The provocation is on its sixth day in the South East of Nigeria, probably the culmination or preamble to the culmination of an agenda of this government to provoke the Igbo and have reason to roll out the tanks fully in a possible massacre.

The world is watching the hate act by a government that decrees against hate speech, a possible reincarnation of the infamous Decree 4 of 1984.

And most unhealthy about the situation is that uncomfortable coincidence, if it is, with the period the Arewa Youths order for the Igbo to quit northern Nigeria would expire and a possible eviction commenced. We feel really concerned if this is a plan to ensure that the Igbo is totally emasculated and incapacitated by the state even to an extent they won’t have the opportunity of self defence when a possible attack is unleashed on them in the north on October 1 to enforce the eviction. None of the commanders of the army formations in Abakaliki, Onitsha, Ohafia. Obinze, Owerri or 82 Division is Igbo. They are all from the north and they supervise the siege on the Igbo.

I have reason to make recourse to that quit order expiration because whereas the government of Nigeria has spoken sternly against Biafra agitators and eventually rolled out the tanks to the South East in its entirety to intimidate and sit on them, not a word has been said by the government including Mr. President who addressed the nation after his return and spoke in parables without saying a thing about that quit order that dominated national discourse from June 7 when it was made in Kaduna until he came back.

When Mr. President addressed Nigeria, he admitted following events in Nigeria especially through the social media while away for 104 days, but that burning issue didn’t deserve his reference. I started wondering whom those northern political leaders are that asked Yerima to issue that order. He stated that much, not quoting another source, on August 15 when he addressed the media in Lafia, Nasarawa State.

The orphan status of the Igbo in Nigeria, an old tradition, is amplified now, and we know why.

The ‘why’ is that those who loathe the Igbo are in charge of Nigeria and they don’t balk at going to any length to do their dare. But God has always been there for us and will continue to be and overthrow the plans of men.

Between September 15 and October 14, Igboland will be a zone of occupation by the Nigerian army and other security agencies as conquered territory that must be ruled by force. Even those of us that still stand for Nigeria, a restructured Nigeria, are to be treated like bondmen that have no right to freedom and must be cajoled, suppressed and coerced.

The announcement by the army was that their operation would start on September 15 and they were so impatient to fast track it to September 11 when bedlam was unleashed on the people of South East, a way of telling them without pretences that they are hated and must accept slavery without complaining as people without rights.

What shocks most is that whereas a certain person called Nnamdi Kanu is not above the law, the government said he breached his bail condition and feels the courts have lost their powers to call him to order by revoking the conditions and making him face trial. While a matter is pending against Kanu in court, the same government that filed charges against him has resorted to the alternative remedy of self help. Right now, in the course of implementing that intention, many people other than Nnamdi Kanu, have been endangered even when groups in Igboland and the state governments are not allies of Kanu.

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In the Economic and Social Rights of the United Nations, the ECOSOC Rights, the right of self actualization is guaranteed, the same right that enabled this same Nigeria that says nobody should talk to pull free from the British colonial masters.

I have heard from experts and read from the statutes I know that the Nigeria Army has no obligation to clamp down on Igbo land of five states when there is no war or breakdown of law or order in the region. The IPOB members are very few persons that don’t enjoy the backing of the state governments as exemplified in the declaration of IPOB that elections won’t hold in

Anambra State in November and till now that has pitted it against, not only Anambra, but all the states and most of the citizens who have always faulted Nnamdi for his modus.

But everyday, this government does its best to buy undue sympathy for IPOB because if anybody his or her family member is killed or maimed in the crossfire by the rampaging soldiers, it has unwittingly been won over by the IPOB.

To show that the target is the entire South East by way of intimidation, it was on the second day of its roll-out that soldiers drunk with the longing to shed Igbo blood charged into the secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Umuahia, beat them up and destroyed the office equipment and work tools. They admitted doing so, and that was just the prelude to what likely awaits everyone and every group in that region and some of us from there who would be targeted for commenting about it here.

By the provisions of the law, it is only in a war situation or something close to that that the president exercises his powers and declares State of Emergency, suspends the existing government, and handles the crisis. That is what President Goodluck Jonathan did in the case of heightened Boko Haram attacks in Yobe, Adamawa and Borno states. Igboland is now under siege, an unlawful and unnecessary siege by the government of Nigeria supervised by President Muhammadu Buhari. Today, that region groans and a set of people that have gone about their agitation without bearing arms or not in violence might be riled otherwise.

With this move, it doesn’t inhabit the domain of doubt or conjecture that the presidency must have known something about that quit order by the Arewa Youth and this looks like the implementation. The whole game looks like an act premeditated to find excuse to descend on the Igbo again by state fiat.

While this government was quick to clampdown on Igbo where there is no breakdown of public order and argued they have a need to stop criminals in the region, the same government didn’t do as much as making a statement in condemnation of the massacre in a community in Enugu State by Fulani herdsmen in 2016.

The same has become a daily menu in most of the LGAs of Benue, Kogi and other states to an extent that the Benue government had to make a law to ban open grazing.

A renowned Nigerian like Chief Olu Falae was kidnapped by the same herdsmen and attacked a second time. In the face of these killings, the government never did anything other than a promise to us this week that an end to the herdsmen/farmers clashes is not in sight.