Open letter to Mr President,

I am an Ex- officio of the Ndigbo Community Association In NewZealand.

I write to express my unhappiness over the trend of things in our country Nigeria. Often times, I wonder if you read letters of concerned citizens, as I have written to you in the past.

Even a casual observer would be alarmed at the spate of killings and wanton
destruction of properties that has become the order of the day. Reports of
killings no longer attract due attention from both the security agencies and the
federal government as they are perpetrators. Cases of fulani terrorist
herdsmen ravaging farming communities all over the country, kidnapping,
armed robbery, hired assassins and a general feeling of insecurity are common
place in Nigeria today under your watchful eyes.

Mr President Sir, Most Nigerians, Igbos in particular are hopeless, helpless,
fearful, aggrieved and have been brutalized by poverty caused by wrongful
implementations in a country blessed with abundant Natural resources. Your
Administration has become a ‘let down’ especially to the Igbos which are a
minority group.

Of particular concerns are the confirmed reports of the Extra Judicial killing of
IPOB members and those of their sister organisation – MOSSOB members who
are Igbos of South-East extraction by the Nigerian Army who opened fire on
them resulting in mass murder of innocent young men and women in their
prime.

This mass murder happened at Onitsha –Anambra state when IPOB
members gathered at Nkpor Junction on 30 th May 2016 to mark the
anniversary of the 1967 to 1970 Nigerian civil War (Biafran War) that took
the lives of over 3 million Igbos. Till date IPOB leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and
many members are detained in prisons across the country without trial with
many others missing.

Calls from international organisations and even
Amnesty International to intervene have not yielded any fruitful result.

It is pertinent to point out to you- Mr President that these agitations stem
from government subtle policy of marginalization and discrimination against
the Igbos of Eastern region by the federal government controlled by the
northern Hausa/Fulani presidency.

It will also be recalled that similar mass murder was perpetrated against the
IPOB members at a peaceful and legitimate rally gathering in the city of
Onitsha in August 2015 by the Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Police teams.

Several innocent citizens were murdered in cold blood at the IPOB rally. The
same happened at Aba and Port-Harcourt cities.
I will also remind you to reflect and note that history is replete with
outcomes of efforts to emasculate any resolved ethnic group in any parts of
the world from expressing their free will. The result has been a more unified
and cohesive group strength beyond what guns and tanks can destroy,
resulting in full blown revolutions. This explains why there is a rapid upsurge
in support of the clarion call by IPOB on the people which is rooted in the
conscious of the man on the street in Igboland hence the influx of volunteers
and groups serving in the various groups.

Let me highlight some realities of your APC administration and past Federal
regimes many of which your good self was part of as follows:-

1. The first major action or step you took shortly after assumption of office
   was the immediate retirement of over 80% of Igbo (East) Army Officers
   many of whom were in the prime of their careers while only a few of
   those from the North and the West of Nigeria were affected.
2. No Igbo person is appointed in any security arm of government as a service chief for any of the arms of the military, or heads any Para-military/security agency eg Police, State security service, custom, immigration, civil defence, national intelligence agency etc. As a matter of fact, nobody from my region sits in any important security meeting of the present government.
3. The Igbos are seriously marginalised in government ministerial or board appointments of parastatals etc.
4. Over 90% of military institutions and training commands are located in the north.
5. The federal government continues waging a media war against IPOB and continues to detain, torture, brutalize and humiliates her supporters. The list is endless.
6. The Revenue Sharing formular is unacceptably skewed in favour of the north as against the states of the south that generate most of the revenue. The local government system is structured to favour the north where the local governments in two states in the north are more than the combined number in the five states of the South East region.

After you were voted in and came on board, I hoped that your government will
impact positively on the wellbeing of ordinary people; a government that will
turn around the economy and tackle poverty squarely but rather legislators
and executives continues to loot Government funds to maintaining their
obnoxious lifestyle.
Sir, I believe your administration can do more and even better

Jeffery Orji