By Omife I. Omife
“We said it before; they said we are troublesome. They said we were soothsayers. They chased Nnamdi Kanu away. They put fear in his followers. They manufactured a new governor. They manufactured a fake Ohaneze Ndigbo. All these to prepare the way for Almajirai in Igbo land. Now they are here. Igbo are in danger. And nobody is speaking for us.”
We saw it coming. That was why we were begging the South-East governors to form a South East regional security at the time the South West Governors formed their own. We even begged them to take a cure from Gburugburu of Enugu State and form Forest Guards, which virtually stopped kidnapping in Enugu State. But the Umahi-led Igbo governors did not listen to us. Instead, they told us they wrote a letter to the President, which we are not sure has been read or treated by the President.
Did Gburugburu write to the President before forming his Forest Guards and kitted them properly? Did the South West governors write to the President before forming Amotekun regional security outfit? Yet they have so many of their people that could have facilitated such letter like Vice President Osinbajo, Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of House of Representatives, Governor Fayemi, Chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum, Bola Tinubu, the APC national leader and even, by extension, the national chairman of APC, Comrade Oshiomole.
Despite this long list of human assets, the Yoruba leaders did not wait to write a letter to the President before taking measures to protect their people against danger. It is Igbo Governors that has nobody representing them at Aso Rock or National Assembly that decided to write a letter before taking action to defend their subjects. I do not want to go into all these bare-faced cowardly actions by Igbo governors at this time of great danger in Igbo land.
Now, Igbo governors are telling us that the IG of police has breached the agreement they had with him on community vigilante. Everybody in Nigeria knows the meaning and nature of community vigilantes and that they are miles apart from a regional security outfit and I said it several times that our governors should not contemplate vigilante as any option to regional security outfit.
But what did our governors think? Expect the IG of police to give what he does not have in terms of giving them permission to form regional security when he is only a servant to the Aso Rock masters. May be one should not blame the governors who were promised the Presidency by Myetti Allah leaders, not by the President, the same people now overrunning our land with Northern youths in the guise of Almajirai, as some people call the Fulani nursery Arabic pupils. Our governors should have known that the President has never given Igbos anything outside their constitutional rights. This is by the way.
If our governors were more proactive in their mindset, they would read the handwriting on the wall from the South-West governors’ prompt and uncompromising security precaution, and perceive that there was an agenda in the offing and that happened immediately after the launching of Amotekun followed shortly by the emergence of COVID-19 and national lockdown, which opened a floodgate of secret immigration of thousands of Northern youths in hundreds of trucks to the South, more especially Igbo land even while a Federal government law was in place against interstate movement.
Ndigbo expected all or any of the Igbo governors to react to this curious scenario, just as governor El-Rufai or governor Wike would have instantly done if it were in their zones, but lo and behold, what we heard was the chairman of Igbo governors’ forum signing a loan from the Islamic bank, which his press secretary has not refuted. A typical chasing the rat while the house is on fire. What is baffling is how these northern youths wrongly called Alamajarai got the money for such massive movement. In the first place, we were forced to stay indoors and barred from all social gathering and inter-state travelling. We were told that the police and other law enforcement agents were in control of the borders to ensure no one disobeyed the law. The questions on everybody’s lips are:
- Who are the sponsors of these hundreds of trailer-load of Norther youths? If it were ordinary buses, one could assume they can afford the fares. But not in the case of long trailers.
- Why are these youths hidden under livestock and other consumables as they travelled to the South-East?
- What gave the trailer drivers the courage to defy the law against inter-state travel and the security agents at the borders?
- What are the states of origin of these youths as they are not moving individually but in organized tranches, suggesting that their movement is a sponsored, long planned and pre-arranged exercise?
- Why did the security agents at the various State borders between the North and the South-East not discover these hidden human cargos in those trailers until they reached South-East borders?
- It is reported that many of these trailers were turned back at the South-East borders particularly Obollo-Afor in Enugu State. Did the youths in those trailers go back to the North or did they take other routes to enter the South-East?
- Why did the Federal government not issue any directive to affected States to arrest and prosecute erring drivers and travelers? Questions and more questions.
If the South East governors have now woken from sleep, I still beg the Chairman of South East governors’ Forum to do the needful without waiting a second more because, there is fire on the mountain! What the governors should do as a matter of immediacy is to do what Gburugburu did by forming Forest Guards in their respective States while waiting for their Houses of Assembly to pass the bill of regional security. There is no time to waste or for long talk.
While we wait for Igbo governors, I want to call on Igbo people everywhere to rise to the challenge of protecting themselves from any eventuality as people say. As National coordinator of Association of South East Past Presidents-General, I use this medium to call on our members in all the communities to liaise and give full support to service PGs in their respective communities in ensuring maximum security and vigilance.
I also advise the leadership of all Town unions in Igboland to apply all security measures at their disposal to protect their people from possible danger to lives and property including:
- Strict monitoring of strangers and their movements and report any suspicion to the police through the community vigilante.
- Keep 24 hours security vigil by able bodies youths and age-grades especially in the nights since it is well known that communities are usually attacked in the middle of the nights or very early in the morning when people are still sleeping.
- Monitor all local beer parlors and eateries for any strange or suspicious faces/movements.
- Compile and monitor a database of all strangers in the community specifying their places of origin, occupation, residence/landlord.
- Ensure that property owners do not allow more than two adult male stranger tenants in one room and not more than five stranger tenants in his/her house.
- Ensure that landlords with stranger security guards account for their identities and take full responsibility for the activities of their workers.
- Most importantly, all town unions should be aware that all town unions in Igboland are automatic members of Ohaneze Ndigbo. As such, there is currently a fake splinter Ohaneze Ndigbo working with our enemies and going about deceiving and enlisting membership of town unions. Please all town union leaders should be aware of this and shun these saboteurs. Please clear every information through your State Ohaneze secretariat.
To end this message, I once again call on South East governors to take the following measures immediately:
To stop the movement of cattle on foot just as Gburugburu did in Enugu State, and make it mandatory for all cattle to be transported by vehicles to the various selling points. This will reduce the disturbing incidence of widespread destruction of people’s farms by cows coupled with killing and raping of women by Fulani herders.
To enact a law proscribing herders from building residences in the forests and for them to secure houses within the residential areas as other non-indigenes do. As it is now, it is suspected that many of the northern youths have already gained entry into Igboland and many of them may have joined their people living in our forests. All those living in the forests should be asked to come out and rent houses among the people like so many northerners, so that their identities and activities can be checked and controlled.
To relocate all cattle markets at the adjoining State border areas in Igboland such as Ugwuoba in Enugu State and Amansea in Anambra State and other state boundaries. Such adjacent border location of cattle markets makes it difficult to check infiltration of criminals to and from one State to another. And finally, to form their respective Forest Guards as Gburugburu did as an urgent interim security measure to enforce the above laws while they complete arrangements for regional security. A stich in time save nine.
*Mazi Omife I. Omife, Mbuze Mbaukwu, issued this statement following worrisome reports of massive transportation of jobless northern youths to the west.
Please note that the opinion expressed by the writer in this article does not reflect the position of the publishers of www.newsbitsng.com
