Army’s Radicalization And Bastardization Of Security And People Of
Southeast Nigeria: Before It Is Too Late!
-----Intersociety & SBCHROs
(Intersociety & SBCHROs: 9th September 2017)-The announcement by the
lopsidedly composed Nigerian Army of commencement of the so called
“Operation Python Dance 11” in the Southeast part of Nigeria; starting
from 15th September to 14th October 2017 is nothing short of
radicalization and bastardization of civil security in the Southeast
or Igbo heartland of Nigeria as well as deliberate traumatizing of the
law abiding and peaceful People of the Zone .
It is also a clear case of declaration of unprovoked and unwarranted
war on the Igbo Population right inside their ancestral citadel. This
act of mindless militarization and militarism in a supposedly
democratic dispensation has a lot of intractable consequences.
When a peaceful people are pushed too far or to the wall and
subjugated  to the extreme; over issues concerning their rights of
existence and ethnic identities, the response in many, if not most
cases, result to far reaching consequences and complications; if not
in short run, then in long run. We have warned on these before (i.e.
in our memo to present Federal Government, dated 16th of February
2016) and we are warning on same again!
The world history is full of several instances where the same
radicalization and bastardization of civil security and
ethno-religious sentiments and disquiets of sub national entities
dangerously escalated and transformed; pushing the referenced
sub-nationals to reprisal radicalization by way of insurgency or
street crimes’ warlord-ship and turning such sub-national entities and
the entire national entity into socio-political toxemia or failed and
balkanized State.
Those who are the repositories of State coercion or force of arms have
always been warned by modern theorists of violence not to make a
suicidal mistake of seeing themselves as “sole holders of monopoly of
violence” and always see and treat violence and its controllers as
“double-edged swords”. This is more when there are hundreds, if not
thousands of forms of modern violence; with insurgency and its
intractability as one of them.
Instances of these can be found in the recent histories of Rwanda,
Burundi, Somalia, Ivory Coast, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Sudan
and as most recently as Syria where over 450,000 people have been
killed since 2011; with over 5million refugees and 6.6million
internally displaced persons generated as at this 2017; to mention but
a few.  Effective and pluralistic handling of same in recent times had
also led to peaceful fortification or breaking of the foundations of
agitating and disillusioned splinter and national entities. Instances
are the United Germany and the velvet revolution of 31st December 1989
in former Czechoslovakia (now Czech and Slovakia Republics).
A typical local example of mishandling and radicalization of internal
security was the extra judicial or custodial killing of then 39yrs old
leader of the Boko Haram insurgency group,  Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf,
killed by the Federal Government of Nigeria on 30th July 2009. Another
aspect of the radicalization was the politicization of the insurgency
by the fundamentalist political elements of the northern political
class.
That is to say that the decision of the present Buhari Administration
at no tangible national or regional security provocation to flood the
Igbo heartland with battalions of soldiers and armaments; dominated
and manned by commanding and foot soldiers of Mr. President ethnic
group and religion is a clear case of declaration of ethno-religious
“fatwa” on the Igbo Race. It is a further case of unwarranted and
abominable punishment of the People of the Zone for being the most
nonviolent sub-nationality and a core bread winner of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria.
We are therefore shocked and alarmed as before over the infantile and
sinister reasons given by the lopsidedly composed Nigerian Army for
its latest declaration of war on this most peaceful sub-nationality.
We make bold say again that the present Nigerian Army has since June
2015 been divisively peopled or foot-soldiered, commanded and
controlled by Mr. President and people of his own ethnicity and
religion; in gross contravention of Section 14 (3) of Nigeria’s 1999
Constitution; which unambiguously provides for geopolitical spread and
balance.
Having critically and expertly studied the reasons given for the
latest militarization and its fatwa operation in the Southeast, we
found them gravely and grossly inexcusable, undemocratic,
unconstitutional and incoherent with the constitutionalized and
globalized roles of the military under democratic dispensation.
Globally and nationally, especially in Nigeria,  the roles of the
armed forces including the army in civil/democratic governance are
very limited and strictly restricted to (1) defense of territorial
boundaries and integrity against foreign attacks; (2) in aid of civil
authority when legislatively and presidentially called upon in cases
of armed insurrection, coups, internal armed rebellion or intra State
conflict; and (3) State of emergency occasioned by widespread natural
disaster or that of immense magnitude; and manmade disaster such as
when the country is in a state of internal/external war.
The above clearly highlighted roles of the Nigerian Armed Forces
including the Army under democratic dispensation as clearly spelt out
by Section 217 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution are grossly incoherent
with the latest reasons given by the lopsidedly composed Nigerian Army
as why it has flooded the Southeast Zone with battalions of soldiers
and armaments at no iota of national or regional security collapse.
Therefore, the so called “Exercise Python Dance II” is totally
condemned and damned. By citing cases of “mindless assassinations
(even in religious places), attacks on security personnel and theft of
weapons, kidnappings, cultism, armed robbery/banditry and violent
agitations by secessionist groups, amongst other crimes”, as reasons
for its latest killer-mission in the Southeast, the Nigerian Army, not
only lied unpardonably to Nigerians, but has also mindlessly usurped
and taken over the civil and traditional functions of the Nigeria
Police Force and other crime detection and intelligence policing
agencies in Nigeria.
By Section 217 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, the Nigerian Army has
no business dabbling into the traditional duties of the Nigeria Police
Force especially in the areas of street crimes of cultism, armed
robbery/banditry, willful homicide, kidnapping and policing of public
assemblies. Condemnably and despicably, the Nigerian Army has not only
taken over these functions, but now “invites the Police and the SSS,
etc to join it”; thereby undermining the country’s democracy, rule of
law and constitutionalism.
The Army has also in the main abdicated its constitutional duties by
allowing the terrorist Fulani herdsmen and the Boko Haram insurgency
to continue to massacre hundreds of innocent and defenseless Nigerians
every month; while the same Army condones and abets same with utter
alacrity and dissipates energies and wastes billions of public funds
pursuing and traumatizing the innocent People of the Southeast Zone
who have Godly chosen to be law abiding and nonviolent.
As the Nigerian Army continues to rigmarole in absurdities and pursuit
of irrelevances, the media reports of mindless massacre of innocent
and defenseless Nigerians by the terrorist Fulani herdsmen and the
Boko Haram insurgency group have continued to saturate the country’s
media and reading space.

According to Amnesty International’s latest report of September 2017,
the Boko Haram insurgents had between April and August 2017; a period
of five months, killed 223 defenseless civilians in the Northeast.
Till date, the religious identities of the slain have remained
sketched and some observers believe that such attacks are carefully
planned and targeted at the endangered non Muslim populations or
settlements in northeast part of the country.
The mass killings have continued with the latest media reports of
massacre this week of 20 rural citizens by terrorist Fulani herdsmen
in Ancha Village of Maingo Community in Bassa Local Government of
Plateau State; as well as killing this week’s Wednesday and Thursday
killing of eight people by Boko Haram terrorists outside Maiduguri, in
Borno State, Northeast Nigeria. Yet, the Army has allowed these mass
murderers to continue to prowl uncaught.
Despite the fact that Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution entrusts the
responsibilities of taming these mass murders and other acts of
terrorism in the hands of the Nigerian Armed Forces including the
Army, the country’s armed forces have deliberately turned blind eyes
in utter manifestation of ethnic bias and ethnic brotherhood
especially in the area of massacre of thousands of defenseless
Nigerians by terrorist Fulani herdsmen. The armed forces have
concentrated more on chasing shadows; abandoning their core areas of
responsibility.
Till date, the Nigerian Armed Forces particularly the Army have not
told Nigerians sources of assault rifles and their handling
skills/training, recklessly used by the murderous Fulani herdsmen in
mowing down average of 1500 defenseless citizens every year since June
2015. This is not to talk of woeful failure of the armed forces
including the army in fishing out the mass killers and putting them on
trial.
The disclosure by the lopsidedly composed Nigerian Army of its
operation modes during the so called “Operation Python Dance 11”; of
“raids, cordon and search operations, anti-kidnapping drills, road
blocks, check points, patrols and show of force to curb the rising
threat to national security in the South Eastern part of the country”
has further exposed the merchandising and torture exercise aspect of
the inglorious operation.
It is also a monumental contradiction to subject road users to
roadblocks, checkpoints and show of force and at the same time
“respect their rights as enshrined in the Constitution”. By use of
checkpoints and roadblocks, a floodgate of roadblock extortion is
further expanded and provided for the Nigerian Army, its combatants
and commanders to smile to the bank, illicitly,  with hundreds of
millions of naira every month.
Apart from the fact that art of conventional soldiering is an alien
profession in matters of street crimes of cultism, kidnapping, armed
robbery/banditry, willful homicide, etc; these crimes are not expertly
and professionally checkmated using roadblocks or checkpoints. Their
effective controls are best done using effective policing
intelligence, crime detection, raiding operations in hideouts,
thorough and professional criminal investigation and diligent
prosecution. Street crimes or traditional violent crimes do not in any
way involve use or deployment of battalions of soldiers to tackle.
Soldiers are quarks in art of taming or controlling street crimes.
These explained why in the Army’s so called “Operation Python Dance
1”, fruitlessly conducted in the Southeast Zone, between 27th November
and 27th December 2016, not even a single fly as a credibly suspected
street criminal or violent crime offender was caught, investigated and
prosecuted. In matters of arrest and civil-criminal investigation,
soldiers are not extensively captured or empowered by Nigeria’s body
of criminal laws and their procedures. As a matter of fact, soldiers
are interlopers in controlling street crimes or traditional violent
crimes!

Further, we make bold to say that the tagging by the Nigerian Army of
pro Biafra rallies as “violent agitation”, may sound odd to the
public, but it is deductively and understandably the Army’s frustrated
way of admitting that “there is no singly existing armed rebellion in
the Southeast Zone”; and as a result, “it must create one as basis to
raze the fast developing Southeast Zone to rubbles”.
We hereby call on the People of the Southeast Zone especially the
nonviolent pro Biafra groups to avoid being caught up by the ambush
laid by the present Federal Government and its  lopsidedly composed
coercive agencies. The Nigerian Army should be given another “30th May
2017 treatment “by making its latest unprovoked war operation in the
Southeast a failed effort or effort in futility.
As the Nigerian Army left the shores of the Southeast in shame and
agony in the evening of 30th and morning of 31st May 2017 with all its
corked rifles and battle-ready combatants; without finding any blood
of the innocent and defenseless to spill, so shall it be made to leave
the Zone again without any innocent blood to spill or shed. Where
innocent bloods are spilled, the soldier-spillers shall be made to pay
severely, if not now; then later, no matter how long it would take!
The beloved and peace loving People of the Southeast Zone are further
called upon to show the Nigerian Army that “human brain is stronger
than the bullet or force of arms”, by deploying and using massively
their electronic gadgets including social media appliances to detect
and capture the soldiers’ excesses especially at
roadblocks/checkpoints, motor parks, streets, markets, entertainment
arenas, public functions, etc. Such excesses to be detected, monitored
and captured on ICT include extortions and their patterns, hatred
motivated or ethno-religious biased torture, artificial logjams or
motorized holds-up, hatred and extortionist motivated shooting/killing
and other acts of soldiering brigandage on Southeast roads or other
parts thereof.
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
For: Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs)

1.    Comrade Aloysius Attah (+2348035090548)
For: Civil Liberties Organization, Southeast Zone (Southeast CLO)

2.    Comrade Peter Onyegiri (+2347036892777)
For: Centre for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy (CHRPA)

3.    Comrade Samuel Njoku (+2348039444628)
For: Human Rights Organization of Nigeria (HRON)

4.    Engineer Rufus Duru (+2348037513519)
For: Global Rights & Development International (GRDI)

5.    Comrade Chike Umeh ( +2348064869601)
For: Society Advocacy Watch Project (SWAP)


6.    Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq. (+2348034186332)
For: Anambra Human Rights Forum (ANHRF)

7.    Comrade Alex Olisa (+2348034090410)
For: Southeast Good Governance Forum (SEGGF)

8.    Jerry Chukwuokoro, PhD (+2348035372962)
For: International Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights Initiative (ISPHRI)

9.    Mr. Tochukwu Ezeoke (+447748612933)
For: Igbo Ekunie Initiative (Pan Igbo Rights Advocacy Group)

10.    Comrade Vincent Ezekwume (+2348171793911)
For: Civil Liberties Organization, Anambra State Branch (Anambra CLO)

11.    Comrade Nelson Nnana Nwafor (+2348033383708)
For: Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy & Development
(FENRAD-Nigeria)

12.    Comrade Ozor Ugonna Kingsley (+2348138898669)
For: Rural Engagement & Development Foundation (RED-Foundation)