IGBO SHOULD SEPARATE THEMSELVES FROM NNAMDI KANU, IPOB - DASUKI

A former Information Minister, Dasuki Nakande, has called on Igbos to dissociate themselves from the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu and the struggle for succession.

Nakande, who was a minister under late President Musa Yar'Adua, in a talk with the Tribune said Igbos should also dissociate from the IPOB because it is a "rebel group."

He made the remarks while giving his comments on the question of the agitation of secession by the southeast.

He criticized governors in the region over their silence to the sit-at-home order recently ordered by the IPOB, which enjoyed great compliance.

According to Nakande, “Their comments are divisive; if you take the position of the South-East for instance, when Uwazuruike and later Kanu were agitating for Biafra with secessionist agenda, their people did not say anything and in the process they were heaping insults.

“They were insulting northern traditional rulers; they were insulting the leadership of the North. No one from the East came out to condemn the act or dissociate themselves from what the proponents of the Biafra were saying and they allowed it until it came to a head.

“The same Kanu, who is being tried in a court of competent jurisdiction, went on to pronounce that people should not go to work.

“One would expect that in a decent society, you have an elected government and there are civil servants virtually in all parts of the eastern Nigeria.

“No single governor from the East came out to say, while we respect the right of anybody not to go out of his house, they must also respect the right of others who want to go to work, who are guided by the civil service rules to go their places of work in peace and call the police to maintain law and order.

“So, there is some level of complicity from the elite, especially from the South-East.

“The Igbo need to do more in terms of dissociating themselves from this pro-rebellion group.”