Act decisively on anti-Igbo sentiments, Uwazurike tells Osinbajo

• Kanu’s attitude encouraging predicament, say northern youths
• Odigie-Oyegun seeks immediate arrest of hate peddlers

Former president of Aka Ikenga, an Igbo socio-cultural group, and delegate to the 2014 National Constitution Conference, Chief Goddy Uwazurike, has called on Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to take a decisive action on the anti-Igbo song that recently went viral on the social media.

Uwazurike, who decried the state of affairs, stated that Nigeria and her citizens had been put in a state of ‘suspended animation’ enacted by the continued official silence on the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari.

He urged Osibanjo to be decisive with the numerous agitations in the land to avoid needless pogrom.

In an exclusive interview with The Guardian, Uwazurike submitted: “This country is sitting on a keg of gunpowder. A number of people who have morals and conscience have decided to push it over the edge. When a country is in this situation, it will just disintegrate. Those who sponsored the hate song and put it on the internet are no small people. They are very weighty individuals operating from behind.”

He continued: “I think the Acting President has to take the bull by the horn. He has to stand firm. In politics, you have to stand up to be counted. I know he did not appoint the service chiefs. But as the man that is currently in charge, he can drop anybody. Have those above the age of 60 retired?”

Uwazurike noted that the hypocrisy in government was aiding the prevailing agitations across the nooks and crannies of Nigeria. According to him, not until something concrete is done, and urgently too, the rufflings would not abate.

However, youths under the aegis of Coalition for Northern Group have attributed the fate befalling the ethnic nationality to the actions of the leader of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

The convener, Murtala Abubakar, in a chat with our reporter yesterday in Kaduna, maintained that the IPOB leader had violated all his bail conditions, thus triggering what may have informed the hate song.

He described Kanu as an agitator “acting a s if he is above the laws of Nigeria. Such behaviour could encourage others to violate rules and regulations of the land.”

Describing the whole exercise as a ruse Abubakar called on Nigerians to disregard the celebrated song, saying such could serve as an elixir for war, especially the one experienced by the Rwandans.

He called on security operatives to be up and doing by immediately apprehending and bringing to book the promoters of the distasteful lyrics.

Also yesterday, the Joint Action Committee of all Northern Youth Associations sued for peace. Its spokesman, Muhammad Isah Imam, said what the nation needed at the moment was a concerted effort to rescue her. He decried the frivolities the citizenry were delving in, stating that the time does call for agonisation.

Also yesterday, the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun has flayed perpetrators of hate-speeches, urging their immediate arrest.

In a statement in Abuja, described those behind the images and song against Ndigbo as worse than the Boko Haram Islamist sect.

Labelling the act dangerous and despicable, Odigie-Oyegun called on security agencies to promptly apprehend those behind the recording and other similar acts “no matter who they are.”

Recalling the Rwandan genocide, he warned that all ethnic-based crises known to history began with hate speeches.

“When people within the same country frame and define one another in the manner intended to set them up for violent attack, then they are setting themselves up for a major disaster,” the APC chair added.

Odigie-Oyegun noted that although ethnic distrust was not new in the country, he, however, decried the rising wave of hate speeches, inflammable religious and ethnic utterances during and after the 2015 general elections.