Apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has decried a statement credited to former Sokoto State Governor, Senator Aliyu Wamakko that Igbo leaders have not been speaking up against “recent undue harassment” of northerners in the South-East.
Wamakko, who represents Sokoto North in the Senate, alleged that before Ahmed Gulak’s killing in Owerri, Imo State, many other northerners living in the South-East had been killed in the zone and the killings went largely underreported.
“Through all these, as individual leaders and collectively, we have maintained a studied silence by avoiding anything that will further rock the boat. Rather, we have been restraining our own people who are victims of these atrocities by preaching patience and peace.
“Regrettably but curiously, our friends and compatriots, leaders of Igbo extraction, have remained dead silent in the face of increasing assault and effort by their own people to stock a nationwide mayhem.
“For whatever reason it is, I want to loudly call them out to speak up. Silence is no longer acceptable in the face of this clear danger and threat against the country. The silence by political leaders and other prominent persons from that part of the country tells us only one thing: Their tacit approval for the activities of the murderous IPOB gangs,” Wamakko had said on Saturday.
Read Also: “We can’t afford another war, let Igbos leave if they want” – Northern elders
Reacting, Ohanaeze in a Monday statement signed by its Secretary-General, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, said that Wamakko’s statement was capable of instigating northerners against Ndigbo.
The group wondered why Wamakko and his fellow Northern leaders have not been able to find a lasting solution to pervasive insecurity in the north in the north for the past seven years.
It said that the north had strategically deployed the same security issues as a weapon to force former President Goodluck Jonathan out of office in 2015.
Ohanaeze said it was evident that the North was responsible for all the disasters in the Southeast based on the earlier warning of the USA Embassy Abuja.
It recalled that the Embassy had warned that bandits and killer herdsmen from the north were moving down south to wreak havoc.
According to Ohanaeze, “Northern Elders are behind the chaos in Nigeria as a ploy to retain the Presidency in the North beyond 2023 as they did to Jonathan in 2015.
“So they exported violence to the southeast to keep Igbo leaders busy with insecurity challenges and set traps for them (Igbo leaders) to fall in and get arrested.
“We are amazed at how someone who couldn’t remove a spark of dust in his eyelashes could see the remedy for the log of wood in the eyes of Ndigbo.
“Wamakko’s assertion that Igbo leaders are behind the scenes motivating the violence in the southeast, exposed the northern secrets of supporting bandits and Boko Haram for economic and political reasons.
“The silence of Igbo leaders is golden and will generate confusion in the camps of sponsors of terror in the Southeast.”