PRESS RELEASE

 

 

World Igbo Congress has retained a team of lawyers led by Chief Mike I. Ahamba, SAN as legal counsel to represent it before the public hearings of the Human Rights Violations Investigating Committee, commonly referred to as the Oputa Commission soon to commence at Enugu.   Chief Ahamba and his team of lawyers, including Lagos-based Mr. Val Ikeonu,  will make the case for Ndi-Igbo before the commission at those.  This bold move by WIC supports and supplements the umbrella initiatives of Ohaneze on behalf of Ndi-Igbo before the Oputa Commission and is intended to underscore how seriously Ndi-Igbo everywhere take the persecution to which we have been subjected throughout the history of Nigeria.  .   

 

Too many injustices have been, and continue to be, visited upon Ndi-Igbo.  There may not be enough time to present all of them at these public hearings.  Chief Ahamba, SAN, himself a Biafran activist during the war,  is authorized to use his professional judgment to select from the long list of issues the one ones to highlight through witnesses to make the Igbo case and public record of the violations.  

 

Suggested issues for specific mention are Abandoned Property, which is inconsistent with the principle of citizenship;  20 Pounds to every Biafran depositor in Nigerian Banks at the end of the war, which constitutes unlawful Taking of private property by the Nigerian government;  the federal use of Starvation as an instrument of war against Ndi-Igbo, which violates the Geneva Convention; the case of Mr. Akalou Uka, who was beheaded and his head paraded on a stake through the streets of Kano not too long ago.

 

Chief Ahamba was a speaker at WIC 1999 Chicago Convention.

 

 

Ken Okorie

WIC Justice Oputa Project