Ohanaeze Youths Align With Danjuma, Vow to Protect Igbo Communities
Jukuns back kinsman, demands commission of inquiry into alleged army’s atrocities
Christopher Isiguzo Sunday Okobi In a direct response to the recent call by the former Defence Minister, General Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), for Nigerians to defend themselves against killer herdsmen, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council (OYC) yesterday asked youths in the South-east to form security rings to guide and protect their communities and farmlands.
The group’s President, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, in a statement in Enugu, said Danjuma’s stance had further affirmed an earlier call by the Ohanaeze youths to respond to any further unprovoked attack by killer herdsmen.
Danjuma had recently asked Nigerians to use whatever means at their disposal to defend themselves against killers, accusing the military of alleged collusion.
According to him, “We hereby tell Igbo youths to form security rings to guide and protect their communities and farmlands, and deal decisively with anybody destroying their farmlands in form of cows grazing and or bearing arms but not known as a licenced security person.
“We warn that nobody has a monopoly of violence, and Igbo nation will surely defend itself. Enough is enough! Any armed herdsman sighted anywhere in the South-east will have himself to blame. Arise and defend Igbo land through well recognised vigilante groups.
“This has been our earlier stand; we have been calling for self-defense; so, today, we are reechoing that stand. Danjuma has justified the position of Ohanaeze youths worldwide, we will resist any attempt to forcefully Islamise our people; we are ready to resist them the herdsmen militia.”
The group recalled that it had shortly after herdsmen attacked Ebonyi State communities, vowed to return fire for fire should such killings re-occur again in any part of Igbo land.
It said it had severally accused the federal government of double standard in the handling of the “Fulani herdsmen terrorism and Igbo’s non-violent youths agitating for the restoration of the sovereign state of Biafra.
“Like Danjuma clearly pointed out, there seems to be a serious collaboration between the security agencies and these herdsmen. It appears there are two laws in this country- one for the Igbos and another for the Hausa-Fulani.
“How else would one justify the recent statements in the media that the government was considering amnesty for the Boko Haram terrorists? It is shocking; it is unthinkable. This is the same government that hurriedly branded the IPOB as a terrorist organisation, but same government is now courting internationally acclaimed terrorists.
“So nobody should expect that Ndigbo would fold their arms and these killer herdsmen would come here and achieve their evil agenda. We shall resist it with the last drop of our blood,” the group warned.
Meanwhile, the socio-cultural organisation of the Jukun people, Jukun Development Association of Nigeria (JDAN), has backed its kinsman, Danjuma, over his call on his people to rise and defend themselves against rampaging Fulani herdsmen and their alleged colluding military partners.
The National President of JDAN, Chief Bako Benjamin, while addressing journalists in Lagos alongside top executive of the association yesterday, said majority of Nigerians were unaware of the calamity and atrocities that have befallen the Jukun people in the last four years.
Benjamin who stated this in Lagos, added that the media do not report adequately to the world the silent ethnic cleansing and genocide going on in southern and central Taraba State.
He said rather than lampooning Danjuma for his candid view which he said was coming after a thorough analysis of the situation, the Nigerian military should have launched an investigation into the weighty allegation and fish out its culpable members.
JDAN, according to him, demands a commission of inquiry to look into several cases of atrocities, human rights violations and banditry committed by some security forces in Jukunland against the innocent people, “who are being killed by herdsmen, whose homes and farmlands are being burnt with wanton impunity and whose lives means virtually nothing to the very people who have sworn to defend them and the country against aggression.”
While addressing journalists in Lagos on the developments in some parts of the country, especially Taraba State, the group’s president said the retired general was speaking exactly the minds of his people and out of frustration.
He said Danjuma statement was a reflection of “what is presently going on in Taraba State and elsewhere around the middle belt, where several villages and town have been sacked and indigenes chased away by Fulani herdsmen who invaded their communities with the full backing of security operatives.
“Rather than carpet our revered elder statesman, the Jukun people have been anxiously waiting for the time when Fulani herdsmen who have killed entire villagers in our land will be arrested and paraded. We are peace loving people, but our people are being arrested in our land and killed by those who otherwise came for pasture for their cattle.”
Benjamin said parading Jukun youths last Sunday, barely 24 hours after Danjuma’s criticism of their handling of their roles for taking pictures of the ongoing violence in their land, “is simply exposing the ugly underbelly of the Nigerian military and their complicit in the whole tragic saga unfolding in the state,” adding that where that is the case, the people would be left with no other choice than to defend themselves.