Ohanaeze Reacts To Alleged Killing Of 100 Northerners In South East, Says It’s ‘Lie From Pit Of Hell’

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Monday, described the allegation that 100 northerners were killed within one week in South East by members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) as ‘a lie from the pit of hell’.

Ohanaeze was reacting to a publication in the Daily Trust of December 16, 2022 where one Dr Auwal Abdullahi, coordinator of the Northern Consensus Forum, ‘directed commodity traders and truck drivers to shun the South East of Nigeria over incessant killings of their members by IPOB’.

Ohanaeze, in a release by its national publicity secretary, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, said the publication ‘is politically motivated to create mistrust between the North and the South.

According to the statement, “Dr Aliyu has not been in the picture among the Northern leaders resident in the South East and as such is not in position to speak on the relationship between the Northerners and the people of the South East.

“An introspection will reveal the damage caused on the image of Nigeria among the comity of nations that 100 persons are killed in one week. Apart from the negative image to Nigeria, such unverified front page report is a breach on the duties and civic responsibilities expected of a national daily.

“Investigative journalism suggests that both the number of persons killed and the locations where they were killed should have been indicated in the report. The onus lies on Aliyu to locate the corpses of the said 100 persons.”

The pan-Igbo group said the report was a ‘security threat capable of causing pandemonium across the country’, and demanded to know if ‘any other group, among the diverse groups in Nigeria, that has come up with a claim of killings by the IPOB’.

Ohanaeze urged security agents to interrogate the coordinator of the Northern Consensus Forum, Dr Auwal Abdullahi Aliyu, and adopt ‘measures to serve as a deterrent to other alarmists’.

It recalled its earlier calls to the federal government to adopt a political solution to the agitations by the IPOB, adding that “We hold the view that while some aspects of the insecurity in Nigeria are amorphous, the IPOB are a known group that can be negotiated out of the present socio-economic quagmire’.

Dr Ogbonnia reminiscenced the harmony existing between the North and the South East over the years, and decried moves to truncate it.

The statement added, “A Fulani man from Sokoto Caliphate, Mallam Umaru Altine, was in 1952 elected as the first mayor of the City of Enugu, the heartbeat of the Igbo nation. He contested for a second term and won and remained in office till 1958.

“Also in 1959, the Igbo, led by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, supported Alhaji Tafawa Balewa to become the prime minister of Nigeria. The Igbo, led by Dr Alex Ekwueme, supported Alhaji Shehu Shagari to become the president of Nigeria in 1979; also to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, 2007 and in 2015, a group of Igbo led by Dr Chris Ngige, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, among others, supported incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.

“In 2019, even the PDP elements in authority contrived what they called mandatory 25 percent to Buhari. Apart from the democratic dispensations, the South East were obliged to the military heads of state such as GenYakubu Gowon, Gen Murtala Mohammed, Gen Muhammadu Buhari, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, Gen Sani Abacha and Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar, all from the North.

“It is therefore curious that the first time an Igbo, Mr Peter Obi, is gaining unprecedented authentic national and international endorsements based on his outstanding performance credentials, to the leadership of the country, instead of a moral appeal to justice, equity and reflective mutual reciprocity, some crisis entrepreneurs are sowing the seeds of discord and deep mistrust between the North and the South East.”

Ohaneze frowned ‘at any form of mischief that incites the North against the South East’.