Igbos Condemn Northern Elders Call For Gen Ihejirika's Prosecution

ELDERS of the North and the Southeast were locked yesterday in a brickbat over the military’s battle against the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State.

They both talked tough at separate fora in Abuja, the nation’s capital, over the plan by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) to take former Chief of Army Staff Lt.-Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes.

NEF spokesman Prof. Ango Abdullahi said there was no going back on the decision to call in the ICC over the massacre of hundreds of people in Baga, Borno State.

To Abdullahi, a former vice chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, it is “stupid to insinuate that we are dragging the former Chief of Army Staff to the ICC because he is an Igbo man.”

Gen. Ihejirika, who was replaced last week by Major Gen. Kenneth Miniimah, was the first officer from the Southeast extraction to head the army since the civil war ended in 1970.

But Senator Uche Chukwumerije, who spoke on behalf of Igbo elders, criticised the “blatant selective search for who is responsible in Baga and Why so personal?”

“Every citizen (including Prof. Ango Abdullahi) knows that the anti-terrorism campaign in the North is a joint military operation under the command of the Chief oF Defence Staff.

“In singling out Lt.-General Ihejirika, the then Army boss, the likes of Prof. Ango Abdullahi are merely betraying old prejudices and embarking on new hazardous search for bad names to hang hated dogs.

“Besides, the fact that Prof. Ango Abdullahi and co sprung into action immediately Lt.-General Ihejirika and ‘six others’ left their commands has revealed the depth of long-smoldering resentment of the campaign against Boko Haram by the self-proclaimed leaders of the North.

The position of the Northern Elders Forum, he said, “raises a question about where their sympathy lies in this battle” against Boko Haram.

Chukwumerije asked: “Why single out Bama (Baga) incident for Hague’s adjudication?”

He said: “We have seen, in the past, cases of wholesale massacres which were not only more gruesome than Bama’s (Baga) but proven as true, unlike Bama (Baga). Ango Abdullahi and co kept silent.

“There was the case of Odi in which a whole community was decimated. There was the case of Zaki-Biam. There was the case of Katsina Ala.

“If Odi did not arouse the conscience of Ango Abdullahi because the people do not belong to his hallowed Northern enclave, how about Zaki-Biam and Katsina Ala?

“In the magisterial judgement and imperial political wisdom of the Ango Abdullahis, when is a Nigerian, their type of Nigerian, worthy of national attention and respect of the law, and when is a Northerner, their type of Northerner, worthy of attention and protection of the law? Why only Bama (Baga)?

According to him, “if Ango’s criterion for selection of cases for Hague is a gruesome use of force against unarmed civilians’, ‘extra-judicial killings’ and ‘acts of strangulating civilians’ (unproven or exaggerated as the allegation may be), then our learned professor ought to know that the prime candidate is genocidal atrocities of the civil war against the people of former Eastern Region, especially Ndigbo”.

Chukwumerije added: “As Ango Abdullahi’s team opens the doors and walks into the hall of the World Court, let them realise that they have at last opened the Pandora’ Box”.

“The indigenes of Odi, Zaki-Biam and Katsina-Ala will, in quick succession, file into the hall. At the same pace, Ndigbo of Southeast and Anioma will dust their files and head for The Hague.”

He said Nigerians must cling to the hope that Abdullahi and co “wish long-lasting peace and stability to our troubled federation”.

According to Chukwumerije, the only path to long-lasting stability of the federation is the path of equity-”an understanding by all of us that the irreducible necessity in a multi-national state like our federation is a secular state soundly based on rule of all, on equality of rights and obligations of all citizens”.

He said the Igbo-speaking citizens observed with disquiet that the present constellation of security chiefs has none from the Igbo ethnic nationality.

Ndigbo, he said, views the omission with concern “because it means that at the highest level of consideration of the security challenges of the country, the voice of Ndigbo will be missing”.

He said: “A society that has no respect for human life is nearer the status of a community of animals. But the situation in the universally acknowledged difficult terrain of a borderless war, such as terrorism, counter terrorism and guerilla-like conflicts offers a unique challenge.”

Chukwumerije, who spoke at the National Assembly, added: “The motives of Prof. Ango Abdullahi and co are obviously beyond concerns about violations of human rights. This is so because the incident of Bama (Baga) has been investigated and put to rest long ago.

“For instance, the Senate sent a strong team to the area in June 2013 after the incident. After a thorough on-the-spot investigation, which extended to interviews with all concerned officials (Director of SSS, State Governor, Commander of the Multi-National Joint Task Force, and stakeholders of the community) and visit to the graveyard, the Senate Committee concluded as follows: ‘The death toll of 185 was exaggerated but there may be more than 37 deaths….

Chukwumerije, who said that the Senate endorsed the report, noted that “definitely, there were no massacres to the scale that demanded the judicial sanctions of The Hague”.

He said: “Why the blatantly selective search for responsibility in Bama (Baga) and why so personal?