Nigerian soldiers
Onuoha
Ukeh explains that the military's claim that the relaunch of Operation
Python Dance in the South East is meant to fight crime, is quite
laughable. Does the military really think its relaunch of ‘Operation Python
Dance’ in the South East, with the claim that it is meant to fight
kidnapping and other criminal activities, is believable? If it does, it
means that the leadership of that institution takes Nigerians for fools,
especially at a time when kidnapping, armed robbery and sundry crimes
abound in other parts of the country without any major deployment of
soldiers. Yes, kidnappings and armed robbery are rampant on the
Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria expressway flank, for instance, to the extent that
the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, had to remove all police
DPOs, Commissioners of Police and Assistant Inspectors General of
Police (AIGs) in the area, yet soldiers have not been massively
deployed. There are also kidnappings and crimes in other parts of
Nigeria, but the military has not been unleashed soldiers on residents
and people of the affected areas. Therefore, there is more to singling
out the South East for such show of military strength and might.
Indeed, it is pertinent to ask these questions: Why is it that a
legion of soldiers and military hardware have been deployed to the five
states of the South East when there is no war or insurrection in the
place? Why is it that Abia and other South East states are swarming with
armed soldiers, who are brutally dealing with people, against global
military rule of engagement, relating to civilians? Why has the
military chosen to raise unnecessary tension in the South East and
further worsen security situation? For the avoidance of doubt, the
hitherto peace enjoyed in the South East geopolitical zone, despite the
wrong picture the authorities were painting, has been deflowered with
the military deployment. Now, Aba, the commercial nerve centre of Abia
State, is under curfew, from as early as 6pm, with residents afraid to
even step out for their legitimate businesses during the day. And people
are being victimised, tortured and maimed because of the activities of
the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Reports and video clips on the military operation in the South East
show the most inhuman treatment of innocent people by this invading
army. The soldiers are executing orders in the most callous way,
flogging their victims like animals, making them to lie down in ponds
for hours and liquidating some of them in the process. I have really
wondered what message the government thinks it is sending out to the
Igbo and the world. At a time south easterners need protection, they
are getting horrendous treatment in their own land. Coming just a few
months after a coalition of Arewa youths issued a quit notice to Igbo
living in the North and no action was taken against them, the ongoing
military operation further shows the treatment of Nigerians on unequal
measures. If Arewa youths issued a quit order to Igbo to vacate the
North, and there was no military deployment in the areas wherein the
Igbo were under threat, and the military turns around to deploy troops
to South East, it says much about how the Federal Government perceives
people from the South East. To say the least, if there is anywhere the
military and the government are supposed to deploy soldiers, it is in
the North, where the Igbo and other non-indigenes are living in fear,
following an earlier quit order.
Granted that the Arewa youths have suspended the quit notice, the
government knows that there is need for security guarantee in the North,
especially as the October 1 earlier deadline approaches. For one, Arewa
youths outlined conditions on which they suspended the quit order.
Therefore, there is still the feeling that Igbo are not safe in the
North. And the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari, in his ‘return
home’ broadcast, did not condemn, outright, that quit order, but only
said all Nigerians were entitled to live and do business in any part of
the country leaves much to imagination. Of course, condemning the quit
order and saying that Nigerians were entitled to live and do business in
any part of the country are not the same thing. Whereas the former is
an assurance that the government, which President Buhari leads, is
against the quit order, the latter is stating the obvious, as the
constitution gives Nigerians the liberty to live and do business
anywhere in the country, within the ambit of the law.
At present, tension has been heightened by the indiscretion of
deploying troops to the South East. Just as it did not achieve anything
tangible in 2016 other than making the agitation for Biafra to resonate,
when Nnamdi Kanu was under incarceration, the chances of the government
achieving anything currently is low. Using force to suppress people who
feel shortchanged in a country they think they have equal rights would
not work. Rather, it will increase the agitation and a feeling of
alienation. By its actions, there is no doubt that the government has
not learnt any lesson from the mistake of arresting Kanu, in the first
place, over Biafra agitation. Whether the government believes it or not,
the arrest of Kanu was one of the most fundamental errors it has made.
This is because with the arrest and detention, Kanu was transmogrified
from a simple director of Radio Biafra to the youths’ hero and his
followers’ symbol of emancipation. And the worst mistake the government
would make is to re-arrest him or to drive IPOB, the Movement for the
Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Biafra
Independence Movement (BIM) and other agitating groups in the South East
underground. This was the error made in the Niger Delta, which did cost
Nigeria a lot, until the late President Umar Yar’Adua, in his wisdom,
initiated the amnesty programme and quelled the agitation in the region.
The current government’s attitude would not produce good result.
Those advising the government to toe that line may think that crackdown
would stamp out agitation in the South East, but it is apparent that
this would increase it.
When the things that fuel Biafra are left
unaddressed, there is no way the agitation or identification with it
would go away. Just like government believed that arresting Arewa
youths, who issued quit notice to Igbo would have further increased
tension and insecurity, re-arresting Kanu, through military force or the
revocation of his bail would cause the same. Such plot, if it is the
goal of Operation Python Dance, will be a disaster. Therefore, the
government should retrace its steps, withdraw the military from the
South East and allow the dialogue the South East governors and Ohanaeze
Ndigbo initiated to run its course. It does not make sense that just
three weeks after South East governors, Ohanaeze organisation and some
Igbo leaders met with Kanu and his group, with the plan of further
meetings, the government ordered a military onslaught. Such an act shows
that some unpatriotic elements in government do not really wish the
country well and, therefore, taking actions to exacerbate problems.
For the IPOB and other pro-Biafra groups’ leadership, they should
know that caution is not a mark of cowardice. They should know when to
talk and how to say it, when to keep quiet and when to play the fool.
Confronting military personnel, who are on a mission to kill, will only
be counter-productive. Doing so will be tantamount to playing into the
hands of those looking for an opportunity to descend on the Igbo. And
for other Nigerians who are watching and clapping for the military and
government, as the Igbo are being dealt with, one message is this: Those
who sit back and commend evil tendencies will, one day, discover that
they would not be spared. Igbo are being dealt with today and others are
not talking. This will embolden those carrying out this suppressive
programme. Tomorrow, the oppressors of our people will take on others.
And the undemocratic practices as well as dictatorship will subsist.
***
Written by Onuoha Ukeh
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