2023: Ohanaeze Condemns Intimidation Of Igbos In Lagos

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Monday, condemned alleged voter intimidation against the Igbo in Lagos State.

Ohanaeze was reacting to remarks made by one Baale of Igbara community in Eti-Osa LGA of Lagos State to the effect that ‘only residents who have their permanent voter cards, PVC, and are ready to vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) would be allowed to do business with them in the community’.

Ohanaeze reported that Baale made the remarks while addressing his cabinet on Monday, January 30, 2023. He was quoted to have said that, “We are ready to fight; yes, I am not hiding it; I have narrated everything to you. In Nigeria, there is Lagos; in Lagos, there is Eti-Osa; within Eti-Osa, we have Igbara community and by the grace of God in Igbara today, we can take our decision.

“You want to vote for PDP or Labour Party? Not here.”

Ohanaeze further quoted the Oba of Lagos, His Majesty Rilwan Akiolu, as saying in April 2015 that ‘anyone that fails to vote for the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) would perish in the lagoon’.

Ohanaeze, in a statement by its national publicity secretary, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, described such statements as ‘most unwarranted’.

According to Dr Ogbonnia, “Although His Majesty was able to restore the Igbo confidence in him when the late Ambassador George Obiozor, the former president general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, led an Igbo delegation to pay him a visit with respect to one spurious and frivolous allegation against the Igbo in Lagos State, yet the remark by His Majesty is to say the least, most unwarranted.”

Ohanaeze therefore called on the presidential candidate of the APC, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu; the governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu; security agencies and lovers of democracy in Nigeria ‘to caution the Baale for such unreflective, provocative, incendiary and inflammatory remarks by a Baale in Lagos State’.

The statement read, “The Baale should be made to understand that Nigeria has gone beyond such careless and inciting rhetorics.

“The Baale and his cohorts may know why the fight will begin but will surely not know how, where, when and in whose favour the fight will end. In other decent climes, the said Baale should be arrested and detained until the election is over.

“This will serve as a deterrent to some other ethnic chauvinists, crisis entrepreneurs, hoodlums and low opportunists.”

Ohanaeze recalled last Saturday’s attack on the supporters of the Labour Party on their way to Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), venue of the party’s presidential campaign rally.

THE WHISTLER reports that the attack led to some of the supporters having their clothing torn to shreds, while others sustained various degrees of injuries.

Ohanaeze also recalled that, “Most recently, the INEC resident electoral commissioner in Lagos State, Mr Segun Agbaje, stated that the reason the Igbo in Lagos cannot have their PVCs is that they are from the Southeast part of the country, inferring that they are immigrants.”

Meanwhile, the secretary general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, has expressed disappointment that ‘some people would descend so low at this level of our national development’.

According to him, “One would expect that soliciting votes in a democracy requires the greatest public relations skills, such as persuasion, entreaties, lobbying and the likes. Nigerians are informed that there is this spirit that emboldens and stirs the passion, soul, and tigritude of the average Igbo, which once it is sufficiently provoked, becomes irrepressible.

“Self-esteem, achievement motivation, resourcefulness, hard work, forthrightness, tenacity, friendliness and cosmopolitanism are the hallmarks of the Igbo persona, but to threaten the Igbo is to embolden them to the contrary.

“Intimidation is not only antithetical to democratic norms but a source of allergy to the natural Igbo reflexes. In spite of all the orchestrated conspiracy, machinations and deprivations against the Igbo, and now the Labour Party and Mr Peter Obi, the initiated will easily realize that there is a mystic wind blowing across the land; a wind that does not recognize the rigid human barriers of ethnicity, religion, gender, class or creed; a wind of redemption from poverty, corruption, inequity and other pathologies that have held Nigeria down for several decades.”

Ohanaeze called on Ndigbo in Lagos ‘to ignore all forms of retrogressive subversive shenanigans and stand up for your rights’.