Igbo Youths Request Meeting With Buhari Over 2023 Presidential Race

Igbo youths and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, Friday, requested zoning of the 2023 presidency to the Southeast as well as an end to the menace of killer herdsmen in the region.

They stated this in a communiqué after their meeting with the Southeast governors, National Assembly members, Southeast clergy, Igbo leaders and women leaders at the Enugu Government House.

According to the communiqué read by MASSOB leader, Uchenna Madu, “The Southeast should be given the opportunity to be president of Nigeria in 2023; and the disarming of killer herdsmen with AK 47 in the Southeast, who have occupied our forest and farmlands, destroying, kidnapping, and killing our women while we pledge to live and work peacefully with our brothers and sisters and herdsmen, who have been living peacefully with us.”

On the agitation for state creation in the region, the communiqué demanded the “Creation of one more state in the Southeast to balance the equation with other regions. The Southeast governors to determine locations, where road blocks are necessary in the Southeast, especially in emergency situations with a view to addressing the complains of our people about many roadblocks and extortions in the Southeast.”

The group, in the communiqué, also demanded that, “Each state must set up youth rehabilitation and empowerment fund to address youth unemployment in the Southeast. Southeast should set up a monitoring committee in each state made up of youths, Igbo leaders, traditional rulers, clergymen and governors’ representatives and women to monitor compensation and empowerment fund.”

The group also called on the federal government to factor the region in the distribution of national resources for the sake of equity. According to the communiqué, “The Igbo youths and MASSOB notes, with sadness, that Igbo land is being discriminated against in the allocation of the federal infrastructural projects. We note, specifically, that all the federal roads in Igbo land are in a terrible state of disrepair. We therefore demand that the FG immediately approve a substantial intervention fund to complete these road projects.

“We also demand that substantial allocation be made for major infrastructural projects in the 2021 budget currently before the NASS; that the president general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo should lead a delegation of Southeast youth representatives and selected Igbo leaders to the presidency to make their demand known to Mr President.”