By Adadareporters
The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has commended former President Olusegun Obasanjo for berating those calling on Ndigbo to leave Lagos.
Obasanjo had in a release said those making such calls must leave Lagos first.
He had maintained that “he doesn’t believe that anybody in Nigeria should be driven away from any part of the country”, adding that “we own this country together”.
Ohanaeze stated this in a statement by Dr Alex Ogbonnia, its national publicity secretary.
Ohanaeze expressed concern over what it called “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 since a few years now”.
Ogbonnia stated that, “The most recent recrudescence is that the Lagosians and every South-West stakeholder should prepare for the massive protest of #IgboMustGo on the 20th – 30th of August, 2024.”
Recall that an X handle named ‘LagosPedia’ had recently demanded “the forced relocation of Igbo people from Lagos and other South-West states within one month”.
Ohanaeze further recalled that in June 2023, a few days before the March 18, 2023 gubernatorial elections, a video had gone viral on social media showing Alh Musiliu Akinsanya, commonly known as ‘MC Oluomo’, where he issued a threat to the Igbo residents of Lagos to “either vote for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) or stay at home”.
Ohanaeze commended the Lagos State government and Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, for condemning the Igbo-must-go calls.
Ogbonnia wrote, “We commend the Afenifere for living up to expectations. The Afenifere, through their National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, called on ‘all Nigerians living legitimately in any part of Yorubaland to entertain no fear about their safety or be afraid of being forced out of the area’.”
Ohanaeze’s Secretary General, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, in the statement, commended Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for condemning the call, recalling that, “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.”
According to the statement, “It was Obasanjo who posited that unless Nigeria throws its doors open to merit, competence and full inclusion of the Igbo in national affairs, the country will continue to flounder and grope in the dark”.”
Ohanaeze described the Obasanjo presidency as a role model, adding that, “The ministries, departments and agencies of the federal government under Obasanjo were presided by qualified eminent technocrats with track records of accomplishments. All the federal boards were brought to the table and maximum prudence and equity were applied in the distribution to the six geo-political zones of the country. The above qualities and more stand Chief Olusegun Obasanjo out as the conscience of the nation.”
Ohanaeze also commended the press release by the government of Lagos State, which condemned the act, noting however that, “It is certain that such reckless, provocative, divisive, instigative and inflammatory dispositions towards the Igbo in Lagos State will remain unabated, except there are manifest consequences for such vexatious, unscrupulous loose –cannons and hate-mongers.”
