-Says FG is treating symptoms instead of ailment
The Association of South East Town Unions the umbrella body of all town unions in the South East in a statement issued on Monday on the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mazi Nnamdi Kanu awaiting trial on an eleven count charge of treasonable felony before an Abuja High Court, who the prosecutors failed to produce in court because of logistics, the town Union stated that the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu does not imply the arrest of the age long agitation.
For “Free Biafra” as they contended that the federal government is treating the symptoms and not the disease and that Kanu holds dual citizenship and was denied justice from the point of his arrest in Kenya.
The group also contends that as it were, every Igboman is a Biafran to the extent unjust to him.
In the official statement endorsed by the National President, Chief Emeka Diwe and the secretary Gideon Adikwuru, the union stated as follows; “it has always been our well-considered view that those who are ruling Nigeria today have failed to understand how they are the enablers, facilitators and sponsors of Biafra agitations that are widespread in Igboland. The Northern political oligarchs, who have continued to see the Igbo as vassals and who ensure the festering marginalization of our people in a supposed joint union, are the reasons for the agitations. This ascendant ruling class in the North does not care about peace, cohesion and mutual respect among the various nationalities in the country. The flurry of Biafranism that you see is therefore the symptom of a disease afflicted on Ndigbo by these people in the North, who have through words and deeds taken Nigeria as the estate of their forefathers and who unrepentantly treat other Nigerians, especially the Igbo, as their serfs”.
Arresting Nnamdi Kanu, without first arresting the atrocities of this class of individuals, is completely meaningless. In effect, the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu does not mean the arrest of Biafra, since the forces and factors that lend appeal to the messages of the detained Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra have remained unchecked. In other words, the Nigerian authorities have embarked on a wild goose chase. They are also treating the symptoms while ignoring the disease. This is unhelpful”.
“The detention of Nnamdi Kanu has further exposed the discriminatory character of the criminal justice administration in Nigeria. The manner of his arrest, which has violated timeless international protocols and even the municipal laws of Kenya and Nigeria on extradition, implies that justice has been denied Kanu from the start. Those who are setting up teams to monitor the trial should know that the most fundamental question is the manner of his arrest, and until that is resolved, the trial cannot be a fair one.
Worse still, it is on record that the World Terror Index has classified Miyetti Allah as the fourth deadliest terror organization in the world. And, indeed, they have lived up to this terror tag. On a daily basis, Fulani herdsmen kill our people. They rape our women. They sack our communities. They destroy our farmlands and destroy our crops. Our livelihoods are now sorely imperiled by the activities of the herdsmen. Yet, their leaders are in Abuja, fouling up the streets in long convoys and being protected Nigerian security operatives. No single herdsman has ever been arrested, not to mention being punished for the atrocities against our poor rural dwellers. Those who have aided and abetted this very unjust, unfair and reprehensible system against Ndigbo are sponsoring Biafra. To be sure, every Igboman sees himself as a Biafran to the extent that he feels oppressed, marginalized and unjustly treated by the Nigerian system.
Take a look at the roads across Igboland. Law enforcement agents have turned their roadblocks to cash-out points, where they brazenly extort our motorists. On the authority of the last survey we carried out, untold millions of Naira leave our shores everyday through these extortions. Does such an ugly scenario obtain elsewhere in Nigeria? Never! This is one of the ways they create the albatross that is now haunting Nigeria in the form of secession.
We now live in a country where no Igboman can rise to become president in his own ostensible country! Yet our people have made more contributions to the development of the country more than all the other ethnic formations put together. Our people have gone to the remotest hamlets in this country and transformed them into fascinating cities. Ndigbo are the adhesive that holds Nigeria together. Yet those ruling Nigeria have never accepted us. In the national security council and headship of the security architecture today, the entire South East has no representation. This is not because we have no qualified officers, but because the powers from the North do not want them to head any of the security agencies. This is one way they fan the embers of Biafra. If they don’t arrest this ugly and indefensibly barbaric practice, arresting Nnamdi Kanu is just an absurdity, it is just like treating symptoms instead of the disease!
For education and employment, the North came up with the federal character principle and quota system. They created more states in the North to gave them absolute advantage in these matters. Now they have even abandoned the federal character. Every appointment is now meant for them. It is an aberration that an Igbo child would pass an examination but would not secure an admission, and another fellow would fail from the North and would be admitted. No nation on earth is run on the basis of such brazen evil! How can you push people away and refuse them from leaving?”
Nigeria would go to borrow money abroad, and Igboland would not be captured in the projects on which the loan would be expended. Yet, the oil and gas through which the country hopes to repay the loan are mostly found in our land. How can you beat a child and insist he should not cry?
Which other zone in the country has five states? Only South East! How many rail lines are currently being done in Igboland? We have a government that is instead constructing railways through the Sahara to other countries. Of what economic significant are they to the country! So, those who are perpetuating this unfair system against our people are the sponsors of Biafra. The modus operandi of Nnamdi Kanu may not be acceptable to everyone, but he is not the cause of the problem. He is not even the only propagator of Biafranism. Many others who share his objectives but still disagree with his means are active and vocal and are unflinching in their convictions. We have severally put a challenge to those ruling Nigeria to remedy all the injustices against Ndigbo and watch the agitations for secession disappear the next day. That is the only way to arrest Biafra, not by arresting Nnamdi Kanu”.
