South-East Politicians Importing ‘Killers’ Into Region – Gov Umahi

In a shocking revelation on Wednesday, Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, said that the South-East Governors Forum received briefing on activities of some politicians who sponsor killings in the region to “advance” their political interests.

Governor Umahi said the forum received the briefing at its emergency security meeting that was held on Tuesday in Enugu State.

Umahi spoke during Channels TV’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ programme monitored by THE WHISTLER on Wednesday.

He said the security situation in the South-East had become complicated because politicians, kidnappers and other criminal elements had taken advantage of violent secession agitations in the region to perpetrate their evil acts.

“At the beginning we had the IPOB saying they are agitating for the creation of Biafra and their reason is that “Oh, we are being marginalized” and then a lot people keyed in. If anybody has differences with the center, the person becomes a supporter of IPOB. If you sought anything at the federal level and you fail to get it, you become a supporter of IPOB. Those in diaspora who went to greener pastures and failed to get such, become very bitter with the Nigerian society. So, their (IPOB’s) followers kept growing.

“Then the issue of herdsmen came up and there were a couple of killings in the South East and the people were a bit helpless and they felt the governors were not protecting them.

“Then came up the IPOB and the ESN – the militant aspect of IPOB…they started to issue orders and threats that if you do this, we will do this. Along the line, the whole exercise was hijacked. We no longer have kidnappers or cultists, everyone that does one criminality or the other claims to be IPOB. And also, some politicians, from what we learnt, capitalized on that and began to also import killers from outside South East to advance their political interests. Like what we are seeing in Anambra State, from the accounts of yesterday,” said Umahi, who is the chairman of the South East Governors Forum.

IPOB ‘Brainwashed’ South East People, Turned Them Against Governors

During the interview, Governor Umahi also responded to allegations that governors of the South East failed to arrest the situation at the elementary stage when the security problem revolved around the herders-farmers crisis.

He also accused the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a separatist group, of mobilizing people of the region against their leaders through brainwashing.

He said, “I don’t know what the governors of the South East are doing now that they didn’t do before. Some uninformed elements felt that the only way to solve the problem between us and herdsmen was to ask them to live the South East, but that is very unnational because our people are also living in the North and the West.

“We had to mediate to ensure that we set up a kind of committees that involved these herdsmen and our farmers, and in many cases, we triumphed but we must also know that most of these killer herdsmen came from outside and we’ve been shouting it at the national and state levels. So, there is nothing we are doing now that we didn’t do [before].

“Remember that the attempts the governors made to also checkmate some of these things…because of the psyche of our people being brainwashed [to] believe that somebody is fighting for them, we didn’t really have the support of the masses…because they had been indoctrinated and misinformed. But now the situation is changing because they (the people) are beginning to say if you’re fighting for us, why are you killing us. Even if you’re not the one killing us, by your words and broadcast, you’ve made ways for us to be killed.”

Umahi added that part of the problem also stemmed from youths of the region not being willing to work to earn a living.

“Ask governors about the attitude of some of our people towards work. And it is these people that believe that the money belongs to them and they don’t need to work to earn the money and these are the people that are filled with bitterness and these are the people that approach issues.

“But they are not in majority, the only thing is that bad words incite so much…. but a lot out our people that approach issues with decorum have always gotten whatever they sought for. And so, I will be advising that hate speeches will further divide us, hate speeches will not help to build the country.

“…if everybody should say his mind then there would be no nation Nigeria, there would be no world to live in and so it is a question of how you were brought up or the way you are filled with bitterness. For example, if somebody is very bitter with Dave Umahi as the governor of Ebonyi State, maybe because he didn’t get one thing or the other, he would carry the same bitterness against Mr President because they would say that Dave Umahi supports Mr President. That’s how these things are working. The bitterness is not on objective basis, most of the times it is on personal level.”