Secession agitations: Address hunger, injustice, Okorocha tells leaders


Former governor of Imo state and Senator representing Imo West, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, has called on Nigerian leaders at all levels to quickly address the issues of hunger and injustice for the agitators of secession to stop.

For him, the former Senate President Ken Nnamani, has also demanded restructuring in the country to address what he called injusticeswhich responsible for the increasing wave of agitations.

Speaking Thursday in Abuja at the second public lecture series organised by the APC Press Corps with the theme; “Sustaining a united and indivisible Nigeria: A miyth or reality” the duo of Okorocha and Nnamani believed once injustices and issue of hunger are addressed secession agitators will stop.

According to Okorocha, The injustice of stomach and other injustices must be addressed.

“What we must do as a people is to address the issue of injustice as a nation, starting from the stomach injustice which we call hungry. For instance I don’t have any enemy from the North or South West. The biggest political problem I have recently is from the South East, from my state must be addressed. Every most treatment almost there.

“Number two, every leader that emerges in this country must treat Nigeria as a family, must never show segregation of any kind. If you know an Igboman, an Igboman is not asking for anything, is asking for a level playing ground. Do you know if today people are doing what Ganduje did in Kano, giving Igbo people appointments, if every other Governor does that shows a sign of love beyond area of tribe and religion, you will be uniting this country.

In his keynote address, Nnamani who stood in for the APC acting national chairman and the Yobe state governor Mai Mala Buni, said Some things should be done more efficiently and that also implies restructuring.

“Restructuring does mean dividing our country. Because the more united we are the better we are as a country. So any reasonable person who witnessed the Biafran war with Nigeria will never preach anything near war. You won’t wish your enemy to go through that. So for those who were not borne then, who takes delight in pronouncing war, it is not African magic, that you stay back and watch. It is a thing you may not come back. And those shouting war, under three weeks of the battle they are gone. So nobody will wish our country another war.

The lesson we can learn from the presentation from the governor of kano state is fundamental. Governor Okorocha talks about a level playing field. That as long as the issue of agitations will be drastically reduced.

“And people who are agitating for a separate nation, I think that if Nigeria is made more efficient nobody in his right sense will be saying it should be divided. Every state in Nigeria has something unique that few countries are as pleased as Nigeria. It is for us to discover our own strength and emphasize it and make it better.
Let us not be afraid of restructuring. It simply means how can we make our country more efficient and better.

“I have a simple definition of restructuring and that is making something more efficient than you met it. If we must tell ourselves the truth, the structure of our government is neither efficient nor effective. We should make our government more efficient and more effective.

“Why should the federal government be concern about issuing driver’s licenses? I spent quite some time in the United States. When I was in Iowa, I had Iowa, driving license. When I moved to Washington, I had a Washington driver’s license. When I went to New York, I had a New York driver’s license. Why should we spend time here in Abuja issuing somebody a license in Sokoto?”