“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” In congruence with this saying by Martin Luther King Jr., we the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) residents in New Mexico write to call attention to the never-ending atrocities against the IPOB of Biafra as well as Christians in Nigeria.
The level of insecurity to human lives and properties has gone beyond control over the last five years as Nigeria has become an abattoir where innocent people are massacred on a daily basis without any government interest to bring the perpetrators to book. The scale and horror of atrocities seen in Nigeria and mostly targeted against Biafrans and Christians is staggering. A litany of reports of murders, rapes, mutilations and kidnapping of innocent citizens decorate the pages of Nigeria dailies. Meanwhile, the complicit president Muhammadu Buhari-led government, which clearly has an agenda of Islamization of Nigeria, has continued to look the other way as the country turns into a killing field of defenseless Christians and Biafrans.
As I write, the deadly Fulani herders – a group the 2019 Global Terrorism Index estimates to be deadlier than the dreaded Boko Haram – aided by the Nigeria government have invaded the eastern and southern parts of the country, the Biafran region inhabited by Christians, and systematically are carrying out their planned jihad against the indigenous people. The complicity of the Nigerian government in these violations of human rights cannot be mistaken. There are hundreds of (pieces of) evidence that the Nigerian government through her military and police aid the atrocities against innocent citizens.
It is on record that on Aug. 8, 2012, the current governor of Kaduna State in Nigeria, Nasir El-Rufai, went on national television to boast that he paid foreign Fulani pastoralists to “stop the killing” in Kaduna. It is equally on record that the Buhari-led government recently celebrated and compensated, with N20,000 each, 602 “rehabilitated’ – whatever that means – Boko Haram terrorists who since 2009 have killed over 50,000 civilians and displaced nearly 3 million Nigerians and reintegrated them into the community amidst the same people they raped and mutilated. What responsible government could be more sympathetic about the well-being of “ex-terrorists” than millions of jobless youths? These and other numerous incidents clearly indicate the Nigerian government is aware of the root of these genocidal activities.
Amnesty International’s 2019 report “Nigeria: Human Rights Agenda,” is essentially a 20-page indictment of human rights violations by “State and non-State actors” with an emphasis on the state security forces. The government has not, does not and will never investigate and prosecute these allegations. This has been ongoing for years and the world has remained silent.
The principle of self-determination is prominently embodied in Article 1 of the Charter of the United Nations: “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.” The Indigenous People of Biafra have for several years now been calling on the international community to attend to their request for self-actualization. As concerned citizens, and members of the Biafran-American communities, we write to draw your attention to this ongoing genocide against Biafrans and Christians in Nigeria because we believe that when the United States speaks, the world listens.
We urge President Donald Trump and his administration to swiftly intervene in the ongoing ethnic cleansing by the Nigerian government and to recognize the Republic of Biafra as an independent sovereign nation under God. The United States is part and parcel of our one great hope for a peaceful and free world. A stable Biafra is in the best interest of the international community, and the national interest of the United States in particular.
“We are nothing without each other.”
