Top Igbo leaders including some serving ministers have shunned questions on how to end the agitation South-East being spearheaded by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The Northern Elders Forum (NEF), on Monday, warned the leaders from Igbo extraction to prevail on the secessionists in the South-East region as soon as possible to avoid another war in the country.
Briefing journalists in Abuja after a stormy closed-door meeting, the northern elders stressed that the silence of Igbo leaders is no longer golden in the face of killings of Northerners in the region.
According to the spokesman of NEF, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the Northern leaders have resolved not to allow any war in the country, saying the silence by Southern leaders meant they were supporting the secessionists’ agitations.
“The forum has arrived at the difficult conclusion that if support for secession among the Igbo is as widespread as it is being made to look, and Igbo leadership appears to be in support of it, then the country should be advised not stand in its way,” Baba-Ahmed said.
The closed-door meeting, presided over by its Chairman, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, maintained that it would not be the best choice for the Igbo or any region to leave the country all well-meaning Nigerians have toiled to build.
Speaking further, the forum insisted that attacks and killings of Northerners and federal government employees and destruction of national assets must stop, adding those who carried out the heinous crimes must be arrested and prosecuted.
They’ve abdicated their responsibility to gangs — ACF
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has accused the apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo of abdicating its responsibilities by subjecting themselves to the dictates of IPOB and ESN.
The ACF, speaking with Daily Trust in Kaduna, said it was shocked and disappointed that Igbo leaders have abdicated the leadership of their ethnic groups to gangs, describing the situation as a terrible embarrassment to the Igbo tribe and the country.
The Forum’s National Publicity Secretary, Emmanuel Yawe said: “As far as we know, the Igbos benefit from the unity of this country more than any other ethnic group because there is no state or location in this country that you will not find an Igbo man with serious investment.”
He described the silence of Igbo leaders to killings and attacks in the South-East as disappointing, saying Igbos such as Zik of Africa played a heroic role in creating Nigeria and the survival of Nigeria was to the advantage of Igbos.
“Niger State alone has a landmass that is three times the size of the South-East, so if you drive all the Igbos because they have created Biafra and have to leave Nigeria, anyway, and you send them to that enclave, they will be so populated in that place because they are not sure whether the South-South will also agree with them,” he said.
“They have seen the evil of one ethnic group rising up against a region of the country. It happened in 1966 when some four or five Igbo majors decided to assassinate the whole northern political and military leadership. The danger those four caused the Igbo race is unimaginable,” he said.
Wamakko, Kwande tackle South- East leaders
Also speaking on the matter, a former Governor of Sokoto State, Aliyu M. Wamakko berated South-East leaders for their “silence” over the rising spate of insecurity in the region.
He said unlike northern leaders who had been pacifying their aggrieved followers not to retaliate some of the atrocities committed against Northerners living in the East, “leaders from the South-East feel they can allow their own people to do what they wanted”.
He added that Northern leaders “may have no choice than to stop dousing the increasing tension among our own followers.”
On his part, a former Nigeria’s Ambassador to Switzerland, Yahaya Kwande, said the continued killing of northerners in the Southern part of the country by IPOB would lead to another crisis if not urgently nip in the bud.
In an interview on Monday, Kwande condemned the activities of IPOB, urging the South-East leaders to call their people to order to forestall reprisal.
