Phil Okose, Onitsha
Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Thursday disclosed that 83 Biafrans are still languishing in different Northern correctional facilities according to reports by her legal department.
The movement made the disclosure following reports of the release of four Biafrans who were said to have been held in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) for approximately four years.
According to a press release by IPOB image maker, Emma Powerful, “While their return to their families is noted, let nobody mistake the release of four men for the resolution of this national injustice. The reported release of four Biafrans after four years in DSS custody has exposed yet again the machinery of persecution directed against our people.
“IPOB’s legal team has now formally identified 83 Biafrans who were secretly transferred from military custody at the notorious Wawa Barracks in Kainji, Niger State, and are currently being held across northern correctional facilities in Kuje, Keffi, and Suleja.
“Our lawyers have formally communicated the names of their legal representatives to the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation. Many more remain trapped in a system that has turned Biafran identity and alleged IPOB membership into grounds for arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment. Some are serving life sentences.
“This is not law enforcement. It is the criminalisation of an entire people through the abuse of state power. The legal foundation repeatedly invoked to justify this persecution is itself fundamentally defective. The IPOB proscription was made through a civil ex parte process. Even a poorly trained legal practitioner knows that an ex parte order obtained in the absence of the affected party cannot confer criminal liability or serve as the lawful basis to strip citizens of their liberty and send them to prison for life.
“Furthermore, the instrument lacked the President’s own statutory approval required by Section 2(1)(c) of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2013. The signature of a Chief of Staff cannot replace an act which the National Assembly expressly entrusted to the President. A statutory condition imposed upon the President cannot be performed by another official merely because that official occupies a powerful office.
“Justice James Omotosho recognised the force of mandatory statutory compliance in MultiChoice Nigeria Ltd v. FCCPC. The same law cannot suddenly acquire a different meaning when the rights of Biafrans are at stake. If a statutory instrument cannot survive the absence of the approval required by law in the case of MultiChoice, the same defect cannot be excused when the instrument is used against IPOB.
“One law for MultiChoice and another for Biafrans is not the rule of law. It is judicial and governmental double standards. There is also a subsisting inter partes ruling that IPOB is not an unlawful society. That ruling cannot be wished away by the government, the DSS, or any prosecuting authority.
“The civil ex parte proscription instrument and the subsisting inter partes ruling raise legal questions that must be confronted, not concealed. An appeal concerning IPOB’s status and the legality of the proscription is pending before the Supreme Court. The government cannot treat those questions as settled merely because it finds the proscription convenient.
“No Biafran should be serving a life sentence merely because the government has labelled him an IPOB member. The prosecution must prove a legally defined offence against each individual. Political association cannot replace proof. An executive label cannot replace a valid law. And a defective instrument cannot become lawful through repeated reliance upon it.
“The Nigerian government must account for the 83 people already identified in Keffi, Suleja, and Kuje. It must account for every other Biafran in detention. It must account for those serving life sentences. It must account for every individual held or unaccounted for at the Wawa military facility. And it must answer for the years stolen from people who were arrested and imprisoned under this regime of discrimination.
“The release of four is not the end of the matter. It is an indictment of the system that kept them imprisoned for four years. We demand the freedom of all Biafrans unlawfully detained, an end to the criminalisation of IPOB membership, and we call on the United Nations, the United States Government, and the European Union to intervene immediately against the kangaroo judicial system of Nigeria operating against Biafrans,” IPOB pleaded.
For a better society
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