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General News of Saturday, 12 June 2021

Source: www.mynigeria.com

Stop beating war drums - Ohanaeze, Igbo leaders tell Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari President Muhammadu Buhari

The Igbo leaders, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and other groups from the South-East have expressed their displeasure at President Muhammadu Buhari for deriding Ndigbo in his television interview on Thursday, June 11.

They attacked the President for equating the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) with the whole region when he called the pro-Biafra group “a dot in a circle.”

They also berated him for threatening to deal ruthlessly with the people of the zone and his endorsement for continued open grazing by herders.

Their reactions came as the Federal Government, yesterday, hurriedly dispatched a delegation consisting of Minister of Defence, Maj. Gen. Bashir Magashi (rted), his Interior Ministry counterpart, Raul Aregbesola and the Service Chiefs, to discuss the security situation in the zone.

The meeting was attended by all the Governors of the South-East; other political and religious leaders, as well as traditional rulers, held at the Government House, Enugu.

Ohanaeze made President Buhari aware that he has a choice between dialogue and waging an avoidable war against Ndigbo.

The apex Igbo body counselled him that it was better to toe the path of dialogue as it has continued to canvass.

It added that what the country needed “as a matter of urgency is dialogue, mutual toleration and shared values; and not the use of force.”

Ohanaeze recalled that Obiozor had at a world press conference in Enugu on June 4, reiterated the Igbo position “that Ndigbo will not support the break-up of Nigeria but Ndigbo will not be victims of Nigerian unity”.

For clarity, Ohanaeze stated that the sustained agitation for secession by the Igbo youths, especially the Nnamdi Kanu-led IPOB became heightened by the obvious exclusion of the Igbo in the President Buhari government and Mr President has not in any way hidden his disdain for the groups that failed to vote for him en-masse in 2015 and 2019 general elections.

“President Buhari has a choice between dialogue on one hand and an avoidable war against the Igbo on the other.”

Similarly, the Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) and Association of South East Town Unions (ASETU) said that Buhari had not repented in his avowed threat of annihilating the Igbo.

ADF advised him to play the role of a nationalist and a patriot instead of looking for excuses to play up his Fulani supremacist agenda. It also admonished Buhari to drop his fondness for ethnic profiling and wondered what mortal sin the Igbo had committed to deserve annihilation in Nigeria. 

The group’s spokesman, Abia Onyike said: “He is making a mistake by equating the IPOB with the Igbo ethnic nationality. If he says the IPOB has investments all over Nigeria; that is ethnic profiling. IPOB is only an organization in Igboland. Why is Buhari so bent on making war with the Igbo? That would be genocide and it has its repercussions with the international criminal court. What crime has the Igbo committed that war should be declared on them? Many people believe that Buhari had always wanted this war against Ndigbo because he sees them as the only viable opposition against his Fulani supremacist agenda.”