Ohanaeze Ndigbo indicts South East governors for failure to establish security outfit

• Renames Igbo day celebration as the day of mourning over killings
• FCT chapter bars officers from accepting govt appointments, contracts

Apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has described the inability of Southeast governors to establish the Ebubeagu regional security outfit three months after it was mooted, as “an embarrassment.”

It also asked the leadership of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to reassert its authority and control of the organisation so as to return normalcy to Igboland, insisting that something other than the initial objectives for which the group was formed was taking place and portended great danger.

President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof. George Obiozor, who stated this, yesterday, in Enugu in his message at the yearly celebration of Igbo day billed for September 29, stressed that it was disheartening that the Ebubeagu security outfit had not been established, even in the face of rising insecurity in the Southeast.

“I appeal to the governors to consolidate and establish the Ebubeagu security architecture in the Southeast without further delay. The security situation in the Southeast makes the call urgent and imperative.

“Our people must have a security networking agency that is under their control and capable of identifying both internal and external security threats in Igbo land,” he said.

IN a related development, Ohanaeze declared that on September 29, 2021, the Igbo celebration has been renamed the Igbo day of mourning.

It said this followed the systematic and extra-judicial killings of Igbo in recent times by Nigerian security forces, herdsmen and unknown gunmen.

In a statement issued in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State by Secretary-General of the Chidi Ibeh-led Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, noted that the replacement was to show how grieving the Igbo were over the killings of their people, saying: “We can’t be celebrating when our people are being killed.”

MEANWHILE, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) chapter of Ohanaze Ndigbo, has barred its President and principal officers from accepting government appointments or receiving contracts during their tenure.

New president of the chapter, Ifeanyichukwu Obasi-Nweze, who disclosed this in Abuja, said the measure was to ensure that the new executive remained focused to serve the interest of the people who elected us to lead them

Obasi-Nweze explained that the resolution of the association in its by-law was to bar the President from accepting government appointments or contracts beginning from his tenure.

“This is also to increase the over 2000 employments secured for Igbo people in the FCT and to hold the 2021 Igbo Day Celebration on Wednesday at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja,” Obasi-Nweze said.

He said they were elected in accordance with the by-laws of Ohaneze Ndigbo FCT chapter (as amended 2019), which the court had declared valid.