Nwodo Bombs Buhari, But Angry Northern Group Goes Tough on Detained Kanu

Former President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Nnia Nwodo, does not seem to be pleased with the Buhari administration. He is accusing the administration of treating the Igbo race as second class citizens.

Nwodo’s weighty allegation came as the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) which represents rights and civil organisations in Northern Nigeria is calling on President Muhammadu Buhari not to attempt freeing the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

CNG Spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, expressed concern in Kano over the body language of President Buhari when an interest group from Eastern Nigeria paid him a courtesy call demanding the release of the IPOB leader.

For the northern group, the demand is “unrelenting desperation by certain interest groups in the South-East to subvert the due process of justice and tamper with the judicial process since Kanu’s arraignment.”

In its breakdown of crimes committed by IPOB from 2017 to 2020, CNG claimed that Kanu has instigated the killing of 1,230 Northern Nigeria citizens living in the part of the South-East while the proscribed IPOB also launched attacks and destruction of national security assets and democratic symbols.

“Several millions worth of businesses, properties and valuable assets belonging to northerners and citizens of other regions were destroyed across the South-Eastern cities on the instructions of Nnnamdi Kanu within the same period”, the group alleged adding that about 400 security personnel were also killed as a result.

Continuing, it said, “the composition of the Igbo elders group has vindicated the position we have exposed since 2017 that the diabolical scheme planned and exhibited in the criminal actions of Kanu and IPOB, is fully supported morally and politically by the vast majority of the pliant Igbo elders, elites, politicians, religious elders, traditional rulers, business persons, and the larger population of the South-East”

It also resolved to “warn that any attempt by the President to accede to the demand to release, without prosecuting and punishing Kanu, will inadvertently reduce Nigeria to a completely lawless state where criminals of all shades will commit crimes against the country, and then ask their traditional rulers and other regional or tribal leaders to press for their release.

“Warn President Buhari that the North has today realised that he places more premium on the pursuit for votes and political popularity for his party than he does for the sanctity of lives of northerners and security personnel who stake their lives and welfare of families in the service of the nation.”

However, Nwodo who made the allegation while delivering a paper on: Nigeria’s Political and Economic Future – the Dangers We Can Avert, lamented the exclusion of the Igbo race in the security architecture of the country as well as other sensitive and strategic public positions.

”We are grossly marginalised and treated by the federal government as second class citizens. No Igbo man, for instance, heads any security arm of the Nigeria Armed Forces. Our area is the most heavily policed as if there was a deliberate policy to intimidate us and hold us down.

”The brazen impunity in dealing with matters which concern the South East is provocative. We invest and contribute to the economic and social life of the communities where ever we live. We are proudly Christians but very accommodating of our brothers of other persuasions.”

The former Information Minister regretted that the militarization of the South-East zone and the high-handedness of the federal government in dealing with the zone were the reason for the growing disenchantment among youths in the zone.

”This current approach makes it impossible for leaders in the South East to effectively contain the anger of their youths”, he said, pointing out that despite Nigeria’s harshness and unfriendly disposition towards Ndigbo, the race remains the most accommodating and enterprising and religious-tolerant tribe in the country.

Nwodo said, ”we are the largest ethnic group other than the Indigenous tribe in any part of Nigeria. We invest and contribute to the economic and social life of the communities where ever we live. We are proudly Christians but very accommodating of our brothers of other persuasions.”

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