The Good Governance Advocacy Project has called on the United Nations and International Criminal Court to investigate, prosecute and possibly convict former President, Olusegun Obasanjo for alleged war crimes and sundry offences.
The civil society organisation also wants erstwhile Minister of Defence, TY Danjuma probed alongside the former president for alleged involvement in offenses against humanity that took place at various
times between 1999 and 2007, particularly offences bordering on war crimes in Odi area of Bayelsa and Zaki Biam, Benue state.
Addressing newsmen yesterday, the National President of the group, Patriot Danelson Momoh, recalled that it was during Danjuma’s regime as Defence Minister under the then President Olusegun Obasanjo that troops massacred innocent citizens of Zaki Biam community in Benue
state.
The group therefore called on Obasanjo and Danjuma to hand themselves over to the ICC over the massacre of defenceless citizens in their communities.
“The Project is concerned with recent trends where persons that acted below par when they were in public office, interfere with the running of government in ways that not only jeopardizes good governance but trigger widespread ethno-religious hostilities as they pitch one group in the country against the other.
“Of note among these yesteryears’ men is former military chief, retired General Theophilus Yakubu (TY) Danjuma who of late has become synonymous with being an inciter of adherents of Christianity in the
country to go to war with their neighbours under the guise ofethno-religious killings.
“He had in the past called on people to take up arms against their neighbours for which he was roundly censored by all well-meaning Nigerians. This does not however seem to have deterred him as he is
back to lying bald-facedly.
“We categorically state this because historically, it was Dajuma’s regime as Defence Minister under the then President Olusegun Obasanjo that troops massacred innocent citizens of Zaki Biam community in
Benue state. Much as the history of what happened in Zak Ibiam is being re-written to obscure the actual drivers of that pogrom, TY Danjuma knows that the genocide that took place there was never about national security but was about protecting narrow interests that were
not intended for the benefit of the larger population.
He and Obasanjo remain the architects of the genocide in Zak Ibiam, which was not their only crime because they also jointly masterminded the scorched-earth pogrom at Odi. These actions were the foundation that sowed the seeds of discord amongst the various ethnic groups in
Nigeria,” Momoh stated.
