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The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, has called for an end to various forms of attack, against the Igbo, particularly in Lagos State.
This was contained in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Chiedozie Ogbonnia.
Ohanaeze described the #IgboMustGo slogan, which surfaced during the recent nationwide hunger protest, as worrisome.
The organisation added that the slogan was nothing but ethnic profiling and hate speech, demanding an end to the trend.
Ohaneze said, "Unless something decisive is done by the government, there would be no end to the orchestrated ethnic profiling, hate speech, incendiary and inflammatory rhetoric and outright demolition of Igbo properties and liquidation of their sources of income in Lagos State since a few years now.
“It is certain that such reckless, provocative, divisive, instigative and inflammatory dispositions towards the Igbos in Lagos State, will remain unabated, except of course, there are manifest consequences for such vexatious, unscrupulous loose-cannons and hate-mongers.
“Earlier in 2015, the Oba of Lagos, Alhaji Rilwan Akiolu, had issued a threat to the Igbo living in Lagos State ‘to either vote for the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Akinwumi Ambode, or else they will die in the lagoon’.”
Ohanaeze also recalled how some thugs allegedly set ablaze the Igbo-majority Akere Spare Parts Market on March 8, 2023.
While demanding an end to attacks on Igbo around the country, the organisation commended the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, for promptly condemning the latest verbal attacks on the Igbo with the slogan #IgboMustGo.
It commended Sanwo-Olu and the state government for describing the #IgboMustGo slogan as “not only reckless and divisive but an attempt to sow a seed of discord between the Yoruba in the South-West and other tribes, especially those who have made Lagos their permanent place of abode.”
Ohanaeze similarly commended Afenifere “for living up to expectations” by calling on “all Nigerians living legitimately in any part of Yorubaland to entertain no fear about their safety or be afraid of being forced out of the area.”
It was also “highly elated by the intervention made by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.”
“When it mattered most, it was Obasanjo who lent full weight that the Presidency of Nigeria should go to the South-East of Nigeria in 2023.
"It was Obasanjo who posited that unless ‘Nigeria throws its doors open to merit, competence and full inclusion of the Igbo in national affairs, the country will continue to flounder and grope in the dark'."
