Chief Chekwas Okorie
By Tony Adibe
Pioneer Founding National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Chairman, Igbo Agenda Dialogue (IAD), Chief Chekwas Okorie has cautioned the Igbo governors against causing the southeast zone to degenerate into “a theatre of war” due to the increasing political intolerance and violence witnessed in the area.
Chief Okorie, in a press release he personally signed and issued on Tuesday, 13 October, 2026, was reacting to the recent suspected politically induced violence and attacks that had occurred in the zone.
NewsBits learnt that Ebonyi, Imo and Enugu States appear to be leading in the zone when it comes to political intolerance and violence. Aligning himself with the popular Igbo saying that an elder does not stay at home and watch a pregnant goat suffer the pains of labour while tied with a rope, Okorie said that all Igbo elders who matter should speak out and condemn the dangerous trend before it becomes a culture that could affect anyone.
The elder statesman reminded the governors that Igbo votes in next year’s elections would not be gotten “by conquest”, stressing that even the colonial masters could not conquer Ndigbo, historically speaking. “The colonial army could not conquer Ndigbo. Ndigbo survived the war of annihilation waged against us,” he said, adding: “Igbo votes for the 2027 elections can never be obtained by conquest.”
Okorie, who holds the traditional Chieftaincy title of Ojeozi Ndigbo, encouraged the Igbo to be vigilant and defend their votes. “Ndigbo must remain vigilant and defend their franchise as we are known to do from creation,” he said.
Still particularising on the governors, Okorie said repeatedly: “Our present Southeast governors will be held accountable if Igboland becomes another war zone. Fifty-six years after the end of the fratricidal war in the former Eastern Region, the scars and destruction of that war are still festering and unaddressed.”
The Igbo leader regarded the ugly development as a “dangerous trend” that has reared its ugly head in the Southeast geopolitical zone recently, and should be halted by all means. “The desperate struggle for political power through conquest instead of the ballot box according to the tenets of democracy and the laws of Nigeria in the build-up to the 2027 general elections is raging with ferocious speed in Igboland,” he lamented.
Okorie in the press release, among other things, vehemently said : “I wish to recall that on the 12th of March 2026, I released an open letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which l captioned, “Halt the brewing anarchy in Nigeria”. In that letter, I drew the attention of the president to events in Nigeria, especially by state and non-state actors, that could cause the breakdown of law and order. I appealed to President Tinubu to take decisive steps to halt the trend. Obviously, my patriotic intervention did not seem to make any impression on the president.
“It was not long ago that an Islamic cleric called Sheik Sani Yahaya Jingir, in a most arrogant and inciting outburst in a public event in Kano, declared that all Nigerians who did not want the Muslim/Muslim presidential ticket of President Tinubu and his vice president should leave the country. He claimed that Muslims owned Nigeria. This hate speech was not only outrageous but unprovoked as the president and vice president were already in the last lap of their four-year tenure without any protest from any part of the country as a result of their faith.
Neither the federal government nor any of its security agencies publicly condemned Sheik Jingir’s obviously subversive open declaration. Based on what appeared as government acquiescence to the irresponsibility of Sheik Jingir, more and more actors in the political space have become emboldened to go haywire. The list is long. “The government seems highly selective in its interventions, if any.
South East Governors L-R: Chief Alex Otti, Prof Charles Soludo, Senator Hope Uzodimma, Dr Peter Mbah, and Mr Francis Nwifru
“Now, this ugly trend is beginning to envelop the entire Southeast. It is no longer safe for members of the opposition parties to hold public gatherings or rallies anywhere in the geopolitical zone without being attacked by heavily armed thugs. These attacks last for hours, resulting in severe injuries and loss of life. In most of these incidents, the security agencies appear helpless. No arrests are ever recorded, at least to be able to trace their sponsors.”
Okorie further bemoaned what he regarded as scandalous and out-of-reach, prohibitive fees being imposed on campaign billboards in the states in the zone, recalling it’s the first of its kind in the political development of the region.
“Most Southeast governments have imposed outrageous fees for campaign billboards running into hundreds of millions of naira for a single billboard. This is the reason billboards are hardly visible across the Southeast,” he said.
“Members of the opposition parties have also responded by pulling down the billboards of the ruling parties wherever they appeared. This is a recipe for anarchy.”
Calling on the Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma to do the needful by convening an emergency meeting to address the issue, Okorie said: “I call on Governor Hope Uzodimma, the governor of Imo State and the Chairman of the Southeast Governors Forum, to convene an emergency and extraordinary meeting of the Southeast Governors as a matter of utmost urgency to nip in the bud the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Igboland.
No matter how the Federal Government of Nigeria may downplay the situation in the North, the painful truth is that wars are raging in the Northwest and Northeast sectors. Despite the assistance of the United States of America, the wars have not abated.”
