EKWEREMADU TO IPOB: Your agitation is genuine, but don’t make sit-at-home compulsory

Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has called on the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra not to force people to sit-at-home on May 30.

He advised that if private businessmen and women wish to stay at home on May 30 fine, but that civil and public workers should not be restrained from going to work.

While he said that the agitators are involved in genuine cause, he however, called on them to embrace dialogue and constructive engagement in pursuing their objectives and not coercion or other forms of armed struggle.

Ekweremadu made this call on Sunday during an Inter-denominational church service at the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, Abakaliki, to commemorate 2017 Democracy Day and the state Governor Dave Umahi’s second year in office.

He said, “Individuals who operate private businesses and want to stay-at-home on that day should stay, while those who want to operate their businesses should be allowed to do so. I believe that civil and public workers should be ready to go to work on that day as I appeal that no group should force people to stay at home against their wishes.

“The struggles and concerns are genuine but with the collaboration of all and constructive engagement, we will surely get to our destination no matter how long it takes. Black Americans agitated for a long time before Barack Obama became president in 2008, likewise in India, it took constructive engagement for the people to actualise their agitation.

“South Africa, despite racial disturbances and black oppression, employed constructive engagement and intervention of the western world and African interests such as Nigeria’s, to dismantle apartheid.”

Speaking at the event, Umahi said, “I have met the leadership of these groups on various occasions and discovered that most of their agitations are correct but the ways they seek to actualise them can be faulted.

Read also: Intimidation, marginalisation won’t stop Igbo demand for restructured Nigeria – Ekweremadu

“I have also met the leadership of market unions in the state and we resolved that markets would be open on that day and no trader or any other individual will be molested.”

Umahi further said that Ebonyi as a state had suffered untold marginalisation right from its days in old Anambra, Imo, Enugu and Abia states.

He added, “The deputy senate president is fighting marginalisation of the Igbos at the federal level; when this is addressed, we will start our own agitation of marginalisation as a state. Ebonyi does not believe in regional government because we will continue suffering deprivation but believe in the restructuring of the country to address all imbalances.”

Meanwhile, a youth group, under the aegis of Igbo for Nigerian Movement (INM) has started anti-Biafra campaign, calling on Igbo to drop the idea of secession from Nigeria because it stands to benefit more from the peaceful co-existence of one united Nigeria.

INM leader, Maxi Igwe Ifeanyi, who spoke alongside his freshly commissioned Excos on Sunday, urged on those supporting the return of Biafra to quickly swallow their word and work together for a united Nigeria.

 

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