Ohanaeze hits IPOB over sit-at-home order

Ohanaeze Ndigbo has frowned at rumour making the rounds on social media in the South-east that there would a sit-at-home starting from December 9.

The Igbo cultural organisation said the order would do no good.

The national publicity secretary, Dr. Alex Ogbonnia, in a statement Tuesday, noted that such rash order should have been done in consultation with Igbo leaders as Ojukwu did before declaring Biafra in the 60s.

The statement reads: “The attention of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has been drawn to a video broadcast circulating in the social media by one Mr. Simon Ekpa directing the people of the South-east of Nigeria that in preparation to stop election from taking place in Biafra-Land, there should be a chain of “sit at home on Friday December 9; Saturday December 10; Sunday, December 11; Monday December 12; and Wednesday December 14, 2022.”

“Last week, a young boy that claims to be the president of Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC) directed “the Igbo youths to arm themselves.

“Our major concern is that all these unguarded, inflammatory, subversive and incendiary broadcasts by these later-day Biafran warriors in their delusions, constitute monumental problems for the Igbo in relation to the larger Nigeria.

“Ohanaeze wonders how somebody that proclaims himself a leader will neither seek the opinion nor weigh the aspirations and political barometer of his people before going gaga. For purpose of clarifications, Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the then Military Governor of the Eastern Region made several consultations and finally summoned a meeting of almost all the important dignitaries in the Eastern Region, comprising the present Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Abia, Imo, Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi States and the Anioma in Delta state.

“Based on preponderance of opinion and pressures from the most afflicted, on May 30, 1967, Col. Ojukwu declared the Eastern Region an independent sovereign state as the Republic of Biafra. The Republic of Biafra had Mr. N U Akpan as Secretary to the Government, General Philip Effiong as the Second in Command and Chief of General Staff, Col Joseph “Hannibal” Achuzia, among others. This led to a 30 month civil war that ended officially on January 15, 1970. Instructively, both the beginning and the end of the war had consultations and agreements.”