N)

3(a) N500,000 x 50,000 Pogrom casualties 25,000,000,000

3(b) N500,000 x 10,000 Pogrom casualties 5,000,000,000

4(a) Nl,000,000 x 30,000 Pogrom maimed 30,000,000,000

4(b) N1,000,000 x 2,000,000 Pogrom trauma 2,000,000,000,000

5 N500,000 x 2,000,000 Refugees in lieu of

rehabilitation and settlement 1,000,000,000,000

6 Properties and investments destroyed and lost in the

North during the pogrom 3,600,000,000

7(a) Nl,000,000 x 50,000 Women raped in 1966 50,000,000,000

7(b) N500,000 x 50,000 Assaulted and maimed in 1966 25,000,000,000

10 For investments and businesses destroyed in Igboland

in 1967-70 500,000,000,000

12 N500,000 x 600,000 for Unarmed civilians killed

between 1967-70 300,000,000,000

13 N500,000 x 900,000 Children due to malnourishment

as a result of blockage 450,000,000,000

14 N1,000,000 x 2,000,000 for Intellectually retarded

children due to malnourishment from 1967-70 21,000,000,000,000

16(a) N1,000,000 x 30 Maimed at Asaba 300,000,000

16(b) N500,000 x 700 Killed in Asaba in 1968 350,000,000

17 N500,000 x 8,000 Killed in other parts of the Mid-

West in 1967 41,000,000,000

18 Special grant for the reconstruction of the University of

Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) 500,000,000

19 N1,000,000 x 500,000 Women raped and savaged

during the war 500,000,000,000

57

20 N50,000 x 10,000 Civilians and soldiers killed on

surrender after the war 5,000,000,000

22 N300,000 x 2,500,000 for Adult survivor

underpayment for war savings 750,000,000,000

23 For Willful damage to the purchasing power of Ndi

Igbo 900,000,000,000

30 N500,000 X 25,000 Igbo children who. died as a

result of malnutrition, due to the starvation policy 125,000,000,000

31(c) N500,000 x 5,000 Killed in ethnic and religious riots

across the country, 1980-1999 2,500,000,000

31(d) For Losses and damages during the religious and

ethnic riot in Katsina on 20th August, 1999 100,000,000

35 Repair assistance for the fire disaster of the Onitsha

Main Market in 1997 3,800,000,000

GRAND TOTAL N8,680,150,000,000

58

8. CONCLUSION

History is replete with the lessons that marginalisation of people is, in the final analysis,

UNSUSTAINABLE; for marginalisation, if allowed to foster, is capable of eventually

unleashing explosive reactions. Slavery could not endure beyond a certain point. The vast

colonial empires of the European powers had had to be liquidated. The problems of the

minorities in the United States of America are eventually being addressed through “affirmative

action.” The Jewish holocaust continues to stain the presence of German race and haunt her

future. Ian Smith’s Rhodesia yielded place to present-day Zimbabwe. Apartheid collapsed under

the weight of suppressed tensions.

Marginalisation of Ndi Igbo, if allowed to foster in Nigeria, will resolve itself

autonomously in the fullness of time, but not without untold bloodshed and social disruption. For

ignoring these lessons of history, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Sudan and Burundi are, today, paying

dearly with the blood of their citizens. The prospect of such a catastrophe is not far fetched for a

country like Nigeria whose volatility has already been and underscored by a civil war.

Signed:

HRH IGWE ENGR. A. C. OKOYE

Chairman, Council of Elders

PROF. B. O. NWABUEZE

Secretary-General

EZEGO DR. A. EZIKPE COMRADE UCHE CHUKWUMERIJE

DR. ALEX EKWUEME DR. P. C. EZIFE

DP.OGBONNAYA ONU CHIEF CHRIS NWANKWO

CHIEF C. C. ONOH SENATOR ISIAH ANI

DR. SYLVESTER U. UGOH CHIEF DR. E. C. IWUANYANWU

CHIEF P. O. C. OZIEH DR.] .B. AZINGE

CHIEF SIR EMMANUEL AGUMA

For And On Behalf Of OHA-NA-EZE NDI IGBO

59

TABLE 1

POPULATION DISTRIBUTION IN NIGERIA BY REGIONS AND ETHNIC GROUPS: 1952/53-1991

1952/53 1963 1991

*

**

***

NIGERIA

EASTERN NIGERIA

IGBOS IN EASTERN NIGERIA

NON-IGBOS IN EASTERN NIGERIA

WESTERN NIGERIA (YORUBAS)

NORTHERN NIGERIA

MID-WESTERN NIGERIA

30.42

7.22

5.22

2.0

4.87

16.84

1.49

100

23.73

17.16

6.57

16.00

55.36

4.89

55.67

12.39

8.30

4.09

10.93

29.81

2.50

100

22.26

14.91

25.31

19.63

53.55

4.49

88.51

21.80

11.93

9.87

17.60

47.4

4.80

100

24.63

13.48

11.15

19.88

53.55

15.42

* For 1991, figure includes the eight Igbo speaking Local Government Areas in Rivers State

** For 1952/53, 1963 and 1991, figures include Lagos State

*** For 1991, figure represents Edo State and Delta States

Source: Census News, A House Magazine of the National Population Commission, September 1992, Vol. 3, No. 1.

60

TABLE 2*

NIGERIA’S HEADS OF STATE/GOVERNMENT (ETHNIC TENURE)

OCT 1, 1960 – OCT 1, 1998

S/N Name Title Period Ethnicity Ethnic Tenure % of Whole

Tenure

1. General Yakubu Gowon Head of State 29.7.66 - 29.7.75 ANGAS 9 years 23

2. General Ibrahim Babangida Head of State 28.8.85 - 26.8.93 GWARI 8 years 21

3. General Sani Abacha Head of State 17.11.93 - 8.6.98 KANURI 5 yrs 5 mths 8 days 16

4. Alh. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Prime Minister 1.10.60 - 15.1.66 JARAWA 5 yrs 2 mths 15 days 13

5. Alh. Shehu Shagari President 1.10.79 - 31.12.93 FULANI 4 yrs 3 mths 12

6. Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari Head of State 31.12.83 - 27.8.85 FULANI 4 yrs 3 mths 12

7. General Olusegun Obasanjo Head of State 13.2.76 - 30.9.79 YORUBA 3 yrs 4 mths 9 days 10

8. Chief Ernest Shonekan Head of State 26.8.93 - 17.11.93 YORUBA 3 yrs 4 mths 9 days 10

9. General Olusegun Obasanjo Exe. President 29.5.99 - Date YORUBA 3 yrs 4 mths 9 days 10

10. Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar Head of State 8.6.93 - 29.5.99 HAUSA 1 yr 2 mths 13 days 5

11. Gen. Murtala Mohammed Head of State 29.7.75 - 13.2.76 HAUSA 1 yr 2 mths 13 days 5

12. Maj-Gen. J. T. U. Aguiyi Ironsi Head of State 16.1.66 - 29.7.66 IBO 6 mths 13 days 1

* This table is of executive heads of government. It excludes a ceremonial head of state like Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe.

61

TABLE 2b

NIGERIA’S HEADS OF STATE/GOVERNMENT (ETHNIC & GEOGRAPHICAL SPREAD)

OCT 1, 1960 – OCT 1, 1998

S/N Name Title Period Ethnicity Zone Region

1. DR. NNAMDI AZIKIWE PRESIDENT 1.10.60 - 15.1.66 IBO S.E. EAST

2. ALH. ABUBAKAR TAFAWA BALEWA PRIME MINISTER 1.10.60 - 15.1.66 JARAWA N.E. NORTH

3. MAJ-GEN. J. T. U. AGUIYI IRONSI HEAD OF STATE 16.1.66 - 29.7.66 IBO S.E. EAST

4. GEN YAKUBU GOWON HEAD OF STATE 29.7.66 - 29.7.75 ANGAS N.C. NORTH

5. GEN. MURUTALA MOHAMMED HEAD OF STATE 29.7.75 - 13.2.76 HAUSA N.W. NORTH

6. GEN. OLUSEGUN OBASANJO HEAD OF STATE 13.2.76 - 30.9.79 YORUBA S.W. WEST

7. ALH. SHEHU SHAGARI PRESIDENT 1.10.79 - 31.12.93 FULANI N.W. NORTH

8. MAJ-GEN. MUHAMMADU BUHARI HEAD OF STATE 31.12.83 - 27.8.85 FULANI N.W. NORTH

9. GEN. IBRAHIM BABANGIDA PRESIDENT 28.8.85 - 26.8.93 GWARI N.C. NORTH

10. CHIEF ERNEST SHONEKAN HEAD OF STATE 26.8.93 - 17.11.93 YORUBA S.W. WEST

11. GEN. SANI ABACHA HEAD OF STATE 17.11.93 - 8.6.98 KANURI N.W. NORTH

12. GEN. ABDUSALAMI ABUBAKAR HEAD OF STATE 8.6.93 - 29.5.99 HAUSA N.C. NORTH

13. GEN. OLUSEGUN OBASANJO EXECUTIVE

PRESIDENT

29.5.99 - Date YORUBA S.W. WEST

62

TABLE 3

GEOPOLITICAL DISTRIBUTION OF POLITICAL POWER IN NIGERIA SINCE INDEPENDENGEOPOLITICAL INDEPENDENCE

S/No Key Public Officers in Areas Total East E/M

(Minority)

North N/M

(Minority)

West W/M

(Minority)

1. Heads of Govt. (1960-99) 12 1 % (8.3) 0 % (0) 5 % (41.6) 3 % (25) 2 % (16.7) 0 % (0)

2. Ministers (1960-62) 25 5 % (20) 1 % (4) 10 % (40) 1 % (4) 6 % (24) 2 % (8)

3. Perm. Sec. (1960-1962) 20 3 % (15) 1 % (5) 2 % (10) 6 % (10) 6 % (30) 6 % (30)

4. Parliamentary Sec. (1960-62) 16 4 % (25) 2 % (12.5) 5 % (12.5) 2 % (12.15) 2 % (12.15) 1 % (6.25)

5. Shagari’s Regime 42 4 % (9.52) 5 % (11.9) 16 % (38.1) 6 % (14.29) 9 % (21.42) 2 % (6.25)

6. Perm. Sec. (Ironsi) 21 2 % (9.5) 0 % (0) 6 % (28.6) 2 % (9.5) 6 % (28.6) 5 % (23.8)

7. SMC (Ironsi) 6 1 % (16.7) 0 % (0) 2 % (33.3) 1 % (16.7) 2 % (33.3) 0 % (0)

8. SMC (Gowon) 5 0 % (0) 0 % (0) 1 % (20) 2 % (40) 1 % (20) 1 % (20)

9. Ministers (Gowon) 12 1 % (8.3) 2 % (16.7) 4 % (33.3) 1 % (8.3) 4 % (33.3) 1 % (8.3)

10. SMC (Mohammed) 22 1 % (4.5) 0 % (0) 9 % (41) 4 % (18.2) 7 % (31.8) 1 % (4.5)

11. Governors (Mohammed) 12 0 % (0) 0 % (0) 5 % (41.3) 2 % (16.7) 2 % (16.7) 3 % (25)

12. Governors (03/02/76) 19 1 % (5.26) 1 % (5.26) 7 % (36.85) 4 % (21.05) 4 % (21.05) 2 % (10.53)

13. Ministers (03/02/76) 25 2 % (8) 4 % (16) 6 % (24) 5 % (20) 7 % (28) 1 % (4)

14. Military Ads (24/02/76) 23 1 % (5.26) 0 % (0) 6 % (31.58) 4 % (21.05) 5 % (26.32) 3 % (15.19)

15. Ministers (24/07/78) 20 2 % (10) 2 % (10) 5 % (25) 2 % (10) 6 % (30) 3 % (15)

16. SMC (01/01/84) 18 1 % (5.56) 2 % (11.11) 6 % (33.33) 5 % (27.78) 2 % (11.11) 2 % (11.11)

17. Governors (01/01/84) 19 2 % (10.53) 1 % (5.58) 6 % (31.59) 3 % (20.05) 5 % (26.32) 1 % (5.26)

18. Ministers (01/01/84) 18 2 % (11.11) 2 % (11.11) 8 % (44.44) 2 % (11.11) 1 % (5.56) 3 % (16.67)

19. AFRC (27/09/85) 30 1 % (3.33) 3 % (10) 7 % (23.38) 8 % (26.67) 8 % (26.67) 3 % (10)

20 Governors (02/09/85) 19 2 % (10.53) 3 % (10) 7 % (23.38) 8 % (26.27) 8 % (26.27) 3 % (10)

21. Governors (02/09/85) 19 2 % (10.53) 1 % (5.25) 5 % (26.23) 5 % (26.32) 4 % (21.05) 2 % (10.53)

63

S/No Key Public Officers in Areas Total East E/M

(Minority)

North N/M

(Minority)

West W/M

(Minority)

1. Heads of Govt. (1960-99) 12 1 % (8.3) 0 % (0) 5 % (41.6) 3 % (25) 2 % (16.7) 0 % (0)

22. Ministers (10/09/85) 22 2 % (9.09) 2 % (9.09) 6 % (27.27) 6 % (27.27) 4 % (18.19) 2 % (9.09)

23. Governors (19/12/87) 5 1 % (20) 0 % (0) 3 % (60) 0 % (0) 1 % (20) 0 % (0)

24. Governors (21/07/88) 14 0 % (0) 0 % (0) 4 % (28.57) 4 % (28.57) 5 % (35.72) 1 % (7.14)

25. Ministers 16 2 % (12.5) 2 % (12.5) 6 % (37.5) 3 % (18.75) 2 % (12.5) 1 % (5.25)

26. AFRC (29/03/89) 11 1 % (9.09) 0 % (0) 4 % (36.36) 4 % (36.36) 1 % (9.09) 1 % (9.09)

27. Governors (29/03/89) 5 0 % (0) 0 % (0) 3 % (60) 2 % (40) 0 % (0) 0 % (0)

28. Ministers (08/01/90) 18 2 % (11.11) 2 % (11.11) 2 % (11.11) 7 % (38.89) 2 % (11.11) 3 % (16.67)

29. Ministers (30/01/90) 10 1 % (10) 0 % (0) 6 % (60) 2 % (20) 1 % (10) 0 % (0)

30. Governors (30/01/90) 21 2 % (9.52) 1 % (4.76) 7 % (33.33) 7 % (33.33) 3 % (14.29) 1 % (4.76)

31. Mil. Ads. for new states (27/08/91) 9 1 % (11.11) 0 % (0) 3 % (33.33) 1 % (11.11) 2 % (22.22) 2 % (22.22)

32. Ministers (13/01/92) 23 4 % (17.41) 1 % (4.35) 11 % (47.82) 1 % (4.35) 5 % (21.73) 1 % (4.35)

33. AFRC (13/01/92) 18 1 % (5.55) 0 % (0) 5 % (27.78) 6 % (33.33) 3 % (16.67) 3 % (16.67)

34.

National Def, & Sec. Council

(04/01/93) 14 1 % (7.14) 1 % (7.14) 3 % (21.43) 5 % (35.72) 3 % (21.43) 1 % (7.14)

35. Transitional Council 30 4 % (13.33) 2 % (6.67) 14 % (46.67) 3 % (10) 4 % (13.33) 3 % (10)

36. ING 32 4 % (13.33) 2 % (6.67) 14 % (46.67) 3 % (10) 4 % (13.33) 3 % (10)

37. PRC (Nov 1993) Abacha 11 1 % (9.09) 0 % (0) 4 % (36.36) 2 % (18.18) 3 % (27.27) 1 % (9.09)

38. Ministers (Dec. ’93) Abacha 30 4 % (13.33) 3 % (10) 11 % (36.67) 5 % (16.67) 5 % (16.67) 2 % (6.67)

39. Mil. Ad. (Dec. ’93) Abacha 30 5 % (13.33) 3 % (10) 8 % (26.67) 8 % (26.67) 5 % (16.67) 2 % (2.66)

40 Ministers (Mar. ’95) Abacha 36 5 % (13.5) 3 % (8.33) 14 % (38.89) 4 % (11.11) 7 % (19.44) 3 % (8.33)

* AFRC – Armed Forces Ruling Council

** PRC – Provisional Ruling Council

*** Mil. Ad. – Military Administrator

64

FIGURE 1

PTF - SUMMARY OF ROAD

REHABILITATION PROJECTS

[KILOMETERS OF ROADS]

(UP TO 1998)

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

GEOPOLITICAL ZONES

KILOMETERS OF ROADS

SW

SE

NW

NE

NC

SS

65

FIGURE 2

PTF – FOOD SUPPLY SUMMARY

[AMOUNT SPENT IN NAIRA]

(UP TO 1998)

NGN 0.00

NGN 2.00

NGN 4.00

NGN 6.00

NGN 8.00

NGN 10.00

NGN 12.00

NGN 14.00

GEOPOLITICAL ZONES

NAIRA (BILLIONS)

SW

SE

NW

NE

NC

SS

66

FIGURE 3

PTF – NATIONAL HEALTH AND EDUCATIONAL

REHABILITATION PROGRAMME [NHERP]

EDUCATION SECTOR

[NO. OF SCHOOLS REHABILITATION]

(UP TO 1998)

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

GEOPOLITICAL ZONES

SCHOOLS REHABILITATED

SW

SE

NW

NE

NC

SS

67

FIGURE 4

PTF – NATIONAL HEALTH AND EDUCATIONAL

REHABILITATION PROGRAMME [NHERP]

EDUCATION SECTOR

[NO. OF HEALTH REHABILITATION]

(UP TO 1998)

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

GEOPOLITICAL ZONES

HEALTH REHABILITATED

SW

SE

NW

NE

NC

SS

68

FIGURE 5

PTF – EDUCATIONAL AMOUNT

[AMOUNT SPEND IN NAIRA]

(UP TO 1998)

NGN 0.00

NGN 0.50

NGN 1.00

NGN 1.50

NGN 2.00

NGN 2.50

GEOPOLITICAL ZONES

NAIRA (BILLIONS)

SW

SE

NW

NE

NC

SS

69

PRESS RELEASE

1. The State Command and members of the general public in Katsina are aware of the

apparent threat to law and order of law-abiding citizens of the State on Friday, 20th

August 1999, through the wanton destruction of properties in Katsina Metropolis.

2. It cold be recalled that Katsina Local Government enacted a Bye-law in June 1999

prohibiting sale of alcohol and prostitution in Katsina Local Government Area. Hoteliers

who are affected by this Bye-law took the Local Government Council to Court

challenging their constitutional powers to enact such law. The case after several

adjournments has been adjourned to October 14th, 1999 for hearing at Katsina High Court

3.

3. Under the present political dispensation and in our democratic setting the Court alone has

the authority to clarify all issues dealing with the law and its interpretations. Every

reasonable law abiding citizen are expected to await the out come of the case in Court.

4. Unfortunately, a group of miscreants and misguided individuals decided to take the laws

into their hands by looting and burning Hotels and peoples properties on Friday, 20th

August, 1999. My assessment of the destruction on arrival from special duty to Kano on

Saturday revealed in all:

(i) Seven Hotels namely:

(a) Peoples Palace Hotel

(b) Old Peoples Palace Hotel

(c) Capital Hotel

(d) Liberty Hotel

(e) Havana Hotel

(f) Goma Guest Inn Accommodation and Lodging.

(g) Olympia Hotel and Restaurant.

(h) New City Hotel, Restaurant and Lodging

(ii) Celestial Church of Christ.

(iii) Several individual properties and two residential houses were looted and

burnt.

5. The State Command has arrested Seventy-three (73) suspects including one Babalawo

Ali who led the group of miscreants to wretch havoc by looting and burning people’s

properties. Others associated with this act of law-less-ness are being sought and will be

brought to justice. All those arrested will soon appear in Court.

6. Members of the public and all law-abiding citizens in this State are assured of their safety

and security. The incident of Friday, 20th August, 1999 has no religious or ethnic under

70

tones because all major religion abhor violence and looting of others properties. Every

well-meaning citizen of the State condemns this lawlessness which cannot be condoned

under this dispensation. While assuring every one of the Command's preparedness to

protect lives and properties in the State, parents and guidance are advised to warn their

children and wards from being lured and used by any misguided individual or groups

who have no fear of Allah under any guise.

7. The Command has made adequate arrangement to deal with ruthlessly with any threat to

law and order in the State.

8. I also wish to inform the general public of the arrest of some dealers of hard drugs

suspected to be Indian hemp on Sunday, 22nd August, 1999. Eighteen Bags of substance

suspected to be Indian Hem being conveyed to Jibia in a Peugeot 505 Station Wagon has

been recovered and one Hassan Salisu arrested. The case will be transferred to the

National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) immediately for investigation and

prosecution.

9. Once more I wish to seize this opportunity to appeal for useful information on crime and