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…Says Nnamdi Kanu should be given unconditional release
From George Onyejiuwa, Owerri
The National President of the Association of Igbo Town Unions, Chief Emeka Diwe, has said that the Igbo are seeking for justice and symbolic acts of national contrition for the decades of injustice the people have suffered in Nigerian federation following the civil war.
He also called for the unconditional release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB and other Biafra agitators as part of addressing the injustice against the Igbo.
He said for decades the lie that the Igbo plotted and executed a coup against the rest of Nigeria had been weaponized to justify structural violence against the Igbo to the point where a people that had led Nigeria’s economy before independence and offered the country most of its finest minds across all sectors were suddenly cast as pariahs and threats to national unity.
Chief Diwe who stated this at the weekend in Owerri, the Imo state capital, said: “The unjust labeling of Ndigbo as rebels fed the machinery of marginalization and underdevelopment and served as justification for our political and economic exclusion in the decades that followed.
“While some have proposed monetary compensation as reparation for this long-standing injustice, ASITU holds a fundamentally different view. No amount of money can restore the lives that were lost or compensate for the trauma that has been passed down through generations. Our pain is not transactional. The Igbo who returned after the war found their bank accounts reduced to 20 Pounds, irrespective of what they had deposited pre-war. Properties belonging to them in Port Harcourt and elsewhere were branded “abandoned properties” and appropriated. To this day families are still fighting in courts to reclaim what was lawfully theirs. Yet, even with these wounds Ndigbo embraced the slogan “No Victor, No Vanquished” and sought to reintegrate and rebuild Nigeria with hope and commitment.”
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However, he said Igbos desire justice and symbolic acts of national contrition. He said: “Nations that have emerged from conflict and civil strife have healed by facing history squarely. Rwanda after the genocide of 1994 declared a National Mourning Week and built memorials across the country. South Africa under Nelson Mandela embraced the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Nigeria cannot pretend that the war never happened nor continue to hide from its consequences.
“To this end, we demand that a national day of remembrance be declared and observed annually as a public holiday across the country. On this day the Federal Government should organize a symbolic national burial for all the victims of the war. This act will offer long overdue closure to the families of the dead and send a clear message that the Nigerian state has finally acknowledged the injustice and is ready to right the wrongs of the past. There is still no national monument commemorating the war dead in Igboland or a federal government-backed war archive to preserve their stories. These are minimum steps needed in a serious nation striving for unity.”
He stressed that the healing process must also address the structural injustices that have kept the South East perpetually behind.
In this regard, he said: “ASITU demands the creation of additional states in the South East to bring the region at par with others. The South East has five states while other zones have six or seven. This disparity has meant that the South East gets fewer senators, fewer representatives, fewer local governments, and less revenue. This is not a technical oversight; it is a political decision with real consequences. In federal appointments, the South East often gets the short end of the stick. Between 2015 and the present time, the South East has had no representation in the leadership of the Nigerian security architecture. Such exclusion breeds disaffection and undermines national cohesion.
“We, therefore, demand the full inclusion of Ndigbo in the security leadership and other sensitive sectors of the nation. The persistent exclusion of our people from the command structures of the military is a violation of the Federal Character principle.
“An accurate census that reflects the true demographic weight of the Igbo is critical to equitable representation and planning. Every democracy needs good data and without it fairness cannot be achieved.
The ASITU national leader also called for the unconditional release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and all other pro-Biafra agitators currently detained in various parts of the country. He urged the Federal Government to initiate a comprehensive amnesty programme for those who took up arms out of frustration and neglect, saying the young people do not constitute enemies of the state, but rather the products of a system that failed them. He said a process of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, similar to what was implemented in the Niger Delta, noting that the grievances of the South East are legitimate and must be addressed through dialogue, not bullets.
