The Ohanaeze Ndigbo has called for a stop to the recurring practice of Ndigbo being made to bear the brunt of any conflict between other ethnic groups in the northern parts of the country.
Reacting to the recent looting and burning of the property of Ndigbo in Dan-Anacha, Taraba State, the apex Igbo cultural organization lamented that from the reports of the victims of the attack, there was nothing Ndigbo in Taraba State had said or done to warrant the mayhem unleashed on them by their northern brothers on that day, a recurrence of similar attacks on Ndigbo living in the north in the past.
In a press statement, the Media Adviser to the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Emeka Attamah, decried a situation where operatives from different security outfits were standing by and watching as Igbo traders and families were running helter skelter for their dear lives while their attackers were carting away their wares and property and burning the rest for more than twelve hours uninterrupted, and wondered if it was under this kind of intimidation, harassment and daylight robbery that the Inspector-General of Police was asking people to surrender their guns and become sitting targets for their tormentors
The organization remarked that a situation where law enforcement agents stand aside and watch people from another ethnic group being harassed or killed means only one thing: defend yourselves, adding that such a situation made nonsense of the order by the IGP and could engender a civil war.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo observed that it was when the fulanis went to attack a Tiv settlement but found out that their firing power couldn’t match that of the Tivs that they decided to attack Ndigbo who probably had complied with the Inspector General of Police’s order to surrender their weapons.
It called on the Federal Government to carry out a thorough investigation into the matter and bring the perpetrators to book and make restitutions to those who lost their property in that dastardly act.