Pro Trump Rally Killings: The Making Of Nigeria An International Murderous Country

(Intersociety & SBCHROs, Onitsha Nigeria: 22nd January 2017)-The

leaderships of Int’l Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law

(Intersociety) and the Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights

Organizations (SBCHROs) are deeply concerned, alarmed and shocked over

the wilful and premeditated killing of no fewer than twenty (20)

unarmed and defenceless Nigerian citizens and terminally injuring of

scores of others at the Port Harcourt (Igweocha) venue of Donald J.

Trump Solidarity Rally on 20th January 2017. Over seventy (70) other

citizens that attended the rally were arrested and are still being

detained by soldiers and police, etc, in various detention facilities

in Rivers State and possibly outside the State.
The regime atrocious deaths and associated terminal injuries were

carried out and perpetrated by the Nigerian Army led by its Chief, Lt

Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai; among other security forces. The operation,

circumstantially, was presidentially ordered by the Commander-In-Chief

of the Nigerian Armed Forces, President Muhammadu Buhari.

The shootings and killings reportedly started at various sub-scenes of

the solidarity rally the moment the Nigerian Army stormed the places

to join other security forces on the ground and opened fire at unarmed

and defenceless citizens with live bullets shot at them at close

range. Some dead bodies of the Port Harcourt shootings and killings

were taken away by the Nigerian Army, while others were rescued and

deposited in some mortuaries located in across Rivers State. In

similar shootings and killings in Onitsha and Aba in August and

December 2015 as well as in January, February and May 2016; they also

started after the arrival of the soldiers of the Nigerian Army.

By law and circumstances, the shootings and killings are totally and

inexcusably wilful and premeditated; particularly on account of

existing secret or unofficial presidential death code against unarmed

and defenceless Pro Biafra Campaigners and other citizens of Southeast

and South-south Nigeria led by Igbo-Nigerians. The anti Igbo

presidential death code is circumstantially evidential; likewise

associated criminal stigmatization.
Further attestation to the wilful and premeditated shootings and

killings is the widely publicized written notification for the rally

sent by the lead-organizer of the rally, the IPOB World-Wide to

relevant security agencies in Nigeria including the Army, Police and

SSS and leading diplomatic missions and social advocacy groups within

and outside Nigeria.
The shootings and killings have also exposed the Nigerian Army and

other security agencies’ bare-faced lies and indefensible excuses made

against the Pro Biafra Campaigners particularly the IPOB since 2015 to

the effect that “Pro Biafra Campaigners are shot and killed during

their protests because they are armed and violent”. The Igweocha

shootings and killings have completely exposed these bare-faced lies

and vindicated IPOB led Pro Biafra Campaigners as unarmed and

nonviolent or pacifist self determination campaigners.

Gory images emerging from the Igweocha (Port Harcourt) shootings and

killings have also exposed the Nigerian Army, Police and SSS; in the

area of criminal use of force; where unarmed and defenceless citizens

who gathered for the rally were targeted and shot with automatic

weapons at close range; directed at terminal parts of their bodies

such as chest, waist, lung, heart, forehead, neck, reproductive and

stomach regions of their bodies. The Rivers Police Command even has

the audacity and shamelessness to tell reporters that “non person died

in the rally”.
In all these, President Muhammadu Buhari has again failed woefully in

his constitutional duty to protect the citizens’ constitutional rights

to life, personal liberty and dignity of human person as well as

freedom of association, expression, movement and constitutional

assemblies. The Buhari Administration has also failed woefully to

observe and uphold Nigeria’s regional and international rights

obligations under the AU and the UN Systems.
Apart from grave ethnic bias and hatred which the shootings and

killings further exposed; they also gravely or dangerously rubbished

Nigeria as an international murderous country. It is also very

important to observe that Nigeria as a current Member-State of the

African Union and the United Nations under the current international

diplomacy and relations; is speedily becoming a Rogue State under the

Buhari Administration.
Diplomatically and internationally, there have been several pro Buhari

and anti Buhari Street protests and matches in strategic international

capitals and cities; yet no single soul was shot and killed or

terminally maimed with live bullets. Several street matches and

protests have been organized and are still being organized by mass

movements involving millions of citizens of various regional and

international ethnic nationalities in several cities of the world for

self governance, statehood or socio-political and economic self

determination; yet heavens have not fallen and the host political

territories have never unleashed their armies and other coercive

agencies on them with brute alacrity. But in Buhari’s democratic

Nigeria, over 270 killings and 350 terminal injuries have been

recorded in seventeen months or 510 days or between August 2015 and

January 2017.
Diplomatic consequences of the pro Trump solidarity shootings and

killings wilfully carried out and perpetrated by the Buhari

Administration may most likely overweigh Nigeria’s current Presidency

particularly as it concerns Nigeria’s relationship with the new Donald

Trump Administration in Washington. The killings are the height of

diplomatic blunder and miscalculation. Nigeria is doomed irreparably

if it attracts to itself international isolationism from the world’s

first among the equals and the equals themselves.
The Buhari Administration appears deadly decayed diplomatically and

internationally that it has defiantly and dangerously remained locally

and diplomatically incorrigible and suicidal. The Administration ought

to have learned a lot of lessons from its gross diplomatic bias and

sidedness in the just concluded failed Hillary Clinton and former

President Obama’ election campaigns; but we are deeply disappointed

that the reverse is grossly the case till date.
Granted that there exists diplomatic lobbying, but how can the Buhari

Administration explain to the Trump Administration that it killed not

less than 20 unarmed and defenceless citizens, terminally injured

dozens of others and detained over seventy (70) simply because they

non-violently and harmlessly gathered to show solidarity with Mr

Donald J. Trump on his historic swearing in as the 45th President of

the United States on the same date of the shootings and killings?

Will the Trump Administration abandon the Statue of Liberty and

swallow President Buhari’s expected indefensible excuses? Is Nigeria

no longer a key Member-State of the United Nations? What about the

Principles and Purposes of the United Nations and the Fundamental

Rules of the United Nations or Opino Juris including the Ten Basic

Standards of the International Law, Use of Force and the Hallowed

Right to Freedom of Expression? Is Buhari’s democratic Nigeria now an

island of itself? Can the Ghanaian security forces, for instance,

order for mass murder of Nigerians in Ghana on account of their

jubilations or rallies over the Super Eagle’s defeat of the Black

Stars in a football match?
We shall not be surprised to read in coming days or weeks in

Nigeria’s print, visual, audio visual and web media; particularly

those with strong ethno-religious bias and news censorship, a scripted

or diplomatically coerced statement from the authorities of relevant

diplomatic missions in Nigeria or the Government of Nigeria with

indefensible excuses bordering on the reason for diplomatic

indifference as it concerns the shootings and killings or dissipation

of diplomatic or verbal energy as in why President Muhammadu Buhari’s

name was omitted from the list of the international dignitaries

invited for Trump inauguration at the White House; thereby ignoring

diplomatic and moral abominations trailing the Igweocha pro Trump

rally shootings and killings.
As we and other Nigerians and members of the international community

await the completion of the ongoing statistical compilation and

computation of the images and bio-data of those killed and maimed at

the Igweocha Pro Trump Solidarity Rally of 20th January 2017; we again

console with the families that lost their loved ones and bread winners

as well as the leadership of IPOB World-Wide and urge them to take

heart and see the death of their slain comrades as a price for liberty

of their race to be saved and rescued from age-long physical or

structural violence in a bleeding Federal Republic of Nigeria.

We also urge them to remain unprovoked, pacifist and nonviolent at all

times. It is extremely important to inform them that the Buhari

Administration and its leading regime atrocities perpetrators

including President Buhari himself, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai, former

Inspector Gen of Police, Solomon Arase, current IGP, Ibrahim Kpotum

Idris, SSS boss, Lawal Daura and their culpable sub commanders as well

as the present Governments of Abia and Anambra States which culpably

aided and abetted the 9th February and 30th May 2016 military

massacres in Onitsha and Aba ; are doing everything immoral or crooked

to escape from the long arm of the law, locally and internationally,

at the appointed time and dates.
One of the escape routes desperately and deadly being exploited by the

named perpetrators is to provoke the families of the slain and the

IPOB World-Wide to collectively resort to reprisal radicalization

including armed rebellion or insurgency so as to find enough grounds

to escape retribution and eternal moral damnation itching speedily at

the doorsteps.
These, the members of the slain and terminally injured families and

the IPOB World-Wide, must never allow. The regime atrocities

perpetrators who have chosen to remain adamant and
repeat-perpetrators; must at all times be guided to the path of

retribution and eternal moral damnation without recourse to shortcuts,

reprisal radicalization and jungle justice.
The United States Embassy in Nigeria is also called upon to rise in

condemnation of the heartless killing and maiming of these unarmed and

defenceless Nigerian citizens who gathered to join the United States

in inaugurating her 45th President and renewing her total allegiance

to the American People, the Hallowed Statue of Liberty and the rest of

the World in her moral and diplomatic capacities as the Police of

Global Security, Peace and Human Rights!
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety)

Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.intersociety-ng.org
For: Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs)

1. Comrade Aloysius Attah (+2348035090548)
For: Civil Liberties Organization, Southeast Zone
2. Comrade Peter Onyegiri (+2347036892777)
For: Centre for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy
3. Comrade Samuel Njoku (+2348039444628)
For: Human Rights Organization of Nigeria
4. Engineer Rufus Duru (+2348037513519)
For: Global Rights & Development International
5. Comrade Chike Umeh ( +2348064869601)
For: Society Advocacy Watch Project
6. Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq. (+2348034186332)
For: Anambra Human Rights Forum
7. Comrade Alex Olisa(+2348034090410)
For: Southeast Good Governance Forum
8. Jerry Chukwuokoro, PhD (+2348035372962)
For: International Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights Initiative

9. Mr. Tochukwu Ezeoke (+447748612933)
For: Igbo Ekunie Initiative (Pan Igbo Rights Advocacy Group)

10. Comrade Vincent Ezekwume (+2348171793911)
For: Civil Liberties Organization, Anambra State Branch