AN OPEN REMINDER TO THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY: THE COST OF UNENFORCED DECLARATIONS

IPOB to UN: Enforce Your Declarations On Human Rights, Stop Acting Like Fire Alarm

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has called on the United Nations and the international community to move beyond rhetoric and enforce its own declarations on human rights and justice.

In an open statement dated October 1, 2026, titled "The Cost of Unenforced Declarations," IPOB West Africa Representative, Mazi Dr. Oghenevoke Oforitse Santos, said global leaders gather yearly at the UN General Assembly to deliver speeches on peace and human rights, but the speeches have little value when the UN cannot enforce its resolutions.

Santos said while UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in his address to the 81st Session of the General Assembly, stated that "human dignity is universal" and that "the power of law must prevail over the law of power," the UN has continued to act like a fire alarm that sounds a crisis rather than a fire extinguisher that puts it out.

He argued that when the UN points out how state power is used for repression but fails to stop it, it exposes its weakness and sends a signal to repressive governments that they can act with impunity.

The IPOB chieftain cited the case of its leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, as a clear example of the enforcement deficit. He recalled that in 2022, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Opinion No. 42/2022 ruled that Kanu's extraordinary rendition from Kenya and continued detention were illegal under international law and called for his immediate release and compensation, but the Nigerian government has ignored the ruling without facing any diplomatic consequence.

Santos also lamented that critical regional crises such as insecurity, atrocities by armed militias, displacement of communities, and the denial of the right to self-determination as enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter, have continued to be ignored on the global stage.

He said the international community cannot advocate for universal human dignity while turning a blind eye to persistent violations within member states, warning that a UN that only sounds the alarm without action risks total irrelevance.

IPOB urged the UN to hold non-compliant member states like Nigeria accountable and actively enforce its human rights determinations to prevent global order from collapsing into state-sanctioned impunity.