ENUGU (Sundiata Post) – Ohanaeze Ndigbo has joined Nigerians to extol former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for kicking against the ethnic profiling of Ndigbo in Lagos by some persons promoting the Igbo Must Go campaign.
In a press statement on Sunday, the National Publicity Secretary of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Alex Ogbonnia, who detailed series of provocative and incendiary remarks made against the Igbo in Lagos in recent times, commended Obasanjo for raising a strong voice against Igbo haters in Lagos.
Obasanjo had in a press release, admonished those saying that the Igbo must go from Lagos will be the ones to leave, adding that he does not believe that anybody in Nigeria should be driven away from any part of the country as, “we own this country together”.
While commended the former President, Ohanaeze Ndigbo noted the orchestrated ethnic profiling, hate speech, incendiary and inflammatory rhetoric and outright demolition of Igbo properties and liquidation of their sources of income in Lagos State within the past few years.
They however noted that “The Governor of Lagos State Babajide Sanwo-Olu has condemned the Igbo Must Go mis-adventurers, adding that the body was pleased with Afenifere, the apex Youruba socio-cultural for equalling reassuring all Nigerians living in Yoruba land legitimately to entertain no fear of any kind of eviction.
The statement also noted that, “The Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, was highly elated by the intervention made by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
“He recalled the Obasanjo dispositions to equity and fairness in all matters affecting Nigeria is very legendary. When it mattered most, it was Obasanjo who lent full weight that the presidency of Nigeria should go to the South East of Nigeria in 2023.
“It was Obasanjo who handed over power to Alh. Shehu Shagari with Dr Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo as a Vice President, nine years after the Nigerian civil war. It was Obasanjo who condemned the persistent aversion to the Igbo, which he described as Igbophobia,” he said.
Ohanaeze however noted that “it is certain that such reckless, provocative, divisive, instigative and inflammatory dispositions towards the Igbo in Lagos State, will remain unabated, except of course, there are manifest consequences for such vexatious, unscrupulous loose –cannons and hate-mongers.”
