Ohanaeze youths ask FG to remove IPOB from terror list
* Says Buhari’s tribalistic tendencies fueling agitation for secession
By Steve Oko
Igbo youths under the auspices of Ohanaeze Youth Council, OYC, has asked the President Muhammadu Buhari -led Federal Government to de-proscribe the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra.
The federal government had in 2017 shortly after the military raid of the home of its Leader, Nnamdi Kanu, outlawed IPOB, designating the pro-Biafra group as a terrorist organisation.
But the apex Igbo youths body has queried the justification of the federal government’s action against IPOB, alleging it smacks of injustice and double standard.
Rising from a meeting with heads of OYC Directorates in Umuahia Abia State, weekend, the National President of the apex Igbo youths organisation, Comrade Igboayaka O. Igboayaka appealed to the Federal Government to remove IPOB from its terror list.
OYC also called on the federal government to engage IPOB in dialogue with a view to addressing the root cause of the renewed agitation for Biafra independence.
The Igbo youths body argued that if the federal government could engage the terrorist Boko Haram and murderous herdsmen in dialogue, nothing should make it foot -drag in parlaying with IPOB leadership.
“Biafra quest has become a belief and an ideology that can only take a massive economic development in Igbo land to Erase. Proscribing IPOB is like elongating the problem with Nigeria and making new generation of Igbo extraction to hate and reject the project of one Nigeria, OYC said.
According to a statement signed by the special Assistant on Media And Publicity to the OYC President, Chukwuemeka Chimerue, the inability of the federal government to address the issue of marginalisation of the Igbo since after the civil war is responsible for the agitations of IPOB.
It read in part : “After the Nigeria-Biafra war, the people of the Eastern region went through all kinds of demeaning treatments and marginalization that have spurred secessionist agitations by various groups in the region.
” Deproscribing IPOB would open avenues towards confronting and solving the issues that have bedevilled the region and its people at large for peace to reign.
” It is worrisome why the Federal Government retains unarmed and non-violent IPOB on its terror list while groups like Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen mass killers, who are on a killing spree, are moving around freely and pampered with a proposed settlement.”
OYC also faulted the “misuse of state power by Federal Government officials, including President Buhari which resulted in the illegal proscription of an unarmed group such as IPOB and its labelling as a terror group, even as the same administration went about dialoguing with the bandit group, Boko haram violent armed killer herdsmen and failing to declare their leaders known as Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, a terror organisation.”
“These are groups and associations that have done more terrible things in the country. IPOB is only agitating for Biafra and they have done nothing more than agitation, they have not killed anybody; but on the contrary, they are the ones being killed and they are still being killed, with hundreds of them in many prisons in Nigeria.”
OYC accused the federal government of double standard, contending that “citizens should be treated equally no matter the region where they are coming from”.
The Igbo youths body also blamed the renewed clamour for the dissolution of Nigeria on the tribalistic tendencies of the President.
” Since 2015 President Muhammad Buhari took over power, Nigeria has plunged into many secessionist group, while others are working secretly.
“It obvious that recently Dr. Dogo Isuwa the National publicity Secretary of Middle Belt Leaders Forum denied the position of Northern Elders Yahaya Kwande and his leader, Prof. Ango Abdullahi who is the Northern Elders Forum President declared their position as a mere daydreaming.
“They are not only dreaming, they are suffering from illusion. Both men are still living in the past, and the earlier they face the reality, the better. The bitter truth which Ango Abdullahi and Kwande may find difficult to swallow is that the Middle Belt is no longer part of the North.
“Therefore, OYC has seen that the administration of president Muhammad Buhari is making more secessionist groups to emerge in Nigeria.”
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