ANGO ABDULLAHI DRAGS IHEJIRIKA TO ICC, REALLY?

Icheoku says the Kano State born mallam Ango Abdullahi was MIA when his kinsman Sani Abacha was hunting down and killing innocent Nigerians including Ken Saro Wiwa, Pa Rewane, Kudirat Abiola etc and systematically wiped so many others out of this earth? The same Ango Abdullahi was also taciturn when Muhammadu Buhari murdered three innocent Nigerians Bartholomew Owo, Bernard Ogedengbe and Lawal Ojulope? The same Ango Abdullahi was silent when Ibrahim Babangida murdered Dele Giwa,  slaughtered Zango Kataf people and killed over three hundred Nigerian Army majors through a staged air crash at Ejigbo? That many Nigerians died following the fallout of June 12th annulled election of Abiola did not make this mallam to protest their human rights violations? The same Ango Abdullahi has never condemned the atrocious menace of Boko Haram who are killing and maiming innocent Nigerians including destroying their places of worship and schools? The same Ango Abdullahi has not condemned the incessant raids and mayhem being visited on non Hausa/Fulani Northerners by his demented blood-letting kinsmen? The same Ango Abdullahi was silent when Obasanjo nearly wiped out Odi and Zaki Ibiam people, talkless of the earth-scorching policies of the Biafran civil war which claimed the lives of millions including women and children? But suddenly the people of Bama fell victims of Boko Haram terrorists-induced invasion and now the head of John the Baptist must be brought to the table on a platter. Icheoku queries what changed to suddenly spring up this outburst of human rights activism in this septuagenarian? 

Ordinarily Icheoku would not "give a damn" if anybody including Ihejirika is being meritoriously dragged to the International Criminal Court for human rights violations but in the Ango Abdullahi circumstances, Icheoku smells foul and a hateful agenda. If according to Ango abdullahi, Ihejirika should not expect a pat on the back for successfully pigeonholing Boko Haram's terrorists activities, because he was "carrying out his statutory duties," wherein them stems the impending indictment since the army man merely obeyed orders and carried out an obligated duty as commanded by his superiors? Icheoku queries why single out Ihejirika and not the people that ordered him to so do since he merely carried out his statutory duties in obedience to lawful orders from his superiors as a bona fide army man? A more honor-worthy and truthful Ango Abdullahi, without an ethnic agenda to incite one group of people against a perceived enemy, would have indicted the president as the Commander in chief and/or the Chief of Defense Staff under who gave the Army its marching orders to do what is needful to stop the Boko Haram carnage in Northeastern Nigeria? Now let us analyse the rest of the Ango Abdullahi's diatribe:- 

Icheoku knew right from the bat that something was fishy when Ango Abdulahi chose to only specifically name Ihejirika without the rest of his "six other co-accused persons" in his indictment So Icheoku asks, what was the objective here if not to incite hatred and ginger fanatical ethnic resentment of a particular tribe which produced Ihejirika and which has suffered so much hardship already and continues to suffer a lot of discrimination and wanton killings within the geographical entity known as Nigeria. Ango Abdullahi selectively left layers of superior authorities untouched before settling on indicting Ihejirika. First was President Jonathan who as the commander in chief of the armed forces that invaded Bama bears absolute and sole responsibility for any egregious crimes of human rights violations that might have been perpetrated on the people of Bama. Second, Ango Abdullahi peeled off layer two in the chain of authority, the CDS (chief of defense staff), who actually heads and supervises the armed forces on behalf of the president/commander in chief and then settled on the third man in the hierarchy of the command structure. Icheoku reiterates that if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck it must therefore be a duck; and so Ango Abdullahi cannot truthfully and honestly assert that he was not throwing a red meat to his Boko Haram almajiris Hausa/Fulani Northern Nigerians by pointing his accusing finger on an "Iyamiri" as the one who have taken a revenge-killing on the people of Bama for the unfinished business that was the Biafran civil war and therefore marked for destruction starting with an indictment at the Hague. If Ango Abdullahi was honest, why did he settle for number three of the command structure while leaving numbers one and two alone and free from indictment?

Secondly, Ango Abdullahi claimed that the ICC move was because justice cannot be got in Nigeria; so Icheoku queries when did the mallam realize that the judiciary is comatose therein? Was it when his people who saturates the Nigerian judiciary are granting certain questionable perpetual injunctions against corrupt politicians or granting a murder suspect freedom or when Babangida would not honor an invite from a duly constituted Oputa judicial commission etc? Icheoku asserts that the judicial failure dimension of the argument in support is a subterfuge deployed by Ango Abdullahi to mask the rueful nature of the North's latest game plan to plunge the country into yet another anarchy. Otherwise since when has the actions of the military in Nigeria, beginning with the burning of Fela's Kalakuta Republic shrine in 1978 by Obasanjo not been shrouded under the "unknown soldiers' activities mask? But hey, it is 2014 and not the sixties any longer and if Ango Abdullahi and his Hausa/Fulani north decides to murder sleep once again, they shall themselves sleep no more. If the North thinks that they are the only repository of violence or that they are the only people who can ferment trouble, they will have a rude shock this time if they push their luck too far. Icheoku asserts that the people of Nigeria particularly the Igbos of Southeast have become more civilized, more connected internationally and even much more business savvy since 1967 and so the lack of weapons and/or food blockade of the old war will not again hinder any adventure this time should hostilities be provoked by these mallams, especially one that is fast nearing his shallow grave with nothing to lose like this Ango Abdullahi. 

Ango Abdullahi is not indicting the police headed by another one of his kinsman yet the police according to him, killed the Apo Six, killed squatting almajiris, killed Mohammed Yusuf as well as so many extra-judicial killings committed by the police. In Ango Abdullahi's own words, "Nigerian people being abused with impunity has been going on for a very long time in this country," yet he remained taciturn and kept quiet simply because all these while his kinsmen and fellow Islamic religious zealots were calling the shots at Aso Rock and dictating who to deal with? Icheoku says if according to Ango Abdullahi "there have been many cases in the past that should have deserved to go to ICC", why didn't Ango Abdullahi bring these prosecutions or is he telling Nigerians now that he is just a Northern regional or Hausa/Fulani tribal champion who only wakes up when his fellow Hausa/Fulanis are at the receiving end of the spear's tip? As a Nigerian, why didn't Ango Abdullahi protest and protect fellow Nigerians whose rights were violated as he enumerated or is it agreeable to him to be referred to as an Hausa/Fulani zealot who fights and protects only Hausa/Fulani interests? Icheoku posits if Ango abdullahi admitted that "Obasanjo could have been taken to the ICC for his actions in Odi and Zaki Ibiam for ordering the army to go and destroy those villages", what changed now and forced his hands in settling on Ihejirika instead of Jonathan for indictment, since there was similarly a serving Chief of Army Staff when Obasanjo's soldiers marched into Odi and Zaki Ibiam yet Obasanjo was deemed the culpable party? If what was good for the goose is also good for the gander, why would Ango Abdullahi advocate this time for the head of the commanded to roll instead of that of the commander? What induced the double standard if not some parochial animus he holds against the usual suspects?

On what motivated his planned action to indict Ihejirika, Ango Abdullahi vehemently denied that Ihejirika's tribe has something to do with it, opining that it "is stupid to insinuate that we are dragging the former army chief to ICC because he is an Igbo man and that it is the usual Nigerian politics that actions are taken based on tribe, religion and where you come from?" Icheoku queries. if these are not the primordial factors influencing and affecting everything in Nigeria, why are his Hausa/Fulani people opposing President Jonathan's second term and insisting that the presidency must be a Northerner's in 2015? If tribe and religion are not factors, why are the Hausa/Fulanis insisting that only Hausa/Fulanis should be appointed into positions of immense authority and that the rest of Northerners who are not one of them are not real Northerners? If where one comes from is no longer a factor in Nigeria, why did Ango Abdullahi wait until Bama people of his "REAL NORTH" fell victims of the Nigerian state before starting his human rights activism and protestations? The list of tribe, religion and region influenced decisions and actions in Nigeria is nearly infinite; so it is very easy to suffocate Ango Abdullahi's claim that his threatened ICC action was not tribe or religion induced and driven? Icheoku says whether the mallam wants to admit it or not, these sentimental attachments to religion, tribe and region still controls most if not all decisions in Nigeria including who occupies what position in Nigeria. This is also the reason why the mallam belongs to a sectional organisation called Northern Elders Forum instead of rather broadening it to a more national outfit such as "Nigerian Elders Forum" for crying out loud. 

Finally Ango Abdullahi deferred to the judges at ICC on whether the Commander in chief should be made a party defendant to the adversarial proceeding and conceded that the "man who pulled the trigger may not necessarily be the man with the liability." The mallam however deliberately forgot the fact that Ihejirika was neither physically present at Bama during the invasion nor did he give the orders to stamp out terrorism in Northeastern Nigeria and neither did he declare the state of emergency that led to the military campaign to rout those Boko Haram terrorists. All these facts notwithstanding, Ihejirika is still the preferred person or official being indicted by Ango Abdullahi for war crimes and violations of human rights of Bama people. Ango Abdullahi further added that "we have been seeing heads of States appearing or being issued with warrants of arrests to appear before the ICC" but did not tell Nigeria when Ihejirika was elected or sworn in as head of state of Nigeria; yet he wants to indict him - a non head of state and therefore a non responsible party? 

Icheoku says this mallam has gone too far over-broad and if he is not senile like most people his age, then he has a sinister motive and an agenda driven from hell to incite trouble. This forbades bad tidings for Nigeria, especially if those Northerners succeed in polarising and fracturing the only thing still holding Nigeria together - one indivisible military, that do not currently see itself in parcels of religion, tribes or sections that they belong to or come from like these politicians including Ango Abdullahi. Icheoku says the day the Nigerian military completely fractures into parochial realignments is the day the nunc dimitis will be sang for the entity called Nigeria and Nigeria will be no more. Therefore, Icheoku advises Ango Abdullahi and his cohorts to watch their utterances and actions; and they mat also take a look at the example of Southern Sudan or Rwanda of the yore and see that the road currently being traveled by them can only lead to disaster. Their chosen current path of travel is strewn with thorns and hives of hornets and disturbing these will do no one in Nigeria any good. 

Lastly Icheoku says Ihejirika is the wrong accused/defendant in the intended Ango Abdullahi's ICC prosecution, assuming Ango abdullahi has standing and the case is meritorious. The correct and proper party to be sued is the president and commander in chief of the armed forces, failing which the chief of defense staff (CDS), who is the president's direct supervising official of the military should be sued but certainly not the chief of army staff as the primary accused party. At least the two topmost officials in the chain of command ought to be the principal party-defendants to be sued, admitted the COAS could as well be joined as a third accused party necessary. Whatever happens and whatever be the case or outcome of Ango Abdullahi's current effort at disturbing the peace of the land, the good news for Ihejirika and his defenders is that the African Union no longer honors summons of the ICC based on a perceived biased and discriminatory issuance of the writ against only Africans. Liberia's Charles Taylor and Ivory Coasts's Gbagbo was enough for the African Union to say enough and no to the indictments from the ICC and since then, Sudan's Omar Bashir and Kenya's Kenyatta have not answered or been bundled to the Hague as a result of such ICC indictments. Ihejirika will not be an exception and Jonathan will not allow it knowing the full implications including that he is the target. So Igbos of Southeastern Nigeria, sheath your swords but remain vigilant, just in case these mallams chew more than they can swallow and needs to be confronted and contained. Icheoku says to all die-hard Igbos out there, as for the Ango Abdullahi's purported ICC indictment of 'nwaa-aafoo' Ihejirika, "NOTHING ME GAA" - nothing go happen!