Ohanaeze alleged that there is currently Igbophobia being propagated across the country.
The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation Ohanaeze Ndigbo has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to caution the Nigerian Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Faruk Yahaya and police commissioners in the South-East against killing Igbo youths.
In a statement issued on Tuesday by the National Publicity Secretary of the organisation, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, in reaction to the killing of some members of the Indigenous People of Biafra who were protesting against the continued detention of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu, Ohanaeze said ‘enough is enough’.
Ohanaeze alleged that there is currently Igbophobia being propagated across the country.
It accused security agencies of being silent and going to sleep while Igbo people were being attacked, killed and their properties burnt in Lagos. The organisation said, on the other hand, security agents kill Igbo youths in the South-East for protesting, even when they did not attack anyone.
The statement partly read, "The attention of the Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide has been drawn to the remarks made by the Chief of Army Staff of the Nigerian Army, Lt. Gen. Faruk Yahaya, with the heading: “Don’t threaten Nigeria’s integrity – COAS warns IPOB, ESN”.
"Yahaya is quoted to have warned that ‘the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Eastern Security Network, ESN, or any other group or individuals have no constitutional backing to threaten Nigeria’s integrity’.
"Yahaya emphasized that elections or no elections, neither IPOB, ESN nor any other group or individuals should threaten the integrity of this Nation as enshrined in the Constitution of Nigeria. Yahaya issued the warning at an Army event in Abuja, on Monday, April 3, 2023.
"On Friday, March 31, 2023, five members of the IPOB were shot dead in Osusu, Aba, Abia State, while they were on a procession across Aba. Confirming the incident, the Abia State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Mustapha Mohammed Bala, a Katsina-born, well-educated police officer claimed that ‘On 31/03/2023 at about 11.45hours, policemen on confidence building patrol/show of force within Aba metropolis came under attack by the proscribed IPOB/ESN members.
"According to him, they were armed with petrol bombs, machetes, battle axes and other dangerous weapons. Bala added that ‘the attack was repelled by the Police operatives with minimal casualties while majority of the hoodlums scampered for safety’.
"Ohanaeze's findings revealed that ‘some residents, armed with video evidence, informed that the group was protesting peacefully against the continued detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, without disturbance before they were shot at’.
"It is most appalling that Bala should refer to the IPOB men as ‘hoodlums’ and most unconscionable to view the death of five IPOB members as ‘minimal casualties’.
"Every knowledgeable Nigerian knows that the current political travails in Nigeria is rooted in Igbophobia. The backwardness and poverty that have become the character of Nigeria is the manifestation of Igbophobia or the orchestrated marginalization and alienation of the Igbo from the centres of power.
"For the avoidance of doubts, the IPOB philosophy is in line with the position of Chief E. K. Clark, the Leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) and the Leader of the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF), ‘that the former military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, should have allowed the Igbo to secede at the outset of the civil war in 1966’. And that ‘instead of continued mistreatment of the Igbo in Nigeria, they should be allowed to go’.
"IPOB insists that instead of the continued indignities to the Igbo, they should be allowed to go.
“In other words, while the Ohanaeze Ndigbo on one hand and the IPOB on the other converge on the dissatisfaction with the Igbo mistreatment in Nigeria, the divergence is on the approach or methodology for a change."
"Finally, while we are still in one week mourning and in sackcloth for the five boys or the “minimal casualty” by Mustapha Mohammed Bala boys at Aba during a peaceful protest for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, another Yakub Yahaya is using his office to issue a profiling threat to the IPOB,” it added.