The President-General of Ndigbo apex body, the Ohanaeze, Chief John Nwodo, has said the continued agitation of Igbo youths across the country is a by-product of persistent injustice and marginalisation arising from bad leadership and unjust structure of the country’s polity.
Nwodo, who spoke as guest on a Channels Television talk show, Sunrise, on Monday, said the restiveness across the country was an indication of an unworkable political system that should be revisited.
The Ohanaeze leader, who bemoaned what he described as the rising hate against Ndigbo in the country, rolled out a list of some Igbo citizens who were murdered and whose goods worth millions of naira were looted across the country without any reasonable response from the government.
The Deputy Publicity Officer, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chuks Ibeagbu, in a statement, quoted the leader of Ohanaeze as also saying that the current structure of the country was not suitable for development and wondered why the report of the 2014 national conference was not revisited.
When asked why Ohanaeze did not oppose the sit- at-home order made by the Biafran agitators, Nwodo was quoted to have said that it could not have because by sitting at home, the protesters were not violating any known Nigerian law.
He said the protesters committed no crime by mourning their over three million members who allegedly died during the war with half of them dying of hunger and starvation.
On the position of the Ohanaeze on the Biafran agitation, Nwodo said the apex Igbo body had not endorsed the secession struggle but could not stop the agitators when the issues that compelled them to protest remained unattended to.
The Ohanaeze leader said what Ndigbo “want is a Nigeria of equal ownership, not where some see the country as their empire and the rest as a conquered territory.”
He also described as unfortunate the absence of President Muhammadu Buhari from the country at this time that calls for astute leadership for the country and advised the acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, to rise up to the challenge and make some consultations on how to move the country forward.
The statement also quoted Nwodo to have remarked that nothing could be more evident of bad leadership in the country than the lawless statement from the Arewa youths that was greeted with wide condemnation from reasonable citizens in the North, Middle Belt, South-West and the South-South geopolitical zones but which had led to no arrest.
Nwodo also described as worrisome the fact that after such grave utterance from the northern youths, the Federal Government had yet to act and that the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Idris Ibrahim, who called his commissioners across the county to read a riot act, had yet to make any arrest.
