QUIT NOTICE: Tension as Ndigbo pass vote of no confidence on Nigeria’s security agencies

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo has expressed doubts that Nigeria security agencies which failed to arrest any of the northern youths involved in the quit notice to Ndigbo, will obey Acting President Yemi Osinbajo’s orders for them to protect people from South-East living in the North.

Ohanaeze has dubbed the action of the security agencies, which it said was in firm control of northern officers, as amounting to double standards that could lead to a second pogrom against Igbo in the north.

This was stated by the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, on Saturday in Enugu during the inauguration of the Planning and Strategic Committee of the pan-Igbo group chaired by former Governor of the Central Bank (CBN), Prof Chukwuma Soludo.

He said, “What remains worrisome is the incapacity of the police to make needful arrests in this situation, pointing to double standards from our security forces.

“A desire and public proclamation for the state of Biafra cannot be too different from a quit notice which amounts to a declaration for a new state of Nigeria without the Igbo.

“In the latter case, an obvious violation of our constitution points to treason and a declaration to take inventory and acquire property not belonging to one amounts to conversion and declaration to commence mop up action if the quit notice is not complied with at a certain date is a declaration of war.

“We have as Ohanaeze maintained absolute restraint in our public utterances. The Acting President by his interactions with concerned groups shows he is prepared to engage everyone in order to ensure that justice is done.

“His proclamations that government will guarantee the security of life of all Nigerians and their properties wherever they live is reassuring. What worries us however, is whether the Arewa youths are acting out a plan that may spiral out of control. Why have disclosures that some soldiers are talking with politicians not led to any arrest?

“Why have none of the Arewa youths been arrested in spite of the orders of the Inspector General of Police and the Chief Security Officer of Kaduna State, Mallam El-Rufai?

“If our security forces, formally in command and control by mainly officers of Northern Nigeria fail to carry out lawful and needful arrests of criminals among Arewa youths, or coup plotters in the army and their civilian collaborators, how can we expect them to heed to the orders of the Acting President to protect our people in the north?

“What should we advise our people in the North to do in the circumstance? Are the rhetoric’s of today not similar to the rhetoric between 1966 pogrom? If there should be a repeat performance, what explanation can we make to our people?

“Against this background, our young men and women are spiralling out of control. The jury is still out in Igbo land regarding the choice between self-determination and restructuring as a solution to our current impasse.

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“Whereas a lot of the elderly, the business class and the professionals want to preserve our continued existence as one indivisible, united and restructured Nigeria, a number of the young ones are resolute about self-determination.

“How do we resolve this duplicity that gives the impression that we all are on one of the sides depending on who is making the assessment…?”

On the committee, Nwodo asked them to develop an economic blue-print that would foresee the following, “An integrated railway network linking all the seven Ohanaeze States; annual growth of one million palm trees in each of the seven states within the next five years as well as a corresponding growth of attractive processing industries for palm produce but on high, medium and small scale levels.

To also fashion out a policy “for the maximisation of our coal resources for power generation, and another geological inventory of all our resources and carefully scripted plan for engaging the Federal Government in their exploration.”

He added among other things that “there must be a deliberate policy for development of ICT hubs in our states to encourage our human capital development; An educational curriculum geared to development of skills among our young men and women; recommendation of appropriate policies to our government to improve the educational standards in our schools at all levels and growth of reliable financial institutions for mortgage, small scale business financing and research.”

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