Ohanaeze: Chief of Army Staff’s Warning to IPOB, ESN Unfortunate
Amby Uneze in Owerri
The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has expressed displeasure over the comment of the Nigerian Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Faruk Yahaya, warning the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its security outfit Eastern Security Network (ESN) for their peaceful protest over the continued detention of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu by the federal government. In a statement titled “Enough is Enough” and signed by the National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze, Dr. Chiedozie Alex Ogbonnia, the group lamented the inglorious activities of the Nigerian government and her security apparatus on her position and ill-treatment of Ndigbo.
According to him, Yahaya was quoted in a warning he issued on Monday that “ IPOB, ESN, or any other group or individuals have no constitutional backing to threaten Nigeria’s integrity.”
The Ohanaeze maintained that instead of the security to apologise to Ndigbo for killing five of Igbo boys in Aba, Abia State last week during their peaceful protest over the continued and illegal incarceration of Nnamdi Kanu.
“On Friday, March 31, 2023, five members of the IPOB were shot dead in Osusu, Aba, Abia State, while they were on a procession across Aba. Confirming the incident, the Abia State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Mustapha Mohammed Bala, a Katsina-born, well-educated police officer claimed that “policemen on confidence building patrol/show of force within Aba metropolis came under attack by the proscribed IPOB/ESN members.
According to him “they were armed with petrol bombs, machetes, battle axes and other dangerous weapons. Bala added that “the attack was repelled by the Police operatives with minimal casualties while majority of the hoodlums scampered for
safety”.
“Ohanaeze findings revealed that “some residents, armed with video evidence, informed that the group was protesting peacefully against the continued detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, without disturbance before they were shot at.”
“It is most appalling that Bala should refer to the IPOB men as “hoodlums” and most unconscionable to view the death of five IPOB members as “minimal casualties,” he said.
The Ohanaeze spokesperson recalled the warning issued by former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently at the one-year anniversary of governor Charles Soludo as the governor of Anambra State in Awka, where he spoke against the “dangers of the conspiracy against the Igbo of the South-east.
“Obasanjo described the phenomenon as Igbophobia. He contended that “it would not mean well for the unity and development of the country.
“Every knowledgeable Nigerian knows that the current political travails in Nigeria is rooted in Igbophobia. The backwardness and poverty that have become the character of Nigeria is the manifestation of Igbophobia or the orchestrated marginalization and alienation of the Igbo from the centres of power.
“For the avoidance of doubts, the IPOB philosophy is in line with the position of Chief E K Clark, the Leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) and the Leader of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF), “that the former military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, should have allowed the Igbo to secede at the outset of the civil war in 1966.”
And that “instead of continued mistreatment of the Igbo in Nigeria, they should be allowed to go.”
The elder statesman made the remarks on May 3, 2022 during an interview on Arise TV, as part of his advocacy for the president of Nigeria to be zoned to the South-east. Clark stressed the “need for the region to be treated with a sense of belonging and called for political parties, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to zone their presidential tickets to candidates from the South-east.
“IPOB insists that instead of the continued indignities to the Igbo, they should be allowed to go.
“In other words, while the Ohanaeze Ndigbo on one hand and the IPOB on the other converge on the dissatisfaction with the Igbo mistreatment in Nigeria, the divergence is on the approach or methodology for a change.
“The Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been looking forward to a day like today when in collaboration and coalition with other ethnic nationalities, eminent Nigerians of goodwill, the youth and indeed all the progressive minds, will through a social change dynamic and democratic process entrench good governance in Nigeria.
“Ohanaeze believes that with good leadership, Nigeria has sufficient human and natural resources that will stimulate upscale prosperity and sustainable economic development for the good of everybody in the country. The only thing in short supply, according to Chinua Achebe, is Leadership. Remarkably, Peter Obi is simply a response, an effect or the manifestation of the peoples’ yearnings for good governance in Nigeria,” he maintained.
He said that Ohanaeze Ndigbo has repeatedly called for a political solution in resolving the IPOB matter and that the adoption of extra judicial minimal casualties on a daily basis against the IPOB by the Nigerian security operatives is heinous, savage, unethical, antithetical to democratic norms and, of course, far from the solution.
