17 hours ago
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The National Youth Leader of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Comrade Eze Onyebuchi Chukwu, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to grant amnesty to the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB), in order to curb insecurity in the region, especially with the arrest of its Finland-based leader, Simon Ekpa.
In an open letter to the president on Friday, Chukwu, who is also Chairman, Forum of National Youth Leaders of all Political Parties in Nigeria and also
DG, Society Well-being Advocates of Nigeria (SWAN), said amnesty to IPOB will assuage feelings of marginalization of the South East region.
He said: “It’s no longer news that there is an economy crumbling insecurity in the South Eastern Nigeria. The good news is that we know the reason for the insecurity being the problem and there is a saying that a problem identified is a problem half solved.
“Unlike the insecurity in some other regions of the country especially the North East, that of the South East is as clear as that of the previous one of the South South. At this point, the question should be, how was the one that looks like that of the South East solved? Who solved it? Of course, the answers are known even to babies. Amnesty was granted and Former President Umar Musa Yar’Adua granted it.
“Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State Of Biafra, MASSOB, gave birth to Indigenous People Of Biafra, IPOB, all in the quest for justice for the Igbo. This quest called Biafra is as a result of the marginalisation and gross disregard of Ndigbo in a country called their own and not necessarily because the entire Igbos want a new country.
“I am convinced that if the Igbos were given their place in their own country that the Biafra Ideology wouldn’t have risen in the first place and if the needful was done before now, the agitation would have been put to rest. Should we continue to beat a child and expect him not to cry?
“This devastating and heinous acts unknown to Ndigbo, being perpetrated in the South East in the name of agitating for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who is in turn asking for the end of the marginalisation of Ndigbo in Nigeria, is a war whose warriors are known.
“The continued repression of the fighters can never ever stop it, if not Boko Haram would have been a history. Like Sen Rocha’s Okorocha said at the night of tribute to late Sen Ifeanyi Uba “The South East Commission is supposed to have been established immediately after the war in 1970, to cushion the effects of the destruction of Ndigbo during that wicked and needless onslaught against Ndigbo”.
“Nothing was done to appease them, after over 50 years, the injustice continued. The same ingredients of the cause of the war continued after 50 years, and each time the children of the regions rise to protest, they’re repressed without redress. This gross injustice has lingered and in the process produced a lot of youth movements, including MASSOB, IPOB, etc.”
He added: “Now that the both leaders of IPOB have been arrested, it will be wise your government ensures that no other leader emerges by acting fast in proffering solution to this age-long problem.
“What is the solution? My Dear President, let your government issue a quick communique stressing your plans to extradite Mazi Simon Ekpa and your plans in place to solve this problem once and for all. In that your plan, I suggest amnesty to IPOB as it was with the former militants of the Niger Delta.
“This will calm nerves and deter further emergence of another IPOB leader. This is wisdom and it will endear you to Ndigbo and score you some political points.
“Let no one deceive you like they did to your predecessors that incarceration is the solution or that the court is the solution. Be wise and quick to apply political solution to it. Recall that none of your predecessors could achieve this and if you do, it will write your name in gold as it regards the history of Ndigbo.
“You will be rewarded alive and you will be remembered in death. My joy that Ekpa is arrested is because it will lead to the end of the matter. Solution is in sight if you need my advice.
“I therefore move the motion for the Amnesty of the members and leaders of IPOB in the South East. Now that you have granted us a commission (SEDC), it will be easier to rehabilitate their members who will surrender their arms in a sincere bargain using the Amnesty program and South East Development Commission.
“If not for anything Mr President, do it for peace in your tenure and peace in the South East. You need rest to concentrate in delivering democratic dividends to the country.”
