Monday 16 October 2017 // 12:12 AM
Biafra: US Lawyers To Take Judicial Step Towards Biafra Referendum, Prepare Charges Against Buhari, Buratai At ICC
By Mazi Edozie
For IPOB Writers
Former Deputy Attorney-General of US, Dr Fein Bruce and W.B DelValle are preparing to take some judicial steps toward securing a referendum for the people of Biafra.
The lawyers are "drafting a criminal indictment against Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, for genocide and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
According to a statement signed by their law firm last weekend in Washington DC, the lawyers believe that “the prosecutions of Buhari and Buratai will prompt the United Nations Security Council to task the United Nations Electoral Unit to conduct a referendum on Biafran independence in the South East region; and, to operate a transitional government for a six-month period prior to the balloting to avoid any intimidation of the voters. It is no accident that South Sudan achieved independence on the heels of President Bashir’s ICC indictment for genocide in Darfur”.
The lawyers explained that “the overwhelming majority of Biafrans cannot speak for themselves without risking lethal retaliation by President Buhari or Lt. General Buratai. That fear explains the reason the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted the motion of Fein & DelValle to reference their ten (10) Biafran plaintiffs anonymously in their Torture Victims Protection Act suit against sixteen (16) individual Nigerian defendants in Doe, et al. v. Buratai, et al., Civil Action No. 1:17-cv-0133."
To drive home their case “Fein & Delvalle are gathering photographic, video, and testimonial evidence of the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Buhari and Buratai against Igbos not only in the South East region but also in northern Nigeria and elsewhere. There is no safe haven in Nigeria for them. Last June, Hausa Fulani youths in northern Nigeria (Arewa) with impunity threatened to evict eleven million Igbos from their homes and businesses in northern Nigeria by force and violence if they did not quit the area by October 1, 2017."
They said, “We are confident that 50 million Igbos in Nigeria were not born with saddles on their backs ready to be ridden by booted and spurred Hausa-Fulani with the grace of God. Criminal prosecutions of Buhari and Buratai before the International Criminal Court are the best way of teaching that gospel.”
They said that “Nigeria’s current borders were drawn by a racist British colonial master more than a century ago with no reference to the inhabitants. The boundaries are moral, legal, and politically indefensible. The Government of Nigeria does not reflect popular will on that score. It rules under a 1999 Constitution that was decreed by a military dictator for the purpose, among other things, of holding Igbos in bondage to Hausa-Fulani terrorists."
They maintained that “Britain defaulted on its decolonisation obligation to permit self-determination referenda by each of the separate and distinct peoples of Nigeria. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514, December 14, 1960, provides: ‘All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’.”
Biafra: US Lawyers To Take Judicial Step Towards Biafra Referendum, Prepare Charges Against Buhari, Buratai At ICC
 |
| Former Deputy Attorney-General of US, Dr Fein Bruce |
By Mazi Edozie
For IPOB Writers
Former Deputy Attorney-General of US, Dr Fein Bruce and W.B DelValle are preparing to take some judicial steps toward securing a referendum for the people of Biafra.
The lawyers are "drafting a criminal indictment against Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, for genocide and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
According to a statement signed by their law firm last weekend in Washington DC, the lawyers believe that “the prosecutions of Buhari and Buratai will prompt the United Nations Security Council to task the United Nations Electoral Unit to conduct a referendum on Biafran independence in the South East region; and, to operate a transitional government for a six-month period prior to the balloting to avoid any intimidation of the voters. It is no accident that South Sudan achieved independence on the heels of President Bashir’s ICC indictment for genocide in Darfur”.
The lawyers explained that “the overwhelming majority of Biafrans cannot speak for themselves without risking lethal retaliation by President Buhari or Lt. General Buratai. That fear explains the reason the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted the motion of Fein & DelValle to reference their ten (10) Biafran plaintiffs anonymously in their Torture Victims Protection Act suit against sixteen (16) individual Nigerian defendants in Doe, et al. v. Buratai, et al., Civil Action No. 1:17-cv-0133."
To drive home their case “Fein & Delvalle are gathering photographic, video, and testimonial evidence of the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Buhari and Buratai against Igbos not only in the South East region but also in northern Nigeria and elsewhere. There is no safe haven in Nigeria for them. Last June, Hausa Fulani youths in northern Nigeria (Arewa) with impunity threatened to evict eleven million Igbos from their homes and businesses in northern Nigeria by force and violence if they did not quit the area by October 1, 2017."
They said, “We are confident that 50 million Igbos in Nigeria were not born with saddles on their backs ready to be ridden by booted and spurred Hausa-Fulani with the grace of God. Criminal prosecutions of Buhari and Buratai before the International Criminal Court are the best way of teaching that gospel.”
They said that “Nigeria’s current borders were drawn by a racist British colonial master more than a century ago with no reference to the inhabitants. The boundaries are moral, legal, and politically indefensible. The Government of Nigeria does not reflect popular will on that score. It rules under a 1999 Constitution that was decreed by a military dictator for the purpose, among other things, of holding Igbos in bondage to Hausa-Fulani terrorists."
They maintained that “Britain defaulted on its decolonisation obligation to permit self-determination referenda by each of the separate and distinct peoples of Nigeria. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514, December 14, 1960, provides: ‘All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’.”
Post A Comment:
0 comments:
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.