Your Govt And Your Right To Life; The IPOB And Shiites Angle, By Charles Ogbu

It is safe to assume we all know what a govt is and the most popular way to bring one into existence. So I will assume your permission to simply get straight to the theme of this piece.

The most important duty of a government anywhere in the world regardless of its type and how it came to power is the protection of lives and properties of its citizens. This is the fundamental principle upon which the contract between the government and the governed is based. This is the chief reason why citizens pay tax and obey their government. Dead men don't need govt.

Mind you, the government is nothing without the governed. Matter of fact, the government is nothing but the employee of the people it is governing. In a nutshell, people like president Buhari and all his aides and ministers, the Senate president and all members of the National Assembly and even heads of all security agencies are nothing but mere employees of Nigerians.  We, the Nigerian people are their bosses. Every power they exercise is sourced from us. All these big guns the security agents carry about were all bought with our money. Right from the president down to the local government councillor, we are the ones feeding them, clothing them and doing practically everything for them.

In return, they owe us so many things chief among which is protection of our lives and properties.

When a govt fails in this basic duty of protecting lives and properties of its people, such a government becomes undeserving of the title 'government'.

It is a grave moral crime for any govt which has proven incapable of protecting lives and properties of its citizens to remain in office a second longer.

It becomes a moral tragedy when such a govt has proven not just incapable of protecting its people but criminally culpable in killing thesame people it swore to protect with thesame army trained and equipped with tax money from thesame citizens.

There is no greater evil than this!

Any govt that is guilty of this has simply gone rogue and lost every right to demand any form of obedience or respect from its people. When this happens, opposing such a govt and making plans to remove it from office by any means necessary becomes a moral/legal duty of every citizen of such a country.

Any govt under which hundredS of its own citizens could be killed in a day, not by some terrorist group nor by some natural disaster but by its own army trained and equipped with tax payers money and at a time when the country was not at war, surely, such a govt is no better than a terrorist group. The Buhari govt did exactly this with the Shiites Muslims in Zaria and is still doing it even as I type this.

Any govt under which hundredS of its own unarmed citizens could be killed by its own army even inside a church with survivors bathed with raw acid by thesame army with nothing but criminal silence from the commander-in-chief 7 months after the incident, such a govt is far worse than a terrorist group. Even terrorists hardly bath their victims with acid.

The Muhammadu Buhari-led govt did exactly this with the Indigenous People Of Biafra  (IPOB) And it is for this reason that I find it very repulsive to show any form of regard to this govt. Matter of fact, it is for reasons not unconnected with limited vocabularies that I still refer to it as a govt. It has successfully turned the army into a murderous group.

In a world peopled by just men and women, president Buhari and Lt. Col. Tukur Yusuf Buratai would been in jail for killing thesame people they swore to protect while protecting terrorists they swore to kill.

This govt killed something in me on February 9th, 2016 when a combined team of police and soldiers swooped on pro-Biafra group praying inside Ngwa high school, Aba, Abia state and took positions as though they were on a battle field before opening fire on the prayer-chanting pro-Biafran group killing dozens of them and injuring hundreds, with nothing but criminal silence from the man who swore to protect us all.

That horrible event marked the beginning of my anti-government articles.

That no one has been punished for that grave moral tragedy ten months after, proves that the despicable crime was commoited with the full blessing of president Buhari.

Before this, thesame govt, through the army, has killed hundreds of Shiites SUPPOSEDLY for blocking the convoy of army chief. The odd thing here is that even after killing hundreds of these Shiites supposedly for blocking the army chief, thesame army proceeded to the house of the Shiites leader, Alzakzakky, where they killed hundreds more, mostly women and children and almost rendered Alzakzakky incapacitated before arresting him.

Ask yourself, if those killed on the road were killed for blocking the convoy of the army boss, those women and children that were killed at the house of Alzakzakky, did they equally block the army chief's convoy??

This govt would later kill more IPOB members even inside a church in Onitsha and bath survivors with acid according to a report recently released by Amnesty International. Thesame govt has continued to kill the Shiites anywhere they are gathered.

Meanwhile,

Somewhere in thesame country, thesame govt which is killing the unarmed largely peaceful Shiites and IPOB members with the army trained and equipped with tax payers money is busy protecting the murderous Fulani herdsmen declared the world's 4th deadliest terror group with thesame army and gifting the deadly boko haram fighters with a juicy Amnesty package in addition to releasing detained fighters from the group into the society.

Just so we are clear, Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen are responsible for the death of thousands of Nigerians and displacement of millions While IPOB's only crime is asking to be treated with the respect they deserve as a fellow stakeholder in the Nigerian project or be allowed to secede. Shiites on the other hand are Muslims who profess a different Islamic doctrine as the Sunni and sometimes, they cause heavy traffic on the road in the cause of their religious rituals but make no mistake, they are not violent, at least, not yet. If they were, this country would have felt it a long time ago.

The question Charles would like to have an answer to is this:

Why is the govt of Buhari hellbent on creating terrorist groups out of its own people??

Why is this govt hellbent on protecting two terror groups (boko haram and Fulani herdsmen) with the national army even while it is busy killing another two largely peaceful groups (the Shiites and IPOB) with thesame army???

What this govt is doing to IPOB and the Shiites is wrong. Very wrong. You do not have to be Igbo or a Shiite member to see this for the great evil it really is. The crassness of our silence over this is very appalling