— 15th December 2017
By Onyedika Agbedo and Tony Udemba
President
General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, has restated his
earlier position that it will be injurious to the Igbo to pursue
self-determination and urged members of the Indigenous People of Biafra
(IPOB) to drop their agitation and join the organisation’s quest for a
restructured Nigeria.
He spoke during a Town Hall meeting organised by the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation in Lagos, yesterday.
Nwodo, who noted
that the youths were free to express themselves over what he described
as the relegation of the Igbo to second class citizens in Nigeria,
stressed that the South East would be the ultimate loser in the event of
another civil war.
“Whether we agree with them or not, they
have a right to express their opinions. When I was at their age, I was
in the trench fighting for Biafra. I’m not sure that anyone of them has
heard the sound of a gun. I lost a close friend who was with me in the
trench; a mortar caught him in the ear and he died instantly.
The Ndigbo leader disclosed that more
than half a million Igbo died in the war through the gun and bombings by
the federal troop while another one million died out of hunger and
starvation.
‘‘The Igbo suffered enormous loss to the
war. I am telling this story because I, Nnia Nwodo, will be a saboteur
if the Igbo choose to go for another civil war. Anybody at my age who
does not speak the truth is not doing himself any good. Ohanaeze does
not support war; we support restructuring, which will allow the
federating units in Nigeria to take charge of their affairs.”he told the
gathering. Members of IPOB had come to the event displaying placards
with various inscriptions like “Biafra is the solution,” “Ohanaeze stop
deceiving us,” “No federal presence in the South East, only python
dance,” “Where is Nnamdi Kanu,” and “Ohanaeze Ndigbo stop the killings
in Biafra land,” among others.
Nwodo emphatically told the agitators
to stop nursing the dream of an independent state of Biafra, saying,
“when you want to fight a war, you must ask yourself how do I fight
this war’’.
‘‘Our young men must learn; we know
better than them and they must learn to listen to us. In order to get a
pride of place for every Nigerian, we must ask ourselves how do we do
it. If we go back to the trenches to fight, we are doing disservice to
this nation; we are doing disservice to our children.”
While maintaining that the solution to
the countless challenges confronting the country lies in restructuring,
he added: “The 1999 constitution was drafted by the military. There was
no constituent assembly; there was no referendum. Nobody in this
country voted for this constitution. It was an imposition by a military
government.
“We have asked for a conference of all
the peoples of Nigeria. We have started a meeting of Southern Leaders
Forum constituting of the South East as represented by Ohanaeze, South
West as represented by Afenifere, and South South as represented the Pan
Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF). We have reached a resolution that we want
restructuring and the Middle Belt of Nigeria recently joined us.” Nwodo,
who stated that the essence of the meeting
was to unite the Igbo in Lagos, noted that without unity, the people
of the South East would continue to lose their pride of place in the
country. He urged the Igbo in Lagos to take advantage of their huge
population in and position themselves to play active roles in the
politics of the state.