By Gabriel Atumeyi
Northern and Southeastern leaders have locked horns over the raging violence and insecurity in the Southeast.
Both sides accuse the other of complicity with the Northern elders even asking the Federal government to grant the secession quest of Ndigbo if it has widespread support in the region.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, the Director, Publicity and Advocacy of NEF, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed said all Nigerians are paying the price of the failure of two sets of leaders.
He said political leaders in the South-East appear to have submitted to violence and terror of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Eastern Security Network (ESN).
According to Baba-Ahmed, muted voices of millions of Igbo cannot be heard so that fellow Nigerians could understand the degree to which secession by the Igbo represents the popular choice.
He said: “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.
“It will not be the best choice for the Igbo or Nigerians to leave a country we have all toiled to build and a country we all have responsibility to fix, but it will not help a country already burdened with failures on its knees to fight another war to keep the Igbo in Nigeria.
“The Forum insists that attacks and killings of Northerners and Federal Government employees and destruction of national assets must stop,” NEF said.
The Forum added that until the Igbo decide whether it wants to secede or remain part of Nigeria, the law applies to it, and federal and state governments who have a responsibility to enforce the law and protect citizens must enforce it.
“We support calls for Northerners who are exposed to harassment and violence to consider relocating to the North.
“Unlike the postures and complacency of the leaders of the South-East, we advise that all Igbo and other ethnic groups from the South residing in the North should be accorded the usual hospitality and security,” the Forum added.
Similarly, the apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide on Monday blasted former Governor of Sokoto State, Aliyu Wamakko over comments the group claimed was capable of inciting ethnic cleansing and turmoil in the country.
Wamakko, on Saturday, challenged the leaders of Southeast to stop the attacks of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on northerners living in their geo-political zone.
Wamakko, currently a senator representing Sokoto North, noted that the northern leaders would no longer douse tension among their followers if the attacks on northerners continued in the South-East.
But in a statement by the Secretary-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, the group alleged that the North is responsible for all the uprisings in the South-East, ”to keep Igbo leaders busy with insecurity challenges and set traps for them (Igbo leaders) to fall in and get arrested.”
It noted that the chaos in the South-East was caused by Northern leaders so they could retain Presidency in the North beyond 2023.
The group noted that Wamakko was a hypocrite who could not proffer solutions to the insecurity challenges that had ravaged Northern Nigeria for years.
The statement read, “Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has cautioned former Sokoto Governor, Aliyu Wamakko over his impulsive comments which are without any iota of truth.
“His comment is capable of inciting ethnic cleansing and turmoil in the country. It is laughable that the likes of Wamakko couldn’t proffer solutions to the insecurity challenges in the North for the past 7 years, which the North incubated as a political instrument to oust power from former President Goodluck Jonathan and install the incumbent.
”The North is responsible for all the disaster in the South-East, considering an earlier warning by the USA Embassy Abuja, ‘that Northern bandits and killer herdsmen are changing positions to Southern Nigeria to wreak havoc and destabilise the zones’.
“Northern elders are behind the chaos in Nigeria as a ploy to retain the Presidency in the North beyond 2023, as they did to Jonathan in 2015, so they exported violence to the South-East to keep Igbo leaders busy with insecurity challenges and set traps for them (Igbo leaders) to fall in and get arrested.
“We are amazed at how someone who couldn’t remove a speck of dust in his eyelashes could see the remedy for the log of wood in the eyes of Ndigbo. Rhetorically, Wamakko’s assertion that Igbo leaders are behind the scenes motivating the violence in the South-East, exposed the northern secrets of supporting bandits and Boko Haram for economic and political reasons.
“The silence of Igbo leaders is golden and it will generate confusion in the camps of sponsors of terror in the South-East.”