By Tony Izuogu
Punch newspaper DELIBERATELY excluded the mindless mistreatment of Igbos and IPOB members from its piece on Buhari/Nigerian state’s gross human rights abuses.
You rightly accuse Buhari of wanton abuses and encourage Nigerians to rise above sectional biases to resist Buhari, yet you exhibited this sectionalism by intentionally not recognizing the victimization of the most targeted part of the country, the Igbos and the harmless IPOB members.
For an editorial that put out specifics, yet it made sure not to mention anything Igbo or IPOB and u think that wasn’t deliberate? Are u that gullible?
“PUNCH will not adopt the self-defeating attitude of many Nigerians looking the other way after each violation of rights and attacks on the citizens, the courts, the press and civic society, including self-determination groups lawfully exercising their inalienable rights to peaceful dissent.”
For the gullible ones who do not understand my point, Igbos were not the first and only group to call for succession. Punch wrote a lengthy article but couldn’t manage to name Igbo or IPOB? Such cheap deceit. Anytime they raised an issue in the article, they mentioned specific names, but they hesitantly mentioned secession, they were too tired to mention the champions…because it would involve Igbo.
“Sowore’s travails are symptomatic: having ignored court orders granting him bail, the SSS, after much pressure following 125 days in captivity, released him only to stage a GESTAPO-style raid on the court where the journalist was standing trial. The leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Ibrahim el-Zakzakky and his wife have spent over three years in detention in violation of court orders granting them bail and ordering their release. A former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, has been held in detention since 2015 in defiance of several court orders, including one by the ECOWAS appellate court that declared his continued incarceration illegal. Under Buhari, the SSS has become a monstrous and repressive secret police, acting often with impunity. Buhari bears responsibility for the state of repression because, as president, he can stop it today.”
