Your threat empty, work with us to achieve Igbo president – South East Governors to IPOB

 

BY JOEL OGBU

The Southeast Governors Forum has called on the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) to work with it to achieve a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction rather than the continued agitation for a Biafran nation.

The forum’s appeal followed weekend physical attack on former deputy president of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, in Nuremberg, Germany, an incident IPOB had claimed responsibility.

IPOB further threatened that its group all over the world will hunt the entire south east governors wherever they visited outside Nigeria with a view to meting out similar treatment on them, for in its estimation, the governors had not done enough to defend the Igbo cause in Nigeria.

“They don’t need to attack the governors to achieve Biafra and we warn them not to allow political opportunists to use them to destroy the zone.

“They should unite and work with the governors and Ohaneze Ndigbo to achieve a president of Igbo extraction in 2023, instead of fighting the governors.

“We want them to be close to us, instead of taking the struggle to international arena,” the forum’s chairman and governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Umeahi said in a statement, condemning the attack on Senator Ekweremadu.

The south east governors decried the attack on Senator Ekweremadu, describing it as unnecessary.

Umeahi, in the statement issued by his chief press secretary, Emmanuel Uzor, said that the issue of insecurity in the south east, cited by the group as its reason, was not peculiar to the zone.

He stated that insecurity was a national issue, which rested squarely on the Federal Government’s control.

He further stated that the governors of the south east had no issues with IPOB to warrant the group’s threat to attack them anywhere abroad.

The governor described the threat as “empty,” saying that the group lacked the power to track the governors around the globe.

“They have no spread and power to do so because they cannot see any governor to attack,” he said.

He believed that the group’s directive to its members to attack them would add no value toward the realisation of the agitation for Biafra.

“The IPOB members abroad should come home and settle any issues they hold against the governors, instead of doing so in a foreign land.

“Attacking governors in a foreign land is a wild goose chase. We love the IPOB members because they are our children,” he stated.

Umahi further noted that IPOB could not achieve Biafra alone except it collaborated with all the critical stakeholders, including the governors.