IPOB is a distraction —Ohaneze

The Ohaneze Indigbo has described the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, as a distraction in its efforts at giving Igbos a pride of place in the country.

This is coming a day after IPOB said it was cancelling a ceasefire it purportedly entered into with South East governors and the Ohanaze.

IPOB, while cancelling the ceasefire and further meetings with the leaders of the South East, accused them of being behind its prescription and also berated them for their inability to deproscribed the secessionist group.

While describing the IPOB’s diatribes against it, the President General of the Ohaneze, Chief Nnia Nwodo, called on all well-meaning Igbo sons and daughters to call on IPOB to embrace peace and form a synergy with Ohanaeze to enable Ndigbo achieve a better political and economic space for themselves in the country.”

Chief Nwodo, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Chief Emeka Attamah, described as spurious, mendacious and the height of blackmail for the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra , IPOB, to outline what it called the preconditions for peace between it and Ohanaeze Ndigbo.

Nwodo regretted that after all Ohanaeze was doing to advance the interest of Ndigbo, IPOB was still recalcitrant and refused to allow peace which he said was a sine qua non for progress and the achievement of self-determination for Ndigbo.

Nwodo, who regretted that even after he challenged the Federal Government on all wrongs done to IPOB, IPOB continued with its obvious blackmail.

Nwodo recalled that on the 11th of January 2017, Chief Nwodo had, in defiance of the obvious hatred and animosity of the federal government towards IPOB, stated that both IPOB and MASSOB were his children and that he would not abandon them because their cause was his cause.

He further said that at all the peace meetings Ohanaeze had held with IPOB, Nwodo had always explained that the apex body had nothing to do with the proscription of IPOB by the federal government.

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The statement reads further: “On the contrary, Chief Nwodo had confronted the GOC of 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, Enugu to carry out investigation and trial of soldiers who went outside the rules of engagement in the killing of members of IPOB during the Operation Python Dance.

“When IPOB was proscribed, Ohanaeze again challenged the Attorney General of the federation to show cause why IPOB, a harmless and an unarmed pressure group, could be proscribed while Miyette Allah, the umbrella body of the killer Fulani herdsmen was being romanced by the same federal government.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo had restrained itself from engaging in a press war with IPOB because as Chief Nwodo always says, a father should not quarrel with his children in the public, but that the truth is palpably in the public domain.

“This is why all the vituperations being poured on Chief Nwodo by IPOB both on the pages of newspapers and through text messages to his phones had not elicited any challenge from Ohanaeze Ndigbo.

“I advised IPOB to see their two demands for a referendum or State of Biafra and that of restructuring by Ohanaeze as efforts towards achieving the same objective of self-determination, but under the present situation, restructuring was preferable as it precludes bloodshed.

“Nwodo has been able to galvanize Ndigbo and, indeed, the South-South, South-West, Middle-Belt and some parts of the North to embrace restructuring to ensure equity and fairness for all the federating units in the country, IPOB is rather distracting Ohanaeze from giving Ndigbo a better place of pride.

“Ohanaeze, therefore, enjoy all well-meaning Igbo sons and daughters to call on IPOB to embrace peace and form a synergy with Ohanaeze to enable Ndigbo achieve a better political and economic space for themselves in the country.”

 

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