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IPOB, Igbo Catholic Priests and Crimes Against Humanity – An Open Letter to The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria

Your Excellencies,

I am certainly too little to write to a Catholic Bishops Conference, but I have not read or heard any significant person talk about the hundreds of lives of the poorest and weakest wasted in Igbo Land – a predominantly catholic area since 2016 by a barbaric criminal organisation massively supported by Igbos including Catholic priests.

I have also found it unbearable that almost everyone in the most Catholic part of Nigeria is continuing to pretend that the daily kidnappings, torture and barbaric slaughters of innocent Nigerians by the same Igbo criminal organisation they know and overwhelmingly support is being committed by some unknown gunmen.

Since around 2015, a hate-driven, highly questionable Igbo Separatist group, Independent People of Biafra (“IPOB”) led by Mr. Nnamdi Kanu has deliberately instigated several barbaric attacks supposedly carried out by Fulani cattle herders now commonly labelled, “Fulani herdsmen”, slaughtering hundreds of defenceless Igbos in the remotest rural areas.

Nnamdi Kanu routinely sent his IPOB thugs to hunt and kill unarmed Fulani herdsmen going about their businesses in Igbo land in order to trigger and/or justify a merciless slaughter of poor Igbo rural dwellers which he then used for propaganda as well as to spread fear, win grassroot support and gain funds and guns for his thugs in their fraudulent agitation for Biafra. He has since been able to use this barbaric method to enthrone an unprecedented state of insecurity in a region that had no spectacular insecurity problem.

In or around late 2020, he set up a specialist killer squad akin (in wickedness and barbarism) to Hitler’s SS which he named, Eastern Security Network “ESN”). The ESN is the branch of IPOB that has been slaughtering innocent Nigerians every day in Igbo states but everyone including Igbo Catholic leaders, bizarrely pretends that IPOB/ESN killers are some “Unknown Gunmen”.

Everyone knows that there had never been any Fulani Herdsmen mass murder in eastern Nigeria before Kanu brought IPOB and that there has not been a single so-called Fulani herdsmen attack that was not a reprisal attack in direct response to a provocative coldblooded murder of Fulanis by IPOB thugs, yet no Igbo leader or elder has ever spoken coherently against Kanu or IPOB in public.

The silence of Igbo leaders including Bishops legitimised Kanu and won him the unprecedented groundless adulation and support he enjoys today among Igbos, including most of our brilliant Catholic Priests.

I am of course too insignificant a man to see what no Bishop or governor or professor or any person of worth has seen, but I believe that as true followers of The Lord Jesus Christ who is Truth Itself, we should be slaves to Truth.

The failure to challenge the deadly untruths of Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB legitimised abominable behaviours and therefore caused the slaughter of hundreds of the poorest and weakest of us – the people Your Excellencies ought to always put first.

How Nnamdi Kanu wasted the lives of deprived Izzi people (at Nwori Nduobashi market and nearby areas) in Izzi Land in Benue State.

Izhi (or “Izzi”) is an Igbo subgroup mainly found in Ebonyi State but with significant numbers in Ado and Oju Local government areas of Benue state as well as in Cross River State. The Izzis in Benue are Iseke (“Ishieke”) people. We did not migrate to Benue state but were carved into Northern Nigeria by the British colonial government.

Izzi People constitute the majority Igbo subgroup in Ebonyi State but are the most underdeveloped and naturally the poorest subgroup in the poorest and least developed state in Southern Nigeria.

Suggesting that Izzis in Benue State are in worse state than Blacks in Apartheid South Africa may sound like an outrageous overstatement, but the majority ethnic groups in Benue state have never recognised or treated us like proper human beings. They treat us almost like slaves, extort monies from our struggling people and of course, never ever allow the federal funds they regularly collect in our name come anywhere near our area.

Nnamdi Kanu, through his IPOB agents quickly saw Izzi villages in Benue state being so spectacularly underdeveloped and inaccessible as a perfect ground to use to stage the worst of his Fulani herdsmen slaughter of innocent deprived Igbos.

In or around early March 2021, IPOB thugs acting under Kanu’s instructions, kidnapped and murdered an innocent Fulani Chief, Isa Mohammed in Ataroga Ishieke-Izzi, Benue State with the sole aim of attracting the murder of Izzi people and thereby extending his IPOB -led reign of fear and insecurity there.

The direct involvement of Nnamdi Kanu is not in doubt because he released a statement via his spokesman praising his Eastern Security Network (ESN), “…for the successful capture of Mohammed Isa, the notorious leader of Fulani bandits and killers in the Lower Benue”. See for example, ESN Has Captured Notorious Fulani Bandits’ Leader Terrorising Benue, Others, Mohammed Isa —Nnamdi Kanu | Sahara Reporters and also Sun and The Nation Newspapers of 08 March, 2021. Shamefully, no security agency took any note.

ESN Has Captured Notorious Fulani Bandits’ Leader Terrorising Benue, Oth…
Kanu said Isa and his gang had been attacking peaceful communities in Benue State and its environs.

The Fulani Cattle herders were probably not going to take laws into their hands because local elders responsibly intervened and the culprits were arrested and were reportedly being prosecuted, but it appears from what later happened that IPOB are in some ways linked to the killer Squads the Fulani herdsmen hire to perpetrate their barbaric reprisal attacks and/or that they pressured and helped the Fulanis to slaughter our people.

From around the early hours of 30 May 2021, IPOB began circulating an Audio Message (a typical method IPOB uses to spread lies and confusion) they claimed to have recorded at around 17:39 on 29 May 2021, warning of an imminent attack in Izzi in Benue State by Fulani herdsmen. The voice claimed to have spotted about 300 Fulani herdsmen armed with AK 47 travelling on foot from Utonkon via Igumale and headed to Izzi to avenge the killing of Isa Mohammed.

Our people frantically contacted security agents in both Benue and Ebonyi States to head to the area but before they could reach there, the attack had already happened because the audio message was purely a scheme to midwife the attack by discouraging any attempt to fight back and expose the identity of the attackers.

Over 100 of my peaceful, most deprived defenceless people were mercilessly slaughtered with machetes at Nwori-Nduobashi and nearby areas. Even Women and children, including days old little babies were not spared by the evil barbaric butchers. Most of those who managed to survive are disfigured and disabled for life.

IPOB agents, by the way, almost instantaneously began to circulate the extremely gory images and despite the unquestionable fact that they at least provoked the attacks, still managed to retain their place in the minds of even highly intelligent people including Izhi Catholic Priests as the good guys.

Even without any knowledge of the area, no sensible unindoctrinated, truthful adult of sound mind should accept the baloney that 300 Fulani Herdsmen armed with AK47 were openly trooping to attack people in a strange land and easily revealed their itinerary to IPOB members or indeed anyone.

However, the walking distance from Utonkon to the location of the attack is at least 10hours non-stop speed walking. And the victims were mainly butchered with machetes and there was little or no evidence that the attackers were up to 50 and/or were armed with AK47. Besides, no evidence of any Fulani herdsman with AK 47 has ever been established in Igbo land since 2016 when Kanu/IPOB began engineering the slaughter of Igbos to further their evil enterprise.

What is self-evident is that IPOB agents themselves were the slaughterers or smuggled the killer squad in to slaughter our people while at the same time employed their typical disinformation efforts to avoid being caught in the act.

IPOB regularly employs the AK47 false narratives also to fit their equally false narrative that the Federal government uses the Nigerian Army and the police force to arm the herdsmen to slaughter Igbos. The current Federal government is undoubtedly weak and incompetent (for no serious government should have allowed criminals like Kanu to grow wings), but there is no single Nigerian Army unit or Police station in Nigeria let alone in Benue or any Igbo state populated by only Fulanis. Sadly, not even members of the Federal government have ever attempted to counter any of these dangerous untruths.

Kanu’s IPOB played exactly the same gimmick to facilitate the first ever Fulani herdsmen attack on Igbo soil in Nimbo, Enugu State on around 25 April, 2016.

In their surreptitious efforts to facilitate the Nimbo attack, IPOB spread the disinformation that over 500 Fulani herdsmen were involved, see for example, Vanguard Newspaper of 30 April 2016 (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/04/enugu-blow-blow-account-herdsmen-killed-46-natives/).

The Enugu state governor and other Igbo leaders (assuming they were not somewhat complicit) swallowed this baloney as well as the equally hopeless claim that the Nigerian Security agencies facilitated the attack. IPOB backed by the silent support of our leaders further convinced almost every Igbo person that the alleged Fulani attackers were armed with AK47 even though victims were only butchered with machetes.

Kanu and his IPOB thugs have employed similar tricks in every other “Fulani herdsmen” barbaric attack, yet hardly any Igbo leader or elder or Bishop has ever seen any reason to even criticise IPOB for continually provoking the Fulanis and then failing to defend our people.

Why Are Igbo Leaders and People, including Catholic Priests, Proudly Supporting Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB?

Even the most primitive people on earth would at least have cautioned any rascal individual or group in their society upon provoking a costly reprisal attack on them and if it ever happens again, severely punish such a person or group.

No significant Igbo elder or leader or professor or priest or Bishop has ever condemned IPOB properly or at all or at least acknowledged the inescapable fact that IPOB caused the so-called Fulani herdsmen attacks on Igbo soil, at least indirectly.

For the avoidance of any doubt, IPOB has never been anything good or legitimate. It has always been a purveyor of untruths, fake news, intolerance and ethnic hatred via its leader and main spokesperson, Nnamdi Kanu. No one can point to any statement Nnamdi Kanu has ever made in relation to his IPOB madness that any moral adult could find praiseworthy.

Even the name, Indigenous People of Biafra (“IPOB”) is deceitful because there is no honest or reasonable basis for the label “indigenous” and the name “Biafra” is not known to be indigenous to any part of Igbo land or anywhere that constituted the short-lived Republic of Biafra of 1967-1970. In fact, it is fair to say that most people in Eastern Nigeria never heard of or used that name before 1967.

From the very beginning, Nnamdi Kanu /IPOB relied on fabricating stories of massacres of Igbo Biafra campaigners and concocting totally false or distorted stories of marginalisation as well as false alarms about impending attacks/Islamization of Igbos, to mislead people. Sadly, virtually no media organisation or responsible prominent Igbo person ever questioned or challenged their fraudulent claims.

Are Igbos Marginalised or Mistreated in Nigeria?

Most Igbos who misguidedly support Kanu/IPOB believe that we are marginalized and routinely mistreated in Nigeria especially since the civil war. Is there any truth in this age-long sentiment?

We currently have 7 Igbo speaking State governors and at least 65 Igbo National Assembly members.

Igbos constitute over 95% of the population of 5 states namely, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo as well as over 50% of the population in Rivers and Delta States. And there is hardly any major city in any other state in Nigeria where Igbos do not constitute the second largest ethnic group.

How is it possible to marginalise or mistreat in any way at all, a majority ethnic group in a multi-Ethnic and multiparty democracy?

There is no law in any part of the federation that prevents Igbos or any ethnic group from voting or contesting for any office. And no Igbo leader or group has ever complained about any scheme to deny Igbos their voting rights in any part of Nigeria.

Igbo leaders including Catholic Bishops have never seriously pursued justice for any of the numerous past occasions where Igbos were indeed slaughtered by extremists in Islamic Northern Nigeria. The same Hausa/Fulani leaders (Kanu has indoctrinated most of us to hate) alone, without any meaningful pressure from any Igbo leader or group have always protected Igbos in their lands against their local extremists.

Most interestingly, Igbo people thrive more in non-Igbo states including Hausa/Fulani Muslim states than in Igbo states governed entirely by Igbos.

The more we critically look at any possible marginalisation argument with all available facts, the weaker it looks but nothing can ever justify anyone provoking and/or engaging in the slaughter of his own people to pretend to the world that they are oppressed.

Silence suggests Acquiescence

Has it ever happened in any human society that any individual or group was allowed without any challenge at all to rise to a position of power and influence by way of continually murdering or causing the murder of own people even without concealing such indescribable evilness?

Nnamdi Kanu, a man no one had ever heard of or had any clue what he did for a living, has become a virtual king of Igbos not because he has ever said or done anything any moral adult can truthfully adjudge to be good, but squarely because he repeatedly caused the mass murder of Igbos and further, has established a permanent reign of terror in Igbo land. Beyond bizarre.

The silence of Your Excellencies (especially those who are Igbo and/or live in Igbo land where everyone is happily pretending that the daily kidnappings, tortures, and murders being perpetrated by IPOB/ESN is being committed by some unknown gunmen or Fulanis), is sustaining evil, hurting humanity, hurting the Church, and grievously jeopardising the very souls you ought to shepherd.

Leaders in all spheres in the society have moral leadership responsibilities but religious leaders especially Catholic Bishops must have the highest moral leadership responsibilities.

I would define moral leadership as taking the lead in the defence of truth and what is right and proper. Moral leadership also means defending the sanctity of life, human rights and the dignity of the human person and always putting the poorest and weakest of the society first.

Catholic Bishops have the highest moral leadership responsibilities because they are the successors of the Apostles – the only ones, the only True God, Our Lord Jesus Christ gave the authority to teach and act for Him.

I am a compulsive sinner and cannot lay any claim to any theological qualification, but I know that our Christianity is meaningless without moral leadership. What is the meaning of our Christianity if we knowingly or recklessly embrace untruths even when doing so is causing extreme human sufferings and deaths especially among the poorest and weakest members of the society right under our noses?

The abominable situation in Igbo land where even Catholic Priests openly support untruths and unspeakable evils must be confronted by your Excellencies without delay.

Is Moral Leadership Failure the Real Leadership Failure Plaguing Nigeria?

I may yet again sound very arrogant to say what virtually no person of repute has ever said but I am certain that the key reason Nigeria is not working is because we have never even tried to prescribe any real responsibility for any level of government in Nigeria.

For instance, no Local or state or Federal government or their department is under any strict liability to carry out any duty for the citizens. Imagine that governments must pay certain prescribed substantial compensations for victims of road accidents caused by bad roads and victims of crimes especially for deaths caused by acts of terrorism. Imagine that we have prescribed enforceable duties for local and state governments in respect to disabled citizens and the provision of basic amenities and infrastructures for all.

Is it not strange that we have been praying “Against Bribery and corruption in Nigeria” every Sunday in our churches for 3 decades without ever demanding or thinking or talking seriously about making our government, especially local and state work for us? How sad, State governors in Nigeria especially those who claim to be Christian have since 1999 been spending both state and local government funds like their personal funds and even rampantly withholding the salaries of poor workers and no Bishop has apparently ever heard that such abominable acts are normal in their society.

With all due respect, I think the total lack of moral leadership by those who have moral leadership responsibilities, especially Catholic Bishops, is the actual reason our political leaderships and running of government and public affairs are all characterised by primitive greed and gross irresponsibility. Your Excellencies must begin to use your moral authority to truthfully make our society better by focusing on making our governments work for everyone and the easiest way to do this is by always putting the poorest and weakest first. Prioritising the poorest and weakest is the smartest way to societal success and above all, it is most Christian.

The European missionaries who brought us Christianity, following the footsteps of Jesus our ultimate model, put the interest of the poorest and weakest first by prioritizing the abolition of slavery and other barbaric practices, Medicare for lepers and building of hospitals and schools over building of the best Cathedrals.

The Catholic Church alone is capable of revolutionising Nigeria within a short period if only our Shepherds could defocus on the not-at-all-helpful issue of which ethnic group or religion occupies what post and begin to focus entirely on promoting truth and the interest of the poorest and weakest of our society. It is bad that the Catholic Church you head is in many ways helping the spread of deadly untruths and intolerance. It is very bad that the Catholic Church has not shown any concern and real interest in the souls of the poor victims of IPOB/Fulani herdsmen slaughters and in seeking justice for both the dead and the living victims.

I trust that Your Excellencies will immediately commence an investigation into the activities of Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB/ESN and the involvement of Catholic Priests in perpetrating untruths, confusion, ethnic hatred and atrocities across the country.

Your Excellencies may also wish to critically consider my suggestion above, to begin to advocate for the imposition of strict liabilities for Governments as the only way to truly make Nigeria work for everyone.

Yours Faithfully in Christ,

John Alexander Nwenu Iteshi

London, 12 September, 2022.