By Newsie ED:-
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural group on Monday, condemned the ‘alleged secret shoot on sight” order that President Muhammadu Buhari administration had given to soldiers on Igbo youths.
The group warned that the order was a call for another “pogrom and genocide,” the Punch reports.
According to Ohanaeze, it had uncovered the plan of the Nigerian military to massacre Igbo youths using Fulani-Hausa military commanders.
While it advised the Federal Government against the use of force in resolving the present national crises, Prof. George Obiozor, who is the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo released a statement through the group’s spokesman, Chief Alex Ogbonnia blamed the continous extra-judicial killings of Innocent Igbo youths by security agencies and military as what brought about the new security situation in the South-East.
The statement, titled, ‘Re-shoot-on-sight order to Nigerian soldiers’, read in part
“The attention of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has been drawn to the shoot-on-sight order given to the Nigerian soldiers on how to engage Igbo youths in the coming week.
“The SaharaReporters, on May 8, elaborated on the new secret plan which by the grace of God has come to the public domain. The report further revealed that the exercise would commence from Orlu in Imo State, South-East Nigeria. This is very disturbing.
“The pattern of deployment of northern military officers to the South-East lends credence to the above report. SaharaReporters revealed that in preparation for the above, the Nigerian Army has posted northern Muslims as commanders over its operations and brigades in Anambra, Imo, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Benue, Edo, Delta and Rivers.
“In Anambra State, the Cantonment Commandant of the 302 Artillery Regiment, Onitsha, is Col. Abdulsalam Sambo, a Hausa-Fulani Muslim; while in Imo State, the Brigade Commander of 34 Brigade, Obinze, is Brig.-Gen. Ibrahim Tukura, another northerner; in Abia State.
“The Brigade Commander of 14 Brigade, Ohafia, is Brig.-Gen. M. Ibrahim, still, a northerner; while in Akwa Ibom State, the Brigade Commander of 2 Brigade, Uyo, is Brig-Gen Faruk Mijinyawa, another northerner.”
Obiozor, who was formerly Nigeria’s Ambassador to the US, while describing the report as truly worrisome, admonished the President Buhari’s administration to “learn a lesson from history by not fighting an unwinnable war against nationalism but seek possible peaceful options that are the only solution that guarantees national unity and peaceful coexistence”.
The apex Igbo socio-cultural group unequivocally described the current problems confronting Nigeria, occasioned by ethnic militia, agitation for secession, insurgency, among others as a product of sustained orchestrated injustice in governance.
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