BIAFRA: GOV. IKPEAZU SPEAKS ON NNAMDI KANU’S WHEREABOUTS
BIAFRA: GOV. IKPEAZU SPEAKS ON NNAMDI KANU’S WHEREABOUTS
The Abia State Governor, Okezie
Ikpeazu has said that the whereabouts of the leader of the Indigenous People of
Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu is unknown to him (Ikpeazu).
Governor Ikpeazu said he has never
had any kind of affinity, whatsoever with the IPOB leader and as such wouldn’t
provide answers to the IPOB leader’s itinerary.
Kanu has been silent for weeks after
soldiers invaded his hometown in Umuahia, the State capital.
Journalist in Abuja had demanded from
the governor his knowledge about Kanu’s movement. He, however, said that it
would be unfair for anyone to pose such a question to him.
He said, “I don’t think that is a
fair question. I don’t have the capacity to determine where Kanu is. I have
never visited him. I have never called him on phone and he has never taken me
into confidence as to what he does, where he goes.
“So, those who are close to him would
answer. I don’t have the capacity to monitor him and know where he is, maybe
Journalists through investigative journalism will know.
“Fundamentally speaking, I think that
if the question we ask in this country today about whether there are
inequalities, whether there are gaps or there are people who don’t feel that
they have been fairly treated either as an individual or as a family or as a
geopolitical zone, the answer is yes.
“There is agitation in the north
east, there is a agitation in the south west, of course there is agitation in
the south east but I dare say that there is no other ethnic group in this
country that has as much faith in the Nigeria as a country, one united country
than the people of the south east, that is why they are in Sambisa.
“You can count how many big
businesses belonging to the south westerners that are in Aba. You can count how
many big businesses belonging to the people from the north east, north west,
north central that you can find in Owerri. You cannot find a four storey
building belonging to somebody from the north east anywhere in the south east.
“But if you go to Kano, you don’t
count three hotels before you count that of somebody from the south east. What
it means is that we are the people that have demonstrated faith in the united
Nigeria.
“Post war experience is that
everybody started receding and then we started moving everywhere and then at
the end of the day, our people are beginning to feel that we are not being
trusted enough with certain strategic positions despite the fact that we have
demonstrated in particular times that we love Nigeria more than anybody. We
have faith in this country more than anybody.
“That couple with the fact that there
is huge potential energy within the youth community in Nigeria that is unused
because the problem of unemployment in Nigeria, for me, as a biochemist, I look
at it as mismanagement of energy; people have too much energy but can’t use it
anywhere.
“If you have a 2year old child in
this house today and that child doesn’t go to school, he doesn’t go anywhere,
before you go out and come back, you will discover that somebody with a lot of
energy is residing with you here.
“So, the idea is that all these
agitations bottled up and all that created what you call IPOB.
“And then the federal government over
time started watching from the sideline because IPOB was getting money from
elsewhere, setting up radio stations, indoctrinating people, all that went on.
“But while that was going on, at a
point, the leadership of the south east through Ohaneze, through the governors
started engaging Nnamdi to say we know that there are issues. Can we find
alternative channels to discuss them. Can we make a studied and intellectual
presentations and confront the federal government with these arguments? But he
felt that his own strategy was better and all that.
“So, I think it got to a point when
the federal government began to feel that the red line was threatened and
unfortunately some of us as governors were not taken into confidence as to the
details and plans and intentions of the federal government and it is the irony
of this thing they governors chief security officers; chief security officer but
you are not controlling the CP, the soldiers around you, the navy around you,
you cannot tell them to stop, you cannot tell them where to go and all that.
“So, that clash came up on us in Abia
state and I was confronted as a leader to make a choice between the oath I
swore, what was politically expedient and what was right and I think what was
right was for me to do everything to protect the lives and properties of Abians
and those that are doing business in Abia.
“So, all that I did, the press
releases, my actions, all that I did was geared towards fulfilling my mandate
which was to protect lives and properties of not only Abians but of everybody
that was within Abia doing business. I did not wish for one soul to die,
whether IPOB or a Fulani man or a Kogi man. I didn’t want anybody to lose his
life or for us to begin to spill blood in my state.
“Like I told some people, my mother
told me that everybody should do everything to make sure that war does not
ensue in his mother’s kitchen because the pots will break, the plates will
break and after the war, with what are you going to eat?
“So, I do not want a war in my
kitchen. If there must be war, let the war go elsewhere not in my kitchen. And
then I thank God and I give him all the glory that he gave us the wisdom to
take the steps we took.”
