A leading Igbo socio-cultural association, Igbo Bu Igbo (IBI) has told the federal government to stop the humiliation of Igbo women under the dubious guise of crackdown on IPOB. This was on the heels of a mass arrest of women who were demonstrating to demand the whereabouts of Nnamdi Kanu, in Owerri, the Imo State capital.
In a statement signed by Dr Law Mefor and Chijioke Ndukwe, Chancellor and Publicity Secretary of the group, respectively, the group wondered why the police descended so heavily on armless and harmless women who were exercising their rights to peaceful assembly, tear gassed and clamped them into detention.
Below is the full statement:
“It is with sadness and regret that we observe the continued inhuman treatment being meted out to women of Igbo extraction who were brutalized by the police before being clamped into detention in Owerri the Imo State capital.
“We wish to state categorically clear, without any iota of equivocation, that these women who were armless and harmless were merely exercising their rights to peaceful assembly when they were heavily descended upon by the police in a manner akin to that of a war situation as if they were common criminals.
Furthermore, we detest the continued situation where, not only our women, but also all citizens of Igbo extraction, are treated like subhuman by the Buhari administration as part of his ignoble agenda against the Igbo.
“If not, one wonders why Fulani herdsmen terrorists whose tag as terrorists have since been confirmed by the world and rated the fourth most dangerous terror group in the universe are given royal treatment by the Buhari administration despite their well documented heinous crimes of frightful proportions against humanity and not arrested or clamped into detention with the alacrity our women are treated.
“The images emanating from the detention center of the women are disturbing and unacceptable to us. it is even worse that these women, some of who are in their sixties, are being denied food and their medicines as their family members and loved ones are denied access to them thereby leaving them starved and at the danger of death.
“We frown very seriously at this official wickedness against the Igbo nation. The latest incident where our mothers and daughters are so cheaply humiliated just for peacefully expressing themselves is one act of oppression taken too far.
We are beginning to lose patience with those who continually demean our people with impunity. We therefore call on the authorities to, as a matter of urgency, release all the women who are nothing but victims of another round of police brutality.
We also call on our people to remain calm while we further explore ways to secure the immediate release of our dear mothers and sisters. This oppression of Ndigbo will surely not last! –
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