By STANLEY UZOARU, Owerri
Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and Biafra De-Factor Customary Government, yesterday, said they would not be cowed by military’s clampdown threats.
Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Ibrahim Attahiru had said at the first Commanding Officers’ Workshop 2021 in Uyo, Akwa Ibom on Tuesday, that military would go after separationist agitators like Nnami Kalu, Sunday Igboho and Dokubo to destabilise the corporate existence of Nigeria if they did not drop their plans.
In the same vein, Dokubo reacting through the Head, Information and Communication of the group, Uche Mefor, said they were not at war with the Nigerian government but exercising their legitimate rights to self-determination.
“We are not at war with the Nigerian state. We are doing everything within the confines of the law, both domestic and international. Nigerian state agents are entitled to their opinions but our claim and assertion to our rights to self-determination is firmly entrenched and rooted in international law. The Biafra Nation has come to stay. The Biafra De Facto Customary Government has come stay. We have not challenged the Nigerian state but firmly finds our legitimacy and position within the confines of the international legal order.
“On the other hand, and to the contrary, the Nigerian state has subjected majority of the ethnic nationalities and their populations to unimaginable horror, intimidation, sustained systematic human rights abuses, denied them the rights to freely choose their political future (internal self-determination) and this has come to a stage where her sovereignty is now being called to question.
“The right to self-determination is a human right. Article I of the Charter of the United Nations recognises the right to self-determination which underpins its universality, article 1 article common to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) which states that all peoples have the right to self-determination.
“By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Article 20 of the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights of 1981 recognises the rights to self-determination and it subsequently domesticated in Nigerian law under CAP 10 laws of federal republic of Nigeria 2004 as amended. Why would any of our men be harmed when they have not committed any crime nor go on the offensive against Nigeria, If Nigeria does that, it then means that Nigeria is herself violating international law and specifically the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights to which she is a signatory.” (Daily SUN)
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