Igbo think tank, Alaigbo Development Foundation, ADF, has dismissed as wrong, the notion that Ndigbo is not in support of the nationwide protest to end bad governance, tagged ‘EndBadGovernance Protest’ by the organisers.
In a statement jointly signed by the ADF National President, Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie and National Secretary, Abia Onyike, the group condemned the threats issued to Ndigbo in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria, warning the perpetrators to desist forthwith from such reprehensible act.
It called on the security agencies, especially the Department of State Services (DSS) to quickly go after the persons behind the threats.
The group warned that isolating Ndigbo as people who are against the protest, does not capture who they are, as their history is replete with die-hard resistance to bad governance, even to the extent of resisting gods who refused to perform their administrative and governance mandate.
The ADF informed the good-spirited protesters that they were not against their protests, but were recounting past experiences where negative people profiled them as a race, for what every segment of Nigeria agreed on.
It said Ndigbo support the protest but could not hit the streets for obvious reasons, stressing that several days before the commencement of the protest on August 1, Igboland had already been militarised, with heavily armed soldiers (not policemen), carrying tanks and gun trucks, taking over the streets of the major cities in the region.
The statement read further: “All of us were in this country and observed the flawed nature of the 2023 election in Nigeria, adjudged as the worst in Nigerian history. How can Bayo Onanuga be so shameless to raise the issue of getting to power through the back door? The Lagos State Government has imposed all kinds of negative economic policies to hack Ndigbo down.
“Today, Nwajiagu is still incarcerated in Lagos for daring to retort to those trying to annihilate Ndigbo. Yet, a certain political thug known strides and trots the length and breadth of Lagos as a colossus, causing mayhem unabated with security agents looking away.
“The X space, formally known as Twitter, is awash with genocide threats against Ndigbo in Western Nigeria without any reaction from the security agents. One wonders how a group of people who declared their non-interest in the bad governance protest would be primed for genocide by Bayo Onanuga and his ilk.
“If it were not for the good-spirited Yoruba like Pa Ayo Adebanjo and others, Ndigbo would have been questioning why they are still yoked with those who want to annihilate them from the face of the earth. We, therefore, salute the courage of those who still give us, as a race, the hope to live in a united Nigeria.
“We are not a fearful people, but we are very courageous. This is why during the ill-fated colonial experience in Nigeria, Ndigbo took the lead in all ramifications, such that they caught the ire of the colonial overlords, who interpreted their stance on ending colonial bad governance as challenging the colonial status quo.
“The resultant effect is the orchestration of a 36-month genocide that almost annihilated Ndigbo from the surface of the earth, which was the first and last time that all the world powers agreed on a mission and administered it to the finality.”
In 1945, the first orchestration of the massacre of Ndi Igbo occurred in Kano, as there was the “Kano riot” against colonial bad governance. So many Igbo people lost their lives during that episode. Yet another massacre happened in 1956 for the same reason and for the singular reason that Ahmadu Bello was defeated in the Lagos parliament for his opposition to Independence to Nigeria.”
