An Igbo youth leader has warned governors from the South East geo-political zone and other Igbo leaders against taking advantage of agitations by Igbo youths for the creation of a sovereign Biafra state by unduly obtaining jobs and contracts from the Federal Government on behalf of the youths.
According to a Saturday statement in Enugu by Evangelist Elliot Uko, founder of Igbo Youth Movement, currying favours from President Muhammadu Buhari in return for helping FG to crush pro-Biafra sentiments is a “mindless strategy” that could create a “huge chasm” between the leaders and their people in Igboland.
Uko, who is also the Leader of the South East Democratic Coalition, said the path being thread by the Igbo leaders was capable of turning the youths against them.
The statement read: “The wide gulf between the Igbo masses and the political class is about to be widened dangerously.
“The mindless strategy of using the blood, tears and sorrows of frustrated Igbo youths who have lost faith in Nigeria, to curry jobs and favour from President Buhari could create a huge chasm between the leaders and the led in Igbo land.
“The meeting of a section of Igbo leaders in Lagos, Friday, who claimed that the pro-Biafra agitators were angry at the obvious exclusion of Ndigbo by General Buhari’s government is purely designed to use the blood and pains of these youths to merely achieve access to Buhari (which had been denied them) and also curry attention, patronages and relevance.
“They know they were lying. They are dangerously threading on a path that could turn the youth against them.
“The truth is that the humiliation Ndigbo are made to endure for 45 years; the unjust political structure; the number of states, local governments and political representations coupled with the refusal to implement the 2005 political reform conference decision that approved an additional state for the South East are at the root of the agitation by millions of Igbo youths for a separate nation.
“The political structure that makes it impossible for Igbo land to grow economically, the structure that makes it difficult for marooned and frustrated youths to be accommodated fairly in their Fatherland, the structure that encourages external forces to impose leaders on Ndigbo, leaders who in turn owe allegiance to those forces than to their own people… Carpet-Beggary that has been lifted up to the level of a religion… All these are at the root of the frustrations of Ndigbo and these leaders know that.
“Appointment into Buhari’s government is not the reason for the agitation for Biafra.
“Those trying to use these unfortunate bloodletting to get themselves accommodated into Buhari’s dinner table while remaining silent on the real issues of structural imbalance are only giving the public the impression that they entered a deal with the Federal Government to try and stop the protests.”