Biafra Voice News

Human rights group @amnesty accuses Cameroon military of attacking and torturing English speakers

Cameroon police with riot shields patrol on a street in the administrative quarter of Buea on October 1, 2017.
(CNN)Cameroon is in the grip of spiraling violence that has seen security forces and armed separatists torture and attack people in the country's English speaking region, a new report by Amnesty International has said.

The human rights group says it has spoken to more than 150 victims and eyewitnesses to gather evidence of escalating violence in the northwest and southwest region of the country.

Rights groups call for probe into protesters' deaths during 2016 demonstrations in Cameroon. 01:20
The report stated that English speakers in the country were being targeted by both the Cameroon military and armed Anglophone separatists in waves of violence that Amnesty describes as "unlawful, excessive and unnecessary."
In the report titled, "A turn for the worse: Violence and human rights violations in Anglophone Cameroon," victims gave harrowing accounts of beatings and allegations of simulated electrocution and torture carried out by the military as well as attacks on schools and teachers by armed Anglophone separatists.
Residents of Cameroon's two English-speaking provinces, which make up 20% of the country's population, have longstanding grievances against the largely Francophone central government.

They complain of being marginalized and having the French legal and education systems forced upon them, a practice that dates back to the post-colonial 1960s era.
Tensions boiled over last year when protesters took to the streets in Cameroon's Anglophone regions, later calling for symbolic independence from the West African country's French-speaking majority.
Amnesty says Cameroon's military has responded to these protests with "torture, unlawful killings and destruction of property."
Some of the people Amnesty spoke to described being severely beaten with sticks, hammers and while blindfolded by soldiers in the Cameroon army.
One man who spoke to Amnesty said he and others were arrested in December last year and tortured with their hands tied behind their backs.
"They ... gagged us and tied our faces with our towels and shorts ..." he said.

"They then made us lie in the water, face down for about 45 minutes. ... During three days, they beat us with shovels, hammers, planks and cables, kicked us with their boots and poured hot water on us ... when I tried to move and shouted, one of them used the cigarette he was smoking to burn me."
Amnesty said it had also received information about numerous instances of deaths in custody.

Graphic images of torture and mutilated bodies have flooded social media sites as Anglophone Cameroonians appeal for international help against what they say is genocide.
CNN has seen some of these graphic images but cannot independently verify their authenticity.
"Their heavy-handed response will do nothing to calm the violence -- in fact it is likely to further alienate Anglophone communities and fuel further unrest," said Samira Daoud, Amnesty International deputy director for West and Central Africa, in a statement.
For their part, armed separatists reportedly attacked at least 42 schools between February 2017 and May 2018, targeting teachers and students for not taking part in a boycott of schools, long seen as a symbol of Francophone marginalization, Amnesty said.

A teacher told Amnesty he was wounded after a masked gunman, suspected to be a member of an armed separatist group, stormed his school in the northwest province and shot him in the leg.
"The assailant ... told me that I was still coming to school in defiance of calls for a schools boycott. He then asked me to raise my hands, but before I could do so, he shot me. I fell to the ground...," the teacher told Amnesty.

"The armed separatists repeated targeting of the general population demonstrates a total disregard for human life, and is another example of the threat faced by people in the Anglophone regions," said Daoud.

Didier Badjeck, a spokesman for the army, rejected Amnesty's claims of torture and violence, dismissing them as "rumors."
Badjeck told CNN: "The Cameroon army is professional. Amnesty is writing against the armed forces based on rumors."
Badjeck labeled the armed separatists "terrorists," and accused them of attacking and burning down schools.
"Since 2016, they have been attacking schools and we are working against terrorists. The army defends itself against attackers," Badjeck said.
"If any of our soldiers is found to have breached the rules of engagement, they will be punished," he added.
President Paul Biya has condemned "all acts of violence, regardless of their sources and their perpetrators," although some see the actions of the security forces as a way to secure his 35-year grip on power.

A lawyer in the Warri branch of the Nigeria Bar Association, Mr Bernard Oyabevwe, was a June 5, 2018, allegedly beaten to a pulp by policemen attached to a police station in the ‘A’ Division of the Delta State Police Command in Warri for defending his client.

The lawyer was said to have visited the division to defend his client who was arrested by the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Southern City News learnt on Sunday that Oyabevwe had visited the police station attached to the division, which is directly adjacent the state magistrate court, when the incident happened, leaving the victim brutalised with his eyes injured.

It was learnt that trouble started when Oyabevwe found out that his client and his wife had been forcefully arrested by the EFCC officials from Magistrate Court II and taken to the division.

The lawyer was said to have gone to the division to ascertain why his clients were arrested.

While there, a source told Southern City News that policemen at the station threatened to kill the lawyer and whoever dared to intervene.

The Brutalized Lawyer, Mr Bernard Oyabevwe,
The source, who spoke on condition of annonymity, said one of the policemen pushed the lawyer against the EFCC vehicle that was conveying his client and his wife to unknown destination.

Other policemen were alleged to have held Oyabevwe and beat him to the point that he could no longer talk.

“He started bleeding and coughing out blood until some court officials from both the high and magistrate’s courts intervened and insisted that he should be rushed immediately for medical treatment,” the source said.

The assault on the lawyer was said to have been carried out by over ten policemen (names withheld) who were alleged to have used their guns to hit the victim’s eyes.

Oyabevwe, who confirmed the attack on him, accused the Divisional Police Officer of the station, Mr Kenneth Zuokumor, a Chief Superintendent of Police, of being behind his attack, saying that he lost mobile set and N50,000 cash in his pocket.

He stated that he was charged to court at the end of the melee in his bleeding condition on three count-charge of obstructing justice, threat to peace and attacking the station.

Meanwhile, the Warri branch of NBA has called on the Inspector-General of Police and the Police Service Commission to immediately probe the assault by police on its member.

Briefing journalists at a news conference in Warri on Sunday, the Chairman of the Warri NBA, Mr Godwin Ebowe, flanked by his deputy, Mr Kunle Edun, among others, demanded the dismissal of the police officers involved in the attack and the transfer of the DPO, Area Commander and the state Commissioner of Police for their alleged complicity in the attack.

Ebowe said, “We will not accept that as lawyers. We want the world to know that we are not going to sleep and allow this matter to be wished away or swept under the carpet. No amount of pleading, they must be brought to book. The policemen involved must be prosecuted before the relevant courts, while we take our civil action.”

However, the state Police Command denied the allegation, accusing Oyabevwe of assaulting a uniform police officer on duty.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Andrew Aniamaka, said the lawyer had already been arraigned in court for obstructing officials of the EFCC by conducting himself in a manner that caused the breach of peace and assaulting a police officer.

“There is a matter that the EFCC is investigating for which some officials of the agency came to Delta State and the lawyer while trying to defend his client became violent and the EFCC could not contain him and, so, the matter somehow was brought to the station. And still, he would not reason with the policemen who were trying to control the situation,” he said.

Biafra restoration requires a multifaceted approach, a London based international security/counterterrorism expert(name classified for professional reasons) once told me during an interesting conversation in late November 2017. Our insightful conversation was based on the bloody military raid at Nnamdi Kanu's residence, and which resultantly led to the IPOB leader's enforced disappearance. The submission of my learned friend was one I found slightly hard to assimilate. In other words, the postulation sounded contestable to me, maybe due to my IPOB deep-rooted sentimentalism; but as a lay man wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, and having found it needless to dabble into such a debate with an expert without veritable facts, I had to keep mum and absorb the tutorial.
The counter-terrorism Chief believes that due to the fact that IPOB is seemingly the only genuine group with sophisticated ideological framework towards Biafra restoration, It is nearly realistic for the Nigeria government to deal a heavy blow to the group and its ideology by simply infiltrating or getting rid of its leadership structure. According to him, this is the major  reason why 'Operation Python Dance' was relaunched by Nigeria military in collaboration with relevant state actors- to get rid of Nnamdi Kanu. The Nigeria government believed that having Nnamdi Kanu(being the fulcrum and focal point of IPOB) out of the way would to a large extent douse, if not extinguish the multiplying tensions generated by IPOB agitations across the country.
My learned friend opined that the reason why the Nigeria government nearly succeeded in putting IPOB to bed was because, although different factions of Pro-Biafra do exist, none were genuine, powerful or radical enough to rival IPOB methodologies, as they failed to utilise the enabling environment provided by IPOB activities to enhance and push through their various versions of Biafra activism.  An excerpt of his statement reads-
"I spent four years researching how movements grow, how they are sustained and how they collapse, but also how they succeed. Any movement that does not establish a strong rival faction in the beginning of the struggle never succeeds. Governments find it difficult if not impossible to control rival factions that have different ideas on how to achieve their objective. A disorganised movement with multiple leaders is a nightmare to states, an organised movement is good for states.
...In the case of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu is the only man who carries all the cross. To be honest , it was overwhelming for him."

From all ramifications, it is very evident that what is needed to fast track the freedom of Biafra is not for IPOB to indulge in any form of coalition with any group, be it predecessors or splinter groups; rather what we urgently need is for each and every group that claims to propagate Biafra restoration gospel to scrutinise and sanitise itself of every greed, selfish interest and every sabotaging tendency that makes it susceptible to the influence of the inept oppressive state actors. As long as we're all genuinely headed for the same destination, it shouldn't be a source of concern, the different routes we tend to apply.
However, the problem is that most Pro-Biafra groups I've taken time to study are more occupied with rendering incessant attacks and destructive criticisms on IPOB's modus operandi more than concentrating their efforts towards their own methodology of Biafra restoration. They end up deviating from freedom fighting and rapidly transforming into mere watchdogs driven by reckless antagonism.

If anyone feels too big to join or support IPOB or  feels uncomfortable with rigid leadership system of IPOB with reference to 'command and control', the best thing for such a person to do is to go and form his/her own group of big and lawless men, and stop distracting IPOB with obscure coalition lobbying.
IPOB being the largest sustainable freedom fighting group in Africa, and by the virtue of its vision, mission and accomplishments, should be accorded the much needed reverence by other groups with parallel modus operandi, while IPOB on its own should be ready to accommodate dissent voices from other groups. Debates are best won on ground of superior argument, not on the altar of exchange of insults and vulgar languages.
In dealing with a multi-headed demon such as Nigeria, we need more versatile approach of dispensing our various ammunitions. At the end of it all, we'll come to the realisation of the fact that what we really need to achieve the freedom of Biafra is the seriousness and incorruptibility of different groups agitating for Biafra, not a coalition of unserious mindsets driven by ulterior motives and greed.

Written By Paul Ihechi Alagba,
Family Writers Press Analyst.

Abia State High Court, has granted Bail, to Seven Jewish adherents who were arrested at AfraUkwu Ibekwu the residence of IPOB Leader Citizen Nnamdi Kanu.

Recall that on the 13th Of May 2018, over eight Jewish worshippers were arrested by the Nigeria security agents in Umuahia, including juveniles.
The Abia State Police Command released the juveniles after detaining them, for hours and arraigned Nine in Umuahia Magistrate Court.
The Bail application was denied as the Magistrate court denied the jurisdiction, to grant Bail upon which their Bail application was filed on High Court by IPOB Legal Team.

Stay tuned for note details..

Ibeh Gift Amarachi reporting For Family Writers Press

The Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide has condemned the killings of four persons during a military invasion of Oluasiri community in Nembe Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

During the incident, which occurred last Thursday, a mother and her six-month-old baby, as well as two other persons were reportedly killed by soldiers during a security operation.

It was learnt that the military operation was launched to dislodge suspected militants and sea pirates allegedly hiding in Oluasiri community.

While some security personnel claimed the soldiers opened fire into the community following gunshot attacks from the suspected militants, the indigenes of Oluasiri community debunked the claim, insisting that the military attack was unprovoked.

Reacting to the killings, the Chairman, IYC, Central Zone, Mr. Tare Porri, said the invasion was a provocative action by the mislitary, alleging the development confirmed the suspicion that the military is sectional and biased.

He said the military was determined only to wage war against the people of the Niger Delta, the Ijaw people, all in a bid to control the region’s oil, sustain Nigeria’s unjust unitary structure and resist calls for restructuring.

Porri said the invasion of Oluasiri community would heighten tensions in the region and could potentially lead to “a full-blown seige” capable of destabilising the country and the already existing peace created by Governor Seriake Dickson.

He said, “The military has insulted us to provoke war in our land. We call on the Federal Government to apologise without delay for this infantile act of deliberate provocation.

“This wanton act is an action against the laws of human rights and a threat to democracy. We kick against the logic of civility in a supposed free society to deploy overwhelming weapons and personnel of warfare against a peaceful community within the ambit of non-violence.

“President Muhammadu Buhari, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, must be held accountable for the military’s actions. There could be no justifiable excuses why soldiers would invade and murder an innocent baby and others.”

Porri urged the military to desist from further attempts at muzzling Ijaw people, through acts of premeditated assault or intimidation of communities.

via @todayng

By Egwuatu Chukz
Reporting for Family Writer Press.

10/June/2018.

The Indigenous People Of Biafra Enugu family successfully inaugurates a new Zone in Nkanu East Local government of Area Enugu province.

The name of the new Zone is called Amagunze Zone under Nkanu East LGA. The Zonal members  comprises of Biafrans that were living in various villages part of the area.

The new Zone was fully inaugurated by the members of the Provincial executives as all due protocol were dully observed.

A group photograph was taken by the Media personnel who were available during this special inauguration. The new members of IPOB were so much very happy today having been officially inaugurated as a zone.

Photo speaks