Let us learn from Egypt!

by Eze Eluchie

As Morsi is kicked out, let us learn from what is happening today in Egypt 

Our elections are rigged;

Our contraption is defective;

Our Constitution is fraudulent;

Our polity is in dire need of cleansing

Our people are pushed to extremes for survival;

Our politicians are, collectively, stealing the country dry;

Time is fast running out for an orderly restructuring and renegotiation of the Nigerian contraption.

A cosmetic change of guards will not suffice.

Let all those who will raise a whimper for so-called ‘democratically elected’ officials, begin now to advice and urge change, or forever keep silent when the likely, manifests.

Picture: Jubilant Egyptians celebrate the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi

Nigeria's silent, but sure, ethnic cleansing

by Eze Eluchie

The continued silence of the Nigerian State and the civil populace to the continued acts of ethnic cleansing going on in our Middle-Belt region is most unfortunate and regrettable. On a daily basis, scores of our fellow countrymen are killed, hundreds of houses destroyed and thousands are forced to flee their lands and assume the status of ‘internally displaced persons’, and other co-travelers in the Nigerian contraption act with seeming nonchalance, care-free disposition, as if to  confirm the widely held believe that our contraption is comprised of strange bed-fellows.

But for goodness sake, the peoples being killed are also human. Today it is the Birom’s, the Kataf’s, the Afizere’s, the Banda’s, the Chama’s and other relatively numerically smaller tribes which are being attacked. Tomorrow, who will it be? Your tribe or mine?

Nowadays, no day passes without reports of gun-men invading, sacking and killing at will across villages in the Middle-Belt region. Across the region, entire ethnic nationalities have had to abandon their traditional homesteads and relocate to refugee camps in so-called protected territories.

These attacks have become systematic and are clearly targeted at ensuring that the peoples of these regions, who are comprised of ethnic groups which have relatively small numerical strengths, are forcefully removed from their lands.

The culpability of the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force, currently headed  by Inspector General of Police, MD Abubakar, a man who has been adjudged a religious extremist and bigot by a Judicial Panel headed by a respected Supreme Court Justice, in these heinous crimes is further underscored by the unwillingness and refusal of the leadership of the Police Force to take preventive steps to curb or arrest the situation.

The Police authorities rarely make arrests. And in the few instances where the communities attacked are able to identify and arrest their attackers, the authorities’ surreptitiously admit such suspects to administrative bail without prosecution. From bail, the suspects simply disappear into thin air, only to resurface in yet another attack on yet another community.

Increasingly, as happened in the Alakyo massacre of security personnel (see this blog entry of May 22nd 2013: http://ezeluchie.blogspot.com/2013/05/most-unfortunate-murder-of-security.html ), the peoples of these tribes are realizing that the only way they may be able to protect their own lives and preserve the continued existence of their peoples in the face of abandonment by police authorities, may be to resort to self defense.

Rather than seek to address the endless bloodletting and bloodbath bleeding the very life out of the peoples of the contraption, there has been a shameful clamor by often recycled expired politicians to make a grab for the control of the treasury of the State.

Let us talk. Let us restructure and renegotiate our contraption now.

http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26618&Itemid=114

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=125776:gunmen-invade-plateau-kill-34-&catid=1:national&Itemid=559

Picture: Mass burial of 66 victims of a recent episode of ethnic cleansing near Jos, Nigeria. Unfortunately, a sitting Senator of the Feedral Republic of Nigeria (Sen Gwang Dantong) and several others were killed during the mass burial pictured here.

Nigerian State Governor, Adams Oshiomole (of Edo State), commits murder!

by Eze Eluchie

For authorizing the killing of four prisoners (Chima Ejiofor, Daniel Nsofor, Osarenmwinda Aiguokhan and Richard Igagu) whose appeal against a death sentence were still pending before a Court of law, the following persons have, technically and practically, clearly committed murder and ought to be prosecuted:
1. Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomole, who signed the Death Warrants.
2. Edo State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Henry Idahagbon, who, as a lawyer, ought to know far better than he is portraying.

Also ought to be prosecuted, albeit for a lesser offense, on account of the fact that they were merely 'obeying orders that they might have believed to the legitimate, are 'The Hangman' who executed the dastardly act and others who participated in the process.

The only other time in Nigeria's checkered history when accused persons were killed during the pendency of legal processes to establish guilt was when the Sani Abacha regime hanged renowned writer and environmental rights activist, Ken Saro Wiwa.

This is really a most heinous crime as it portends grave consequences for the polity and it is really unfortunate that Nigeria's Constitution accords immunity from investigation and prosecution for a State Governor who acts in clear and gross violation of the Constitution.

If this unfortunate precedence is allowed to go without visiting due punishments on the 'high profile' culprits, the question becomes: 'will other political office holders ensure the 'execution' (or more appropriately murder) of opponents, at their sole discretion, irrespective of 'Stay of Executions' ordered by our Courts'?

When one factors into account the level of abuse to which our judicial system can be subjected to and the ease with which a fictional charge can be made to stick against indigent accused persons, the fact that our judicial system found sufficient reason to order a Stay of Execution in this matter, makes it more glaring that in deed a sinister act against good conscience and justice had been committed in Nigeria's Edo State with the murder of these four prisoners.

The matter is made far worse by the fact that these same political office holders are, in the course of their administration of State funds, engaged in more sinister criminal acts than whatever acts the now murdered prisoners could ever have perpetuated.

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, must as a matter of urgency, commence immediate steps to bring the culprits to justice. Whereas the sitting Governor of Edo State can claim immunity from investigation and prosecution, the State Attorney general and Commissioner for Justice, Henry Idahagbon and others who collaborated in this sad episode, have no such immunity. Adams Oshiomole can be prosecuted whenever he steps out of office.

As you read, kindly observe a minute of silence in memory of these four unfortunate victims of State murder.

Our contraption now appears to be in free fall.


http://www.punchng.com/news/edo-executes-four-convicts-by-hanging/


Picture: Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomole