Ohanaeze Tackles Army Over Killing Of IPOB Members In Aba

The Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide, Tuesday, reacted to the statement by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Faruk Yahaya, that ‘the Indigenous People of Biafra, Eastern Security Network, or any other group or individuals have no constitutional backing to threaten Nigeria’s integrity’.

Our correspondent gathered that Gen Yahaya issued the warning at an Army event in Abuja, on Monday, April 3, 2023.

Ohanaeze recalled that on Friday, March 31, 2023, five members of the IPOB were shot dead at Osusu, Aba, Abia State, while they were on a procession across Aba.

The Abia State commissioner of police, Mr Mustapha Mohammed Bala, had stated that, “On 31/03/2023 at about 11.45hours, policemen on confidence building patrol/show of force within Aba metropolis came under attack by the proscribed IPOB/ESN members.

“They were armed with petrol bombs, machetes, battle axes and other dangerous weapons. The attack was repelled by the police operatives with minimal casualties while majority of the hoodlums scampered for safety.”

Ohanaeze, in a reaction through its national publicity secretary, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, said that findings showed that the protesters ‘were protesting peacefully against the continued detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu without disturbance before they were shot at’.

Ogbonnia said, “It is most appalling that Bala should refer to the IPOB men as ‘hoodlums’ and most unconscionable to view the death of five IPOB members as ‘minimal casualties’.”

He recalled that former President Olusegun Obasanjo had in Awka recently warned against the ‘dangers of the conspiracy against the Igbo of the South East’. Obasanjo had, according to Ohanaeze, ‘described the phenomenon as Igbophobia’, adding that ‘it would not mean well for the unity and development of the country’.

Quoting Ohanaeze, “Every knowledgeable Nigerian knows that the current political travails in Nigeria are rooted in Igbophobia. The backwardness and poverty that have become the character of Nigeria is the manifestation of Igbophobia or the orchestrated marginalization and alienation of the Igbo from the centres of power.

“The IPOB philosophy is in line with the position of Chief E K Clark, the leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), ‘that the former military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, should have allowed the Igbo to secede at the outset of the civil war in 1966 instead of continued mistreatment of the Igbo in Nigeria’.”

The statement continued, “While the Ohanaeze Ndigbo on one hand and the IPOB on the other converge on the dissatisfaction with the Igbo mistreatment in Nigeria, the divergence is on the approach or methodology for a change.

“The Ohanaeze Ndigbo have been looking forward to a day like today when in collaboration and coalition with other ethnic nationalities, eminent Nigerians of goodwill, the youth and indeed all the progressive minds, will through a social change and democratic process entrench good governance in Nigeria.

“Ohanaeze believe that with good leadership, Nigeria has sufficient human and natural resources that will stimulate upscale prosperity and sustainable economic development for the good of everybody in the country.

“The only thing in short supply, according to Chinua Achebe, is leadership. Remarkably, Peter Obi is simply a response, an effect or the manifestation of the peoples’ yearnings for good governance in Nigeria.

“Nigeria at the moment is at a critical juncture with two major options: truth and progress on one hand or falsity and backwardness, poverty and political travails on the other.”

Ohanaeze reiterated its resolve for a political solution in resolving the IPOB matter, adding that the ‘adoption of extra judicial minimal casualties on a daily basis against the IPOB by the Nigerian security operatives is heinous, savage, unethical, antithetical to democratic norms and, of course, far from the solution’.

“Even when the previous calls on the Presidency appear to have fallen on deaf ears, we still remind President Muhammadu Buhari to rein in the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Yakub Yahaya, from his selective threat to the IPOB.

“Such selective profiling is enough considering the hundreds of lives that have been neutralised through the Bala concept of minimal casualties,” the statement added.