The killing of Akunyili has also been linked to the Biafra secessionists led by their detained leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
Uche Mefor, the estranged deputy leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has blamed the group for the killing of Dr. Chike Akunyili in Anambra State.
Dr. Chike was the widower of the late Dora Akunyili, the former Minister of Information and Communications and Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
He was shot dead by unknown gunmen on Tuesday while returning to Enugu from Onitsha, where he had attended a memorial lecture organised in honour of his late wife.
Recently, there have been killings in the South-East region by unknown gunmen. The government and some people have accused IPOB and its militia arm, Eastern Security Network (ESN) of being behind the violence, an allegation the pro-Biafra group has repeatedly denied.
On Monday, members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) were also attacked by armed hoodlums suspected to be IPOB members in the South-East.
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The killing of Akunyili has also been linked to the Biafra secessionists led by their detained leader, Nnamdi Kanu, but the group has described it as a political assassination.
Reacting to Akunyili's gruesome murder, Mefor via his known Facebook page on Thursday accused IPOB of deviating from "freedom fighting" to the killing of innocent Nigerians.
He wrote, "CALL A SPADE A SPADE AND NAME THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ONGOING WANTON DESTRUCTION OF LIVES AND PROPERTIES IN IGBO PART OF BIAFRALAND
"If other parts of Nigeria are imploding, those who know better must insulate, maintain civility and not allow our land to also assume the status of lawlessness and barbarism. But what an irony in the face of the unfolding, avoidable situation today!
"We have said and would emphatically continue to say that: abomination remains abomination. What the Indigenous People of Nnamdi Kanu (IPONK) is doing of late is criminality, it is a category of heinous crime called CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY WITHIN THE ROME STATUTE AND THE JURISDICTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, ICC; AND NO MORE FREEDOM FIGHTING.
"It is on record that on the inspiration of the violent utterances, threats, and incitements to horror by Nnamdi Kanu and his bumbling sycophantic criminal gang members of the not-fit-for-purpose DOS, a series of sponsored and blanket assassination/killing campaigns and extra-judicial extermination of the innocent unsuspecting Igbo Biafrans have been commissioned and ridiculously on an ongoing basis—hailed and celebrated by a cross-section of the gullible as Unknown Gunmen/ESN, as fighting the Fulani herdsmen and in the name of freedom fighting.
"The latest is the unfortunate assassination of Dr. Akunyili.
"Shamelessly, the South East governors, the clergy, community leaders and opinion molders have not done enough to call these criminals by their names and as such maintained a highly disturbing ‘criminal silence', and rightly so because official silence in the face of criminality by leaders amounts to tacit support or complicity. The ones who attempted to speak have failed to call a spade a spade.
"But you know what? Like we have warned since December 2020 of the danger of leaving weapons of warfare in the hands and control of unregulated non-state actors with reference to Kanu’s intentions with his misguided, ill-advised, and not-well-intended security outfit, ESN, that it would lead to the proliferation of armed militia groups, anarchy/lawlessness and our society becoming a gun-running one, consequences of this singular failure by the political class in Biafraland is now an obvious serious error of judgement and as such an ill wind that will definitely ruffle everyone in an unintended fashion.
"There is no way that the human rights compliant Biafra we are seeking would be restored through acts of criminality. We reject armed struggle outside legitimate self-defence, strict adherence to the dictates of international human rights law, justice and accountability in the pursuit of Biafra’s rights to self-determination."