Pro-Biafra agitation: Ohanaeze tells FG to stop victimization of activists

Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, yesterday in Port Harcourt, advised the Federal Government to go into dialogue with pro-Biafra agitators, rather than arresting, detaining, and allegedly killing them.

The Organisation said that members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have suffered unduly in the hands of the Federal Government for agitating for independence.

The President-General of Ohanaeze-Ndigbo World-wide, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, in an interactive session with newsmen at Hotel Presidential, Port Harcourt, said the agitation by MASSOB and IPOB was the result of the age-long marginalization against the Igbo people.

Chief Nwodo who was the Minister of Information under the Military Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar and former Special Adviser to former President Shehu Shagari, told journalists that the pro-Biafra agitation needed political solution and not military confrontation and victimization.

According to the Ohanaeze President, “Under the Constitution of Nigeria, you have freedom of expression and freedom of association. If somebody says he wants Biafra, he is free to say so as long as he is saying it in a legitimate way. He can take his petition to the National Assembly. He can have a plebiscite, if he wins, fine, if he doesn’t win, he takes it like that.

“The fact that we, their fathers have not joined them should give a signal to Nigeria that they have not yet become so popular to carry us along and that this matter can be addressed politically. If they see this marginalization end, if they see the restructuring of the country, they could probably think twice,” he said.

The President of Ohaneze-Ndigbo stated that despite the deadly activists of terrorist group, Boko Haram, as well as other groups such as the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) and the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) the Federal Government was willing to dialogue with them.

He said that the pro-Biafra agitators would be disposed to dialogue if the same gesture was extended to them rather than allegedly killing and maiming them, saying, “In North-Eastern Nigeria, there is a military group called Boko Haram, armed with tanks and other dangerous weapons.

They have ravaged and conquered territories, some of which have been recovered. When they conquer a territory, they displace the people, they displace the traditional authority, they erect their own authority and they put a flag.

“What could be more seditious than that? In other words, they are preaching a new country, their own country. They have a flag. I don’t know any one of them that is in detention; I don’t know anyone of them who is being tried for treason. The Federal Government is using Heads of State of other countries to negotiate with them.

“There has been several failed negotiation which the Federal Government publicly admitted and millions of Naira lost. I know of a militant organization in this part called the Avengers, who are as angry as a MASSOB and IPOB boys. They have destroyed wells, pipelines. I know the Vice President of Nigeria has visited three Niger Delta states seeking for peace and negotiation in order to keep their children calm.

“I know OPC in Western Nigeria, who is like a military force, saluted at every checkpoint. What has IPOB and MASSOB done to the Federal Government? Why are they being treated differently?

Is this an animal farm where some are more equal than others? If they treat them, I mean IPOB and MASSOB, the way they are treating Boko Haram and negotiate with them, they will probably think differently. If they treat them the way they are treating Avengers, they will probably think differently.

“For that reason, I say to my brothers who are in MASSOB and IPOB, I am your brother and I extend my hand of fellowship. Come and let’s work together. I understand why you do what you are doing; I understand your anger, your frustration and your expectations. In spite of the crude methods they have used to suppress you, you have continued to move on. I feel so bad about our people,” Chief Nwodo maintained.

He called on the Igbo who invested outside the Igboland, especially in Lagos, Abuja, and other parts of the country, to consider relocating their investments back home in order to create employment opportunities for “teeming angry and jobless Igbo youths” in the land.

“At the end of the war, every Igbo man was given 20 Pounds. The recipients of the 20 Pounds have turned into billionaires today, by a ding of industry, hardwork, and outstanding ingenuity. Go to Lagos, half of the real estate in Lagos belong to the Igbo. An Igbo man has a university in Ogun State.

“In Sokoto, an Igbo man has a tomato purity industry. Go to Abuja, half of the investments there are owned by Igbos. Isn’t it about time they thought of bringing these back home and start investing in Igboland? So that our children who are so angry with us today because they see no future, can be usefully employed, so that we can develop ourselves,” he said.

Chief Nwodo stated that the new executive of the organization elected on January 10, this year, was touring the seven Igbo dominated states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Imo, Enugu, Delta, and Rivers states and those in diaspora, to commence consultations and mobilization to confront their common destiny.

The organization, according to the President, had earlier visited Lagos and Abuja, the two cities that have the largest concentration of Igbo outside the seven states.