By Charles Ogbu

 That hundreds of Igbo sons and daughters were gruesomely killed by criminal elements within the Nigerian security agencies is no longer news. That the President and Commander-In-Chief of Nigeria  fully gave his blessing to that devilish operation is beyond doubt. That the Nigerian Army does not plan on ending the extra-judicial killing of the IPOB members is equally not a subject of debate. 

 Truth is, the number of Igbo sons and daughters killed so far by agents of the Nigerian state is in their thousands. Thousands more are currently being detained in different military installations all over the South-East. Amnesty International even admitted that the casualty figure could be far higher than they gave in their report. All these are no longer news.

 What is news is this Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia state and Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State as well as Senator Ike Ekweremadu, the controversial Enugu Adoration Ground  priest,  Father  Ejike Mbaka and all South-East politicians are criminally complicit in the gruesome murder of the unarmed IPOB members!

 I understand that some of you are either politically or religiously affiliated to some of these men I just mentioned and would ordinarily want to call for my head for calling out your favourite politician or priest. But before you issue your own fatwa on me, please hear me out first, that is all I ask. And remember, we are talking human lives here.... the lives of these innocent Biafrans murdered by agents of the Nigerian state.
* Ekweremadu 
The Feb. 9th killing of IPOB members praying inside Ngwa High School, Aba took place in Abia State under the watchful eye of Gov. Ikpeazu. As the governor under whose watch, dozens of innocent men and women were brutally killed..... the same men and women whose lives and properties he was elected to protect..... What did Gov.  Ikpeazu do after the killing???? 

 Even if we are to assume he was powerless to stop the killing, the question yet remains, what did he do after the killing?? Did he issue a strong statement condemning the killing and follow it up with a commission of enquiry to at least ensure that if nothing else is done, the truth is fully established and the killers clearly identified for the murderers they really are? 

 After killing the Shiites in Zaria, Kaduna State, Gov. Nuhu El-Rufai established a commission of enquiry where we got to know that almost 400 members of the Shiites killed by the army were buried in mass grave by the govt of Gov. El-Rufai. Did Abia govt do this?

 The first justice you can give to someone who was murdered is finding out exactly how they were killed and exposing the killer for the beast they really are! So I ask again, what did the Abia sSate govt do after dozens of her citizens were murdered by uniformed killers masquerading as a National Army??

* Ugwuanyi 
For the Anambra Governor Willie Obiano, his own case seem worse. Hundreds of Igbo sons and daughters have been butchered under his watch and I'm yet to hear him say a word. On 29th and 30th of May, 2016, the Biafra Remembrance Day, hundreds of IPOB members were killed while sleeping inside a church. Hundreds more were killed in different locations in Onitsha, Anambra state. Few days after the church killing, a media aide to governor Obiano came out to claim that nobody was killed inside the church, something the Amnesty Report has since proven that actually did happen.

 Let's keep our support for our favorite politicians aside and ask ourselves some real questions here: Could those killings have happened in those two States without the governments there being in the know even before it happened?? If they weren't in the know and in support, why was there no outrage from them??????? If their political mandate come under threat from even Buhari himself, would they leave any stone unturned in ensuring they reclaim it? Why are we not seeing the same zeal from them when innocent citizens are killed under their watch??
On Ike Ekweremadu: this is the highest ranking Igbo politician as of today. He is the deputy president of the Senate.This Enugu-born lawyer turned politician has the wherewithal to cause international bodies like the ICC to start criminal proceeding against the army and the Nigerian govt should they fail to stop killing the Igbos.

  His first duty as a senator is to protect the interest of his people, remember? When president Buhari dragged Ekweremadu and Saraki to court for forgery, the former Secretary to the Enugu state govt under ex-governor Chimaroke Nnamani quickly wrote the E.U, the U.S. and other international bodies alleging victimization but when his people were gruesomely murdered by the army, Ekweremadu suddenly forgot how to write a letter.

 Threat to the political career of senator Ike Ekweremadu was considered a good enough reason for him to write a letter to world bodies but the killing of his own people first by the Fulani herdsmen and now, the army was not considered a good enough ground to write to these international bodies.

 Ponder on this for a moment.
Fr. Mbaka: hundreds were killed in Nimo Uzo-uwani, Enugu state, the same state where Mbaka hails from and currently reside in, but we heard no word of condemnations from the priest. Fulani herdsmen has killed hundreds of people in Awgu, Ndiagu, Udi, etc all in Enugu State, Fr.Mbaka's state but the controversial priest has never condemned these killing neither has he ever spoken out against the criminal silence of Buhari. Even when the whole Catholic priests, bishops and reverend sisters staged a protest in Enugu against the Fulani killings, Mbaka was conspicuously absent. This is the same priest that is well known to be a very close friend of President Buhari, yet, he hadn't thought it wise to use his influence to prevail on the president to order  the army to stop sending Igbos into extinction. Meanwhile, it was the same Mbaka who swore with to the high heavens that Muhammadu Buhari was the man God has chosen to rule Nigeria.

 What does this tell you about Mbaka??
* Obiano 
As I type this, murderers, rapists and throat cutters under the aegis of Boko Haram are currently enjoying a juicy amnesty package. Even the killing machine known as the fulani herdsmen are currently being protected by a 1000 military taskforce despite their numerous crimes;  But, somewhere, in the country, an Igbo man, Nnamdi Kanu who has never killed a fly is languishing in jail with some of his friends simply for mentioning "Biafra", yet, these Igbo politicians whose sole reason for existence should be the protection of the interest of the Igbos first and foremost, have never deemed it necessary to at least question why Boko Haram and Fulani terrorists should be enjoying amnesty and govt protection while Nnamdi Kanu who has never killed a soul should be locked up in detention.


What does this tell you about these politicians??
My people, let us pay ourselves the courtesy of being brutally blunt: Our biggest problem today is not  Buhari. Far from it. We survived the Biafran war and like the Phoenix, we rose from the ashes of poverty, hunger and deprivation imposed on us by the enemies to become the multi-headed economic Octopus we are today. It will take far more than Buhari and his genocidal army to destroy the Igbos. 

 The biggest threat facing the Igbo race today is the presence of a very large army of morally bankrupt men and women masquerading as our politicians. These guys pose more danger to the Igbo race than a thousand and one Buhari.The household enemy is the enemy you need to watch out for. The outside enemy can do you no harm without the help of the inside enemy. As the Igbos would say: 'Oke no n'ulo gwara nke n'ohia n'anu di na ngiga'

 After hundreds were killed in Uzo-Uwani, Enugu state, the governor, my governor, to my eternal shame, cried publicly and declared fasting and prayer only to be pictured few hours later with President Buhari smiling like a teenager on his first date. If it was governor Ugwuanyi's political mandate that was threatened by even president Buhari, do you think he would not fight even more fiercely than governor Fayose did??
* Ikpeazu 
Of what use are these spineless, dickless headless bunch known as Igbo politicians if they cannot even speak out against systemic genocide being committed against their own people?? On whose mandate are these greedy political hawks collecting humongous salaries and allowances if they can't even utter a word when their own people are being killed??


Any politician who places his political career above the lives and properties of his people is not worth his name. Sadly, in Igbo land today, 90% of our politicians fall in this category.

 It is my humble opinion that the conspiracy of silence from Igbo politicians is largely to blame for the boldness and govt-sponsored impunity with which both State actors represented by the army and non State actors represented by the murderous Fulani herdsmen take turn in decimating Igbo population.

 Our reluctance in calling out these unscrupulous politicians is an indictment on our collective resolve as a people who truly desire freedom from oppression and State-sponsored genocide!

 Ogbu is a Lagos-based  Public Affairs Analyst