LEADERS of Igbo Speaking Community in Lagos have raised an alarm over the neglect of Ndigbo displaced in the northeast as a result of Boko Haram activities, appealing to President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene and restore their hopes.

According to the coalition, millions of Igbo resident in the northeast states of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Bauchi, who relocated to the southeast at the escalation of the activities of Boko Haram extremists, are currently dying of starvation.

Addressing a press conference in Enugu, President General of the group, Chief Ebere Ubani, who described their situation as “unimaginable and deliberate marginalisation,” said the displaced persons have not found anything to lay hands on since their forced relocation, adding that their neglect has continued even when other internally displaced persons from other zones of the country were being cared for.

“Today, they roam hopelessly in all the nooks and crannies of the southeast where the political nomenclature, for whatever reason, has failed to take cognisance of them. The primary duty of any responsible government is to guarantee and secure life and property and declare where necessary, a state of emergency, in order to restore hope and succour to distressed citizens and Igbo refugees.

“These people that have lived all their lives in the northern part of Nigeria are, today, refugees in the southeast without any means of livelihood, and forgotten by the authorities, while good efforts and palliatives are expended on their counterparts in the northeast by the government and the international community.”

Ubani, who disclosed that the association had already collected the names, phone numbers and addresses of the affected persons, called for the opening of camps across the southeast for them, adding that it was disheartening that several of them have not been able to either send their children back to school, found a comfortable place to live or something to do to enable them feed their families.