I have no hand in killing of IPOB members, says Obiano

Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, has washed off his hands in the killing of the members of Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) on May 30, 2016, noting that the impression held in some quarters that he was responsible for the death of several members of the group at Nkpor in Onitsha was false and unfounded.

The governor spoke when he received members of Biafran War Veterans led by Gen. Joe Achuzie, popular known as Air raid, at the Governor’s Lodge, Amambia, who paid him condolence visit over the death of his mother, Mrs. Christiana Obiano, adding that he could not have ordered the killing of those who voted for him in 2013 election.

He said that he has a mentality that guides him in issues of conviction which made him against all opinions and vehemence from federal authorities to still go ahead to bury those that died during the civil war, less than a year into the life of his administration.

He said: “Abuja was against my plan to bury the victims of Biafran war, there was a lot of opposition to it from security agencies but I went on to bury our war dead. As a young boy during the war, I knew what happened.

I saw many dead bodies and I know the importance of according proper burial to the departed even more so those that departed in the painful and regrettable way as they did, so I had to embrace all odds to bury them in an elaborate ceremony on the 12th of January 2015, less than one year into my administration.

How then will I contemplate killing their offspring for the same reason of Biafra? I didn’t do that, I’m innocent of the name calling.”

Obiano also said that the report the security agencies made available to him on the incident showed that nobody was killed but that when he visited Menax hospital, St. Charles Borromeo hospital among others to see the victims himself and to provide succour to them, he was told that people were killed and that some of those killed and the injured were taken out of the state to neighbouring states as very many of them came from outside Anambra State.

Obiano said he was elated to pay the hospital bills of the victims but some of them refused his offer. He also said he deeply sorry for what happened and assured that he has since then been battling to ensure that such incident doesn’t happen again in Anambra State.

While regretting the circumstances that led to the current agitation for Biafra, the governor said that he had told the President Muhammadu Buhari that if what is being done for the Northeast or close to it was done for the Igbos after the war, there would have been no agitation for Biafra today.

He said that “the impassable federal roads in the South East, the issue of second Niger Bridge and general lack of federal presence as viewed by the youths of Igboland make the longing for Biafra a recurring decimal”.

Obiano said he has directed that history about Biafra should be taught in schools in the state, adding: “Our children need to know what happened.

There are about four or more very good books on Biafra. It is important that our children are told of what happened and I have directed that Biafran history be taught in our schools in Anambra State.”

Obiano told the Biafran ex-servicemen that he appointed a liaison officer for the Biafran war veterans in order to ensure that issues affecting them and by extension pro-Biafra groups were better handled and that he is the only one that created such office.

Giving insight into what happened when Boko Haram convicts were brought to the state, Obiano said that they were the worst set of Boko Haram memebrs.

“They were brought all the way from D’jamena, Chad Republic and one of the nine (9) convicts came with his nine (9) wives and fourteen (14) children”, he said.

The governor informed that he had to struggle to get them out of Anambra State and South East because their presence was a psychological trauma to Ndigbo.

He then appealed to members and the leadership of IPOB and other pro-Biafra groups to maintain decorum, reminding them the maxim that says: “talk is cheap but war is expensive.”

In his speech, the leader of the Biafran war veterans, Chief Joe Achuzie, said Governor Obiano was innocent of the accusations as nothing before, during and after the incident suggested that the governor was culpable.

Achuzie spoke extensively on the build up to the protest that led to the killings, whose information, he said, he was privy to, and recalled how he had spoken with the then Anambra State Commissioner of Police to request that they allow the agitators to stage a peaceful protest but noted that on the said day, the army who were not in the picture suddenly appeared and became trigger-happy in killing citizens they were meant to protect.

“Sadly enough, after attacking the IPOB peaceful protesters, a false report was forwarded to the state governor that nobody was killed,” Achuzie said.

He urged the people not to be misled by the callous and malicious insinuations that the Governor had a hand in the shooting but to rather face the federal authorities that authorised the killings.

Earlier, Governor Obiano’s Liaison Officer to the Biafran War Veterans, Comrade Arinzechukwu Awogu, had said that the rumour of “shoot at sight” was first muted by the opposition elements in the state, saying that given the level of bitterness pervading the air over the killings, some persons bought into it without a second thought and the erroneous impression began to grow.