In continuation of its interventions for the release of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and for Nigeria to become a nation governed by rule of law, the American Military Veterans of Igbo Descent (AVID) has adopted another strategy.
AVID has, together with allied griups, embarked on a campaign for the government of the United States of America (USA) led by President Donald Trump to re-designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern(CPC).
The groups that joined AVID in the campaign include the Rising Sun and the Ambassadors for Self Defense. They have already sent a delegation to the U.S Capitol Hill, Washington DC and sensitised some members of Congress on the pathetic political situation in Nigeria.
President of AVID, Dr Sylvester Onyia said that the move get the U.S to place Nigeria on its watchlist was due to the unabated spate of killings and human rights abuses, typified by Kanu’s detention.
Nigeria was placed as a CPC by Donald Trump during his first presidency but it was reversed by his successor, Joe Biden.
However, AVID and other groups are insisting that the current situation in Nigeria calls for urgent action by the U.S government to avert total extermination of indigenous peoples in targeted areas of Nigeria.
Onyia said that the delegation he led to the Capitol Hill sensitised the congress on the “rising violation of human rights, calculated ethnic cleansing and religious atrocities perpetrated in Nigeria by those bent on dispossessing the Indigenous people of their ancestral lands”.
The delegation aside from expressing concern over the murderous activities of criminal Fulani herdsmen and armed bandits, also called for the release of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Some members of the US Congress were lobbied to help in exerting American pressure on theNigerian government to free Kanu with no condition attached.
The AVID President also cited the recent slaughtering of over 100 indigenous persons, mostly Christians in Plateau and Benue States by the killer herdsmen and bandits laughtering indigenous Nigerians.
According to him, the killings have persisted because the Nigerian government “has failed to protect the hapless people” and appears unwilling to hold murderers accountable for their heinous crimes.
He recalled the killing of 27 unarmed Biafra activists in Port Harcourt, Rivers State by Nigeria’s security agents for celebrating the inauguration of President Trump in 2017, adding that the U.S should take action on the issue.
Onyia stated that the delegation reiterated the stance of AVID on the plight of the IPOB leader, Kanu, who remains in solitary confinement since his abduction in Kenya and extraordinary rendition to Nigeria in 2021.
He said while sensitising the U.S Congress members, AVID and its allied groups insisted that Kanu “is not Nigeria’s problem but part of its solution”.
“We were (at Capitol Hill) to bring our concerns to the American folks that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu needs to be released now. He is unjustly incarcerated. We have told President Ahmed Tinubu, just as we told President Buhari who arrested him, to release him because, he didn’t do anything to anybody.
“We also came to remind the world about what happened in January 20, 2017 when President Donald Trump was being inaugurated for his first tenure.
“The Nigerian security forces shot at, and killed 27 youths of Igbo descent celebrating Trump’s inauguration in Port Harcourt. The innocent victims did nothing other than cheering a US President,” he stated.
The AVID leader lamented that the said killings of Igbo youths in Port Harcourt was treated with indifference by the Nigerian authorities and nobody has been brought to account.
“So, we are asking the US Government, now under President Trump, to look into the matter because it was democracy that was being celebrated, and those innocent youths were slaughtered by the Nigerian security personnel as chickens,” he said.
In his remarks, a member of the delegation, Rev. Father Augustine Odinmegwa, pointed out the complicity of the United Kingdom in Kanu’s ordeal, saying that the British government was yet to demand for the release of its citizen.
The cleric said that the international community should not ignore the situation of things in Nigeria to avoid being saddled with human catastrophes already unfolding.
“What is happening in Nigeria is that a group of bandits and terrorists, has taken it upon themselves to be massacring people at will. They carry arms, and are all over the place unchecked.
“They are decimating ethnic nationalities in the name of herdsmen/farmers’ clash which is a ruse. There is a hidden agenda because they are rather carrying out ethnic cleansing and religious atrocities,” he said.