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General News of Friday, 6 August 2021

Source: saharareporters.com

IPOB files lawsuit in US to retrieve six Tucano fighter jets sold to Nigeria

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American constitutional lawyer, Bruce Fein, has said that a suit has been filed in the United States of America on behalf of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) against the sales of six A-29 Tucano fighter jets to the Nigerian government.

The American IPOB lawyer said the lawsuit would seek to revoke the delivery of the six Tucano jets sold and also block the remaining six from being conveyed to the country.

The lawyer argued that former President Donald Trump approved the sales of selling 12 Tucano military aircraft to Nigeria at the sum of $600 million in 2017 without having a rethink of the human rights violations of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.

Fein said the lawsuit was against the executive arm of the US Government which has the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin, as sealing the deal of delivering the weapons to Nigeria.

He stressed that the weapons were meant to unleash genocidal attacks on the Biafra agitators and supporters who are mainly from the South East of Nigeria.

This revelation was contained in a zoom meeting Fein had with the presenter of Njenje Media TV, Maazi Ezeoke and another broadcaster known as Chidi.

“The issue dates back to 2017 that President Donald Trump approved the sale of 12 A-29 Tucano military aircraft to Nigeria for $600 million despite the fact that we have a long-standing amendment to making those demands to transfer those weapons to any foreign countries guilty of exigencies of human rights violations.

“It’s quite obvious that President Buhari’s statement continues in conducting the second version of 1967 genocide of Biafrans, that these weapons will not be used against the nation’s terrorist but will be used for genocide against Biafrans in South East.

“And the case that we have brought is against those in the executive in the United States like the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken and Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin responsible for the delivery of the A-29 military aircraft. Six of them have been delivered, six have not been delivered.

“We believe that if we have a chance even by highlighting the weapons that President Biden administration which is professed in defending human rights than President Trump administration may well seek the return of the six A-29 Tucano military aircraft,” Fein said.

He added the entire Democrats in the US are being carried along on the matter, adding that Trump and Republicans did not challenge the sales of the military equipment to Nigeria.

“There is also kind of arrangement with the Democrats to stop selling weapons to Nigeria. These considerations were not available when the weapons sales were approved in 2017 because President Trump was faulted on human rights and Republicans were not going to challenge anything.

“So, the lawsuit of the delivery and sales of Tucano aircraft are in violation of the law. The lawsuit is not filed in isolation. There is a larger percentage number of Americans involved.

“(The people) reasonably fear that the A-29 Super Tucano aircraft will be used imminently to kill or maim them physically or to destroy their property. The sale is in flagrant violation of international law,” Fein said.

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) on July 22 took delivery of the first batch of six A-29 Super Tucano aircraft from the United States.