Ohanaeze insists only restructuring can save Nigeria’s unity

By STEVE UZOECHI and KENNETH UFUOMA

Pan Igbo socio-political organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo for the umpteenth time has called on the leaders of the country to avoid a break up of Nigeria by restructuring the polity, even as it backed the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo that there is a crack in the walls of the country and requires prayers to keep it intact.

Special Adviser Media to President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, Chief Emeka Attamah, said this in an interview with Sunday Telegraph in Enugu.

On the threat by some pro secessionist groups in South West and South East who said they would declare Oduduwa and Biafra nations respectively from October 1, 2020, Ohanaeze said her position had always been clear that it stood for restructuring of the country. Ohanaeze said that the remark credited to Osinbajo was one of the most honest statements by a top political office holder in recent time, which deserves commendation.

“It’s true that there is a crack and Nigeria needs a prayer to avoid break up. It is inimitable; nobody can deny that; even a blind man can feel the crack. So if somebody who is inside can say it this way then it means that there is no point debating it.

“That is the most honest statement to come from any leading government official in this country for some time now. They need to look into it and find out what actually created that crack and how to cement it.

“It is very clear that something has to be done to avert the break up. First of all there has to be restructuring, you have to restructure, we are not running a federation in this country, what we are running is a unitary government; especially you are also talking about the Federal Government taking over the water ways, rivers and all that. Isn’t that a further unitary government?

“People are talking about things getting down to local government areas. You are talking about harnessing everything to the centre, no, no, no they are not sincere. If they want the country to survive, because that water bill will be the final nail in the coffin of this country because fighting and conflict will erupt in so many places at the same time and Federal Government will not be able to contain it.”

Also weighing in the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), said Nigeria is irredeemable. MASSOB leader, Comrade Uchenna Madu dismissed the Vice President’s call to prayers as ‘a waste of time’ adding that his sudden realization of the sorry state of the country was belated after years of the government’s self-deceiving lies and propaganda. He said the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Muhammadu Buhari, to a large extent exacerbated Nigeria’s drift to the path of destruction.

“The deteriorating situation of Nigeria is irredeemable and cancerous. The parasitic virus affecting the Nigerian state has eaten deep into her bones and marrows thereby permanently consigning Nigeria to a sick bed.

“Suddenly solemn realisation has dawned on the Vice President of Nigeria and he is rising in defence of a crumbling and irreparable Nigeria. “Anything that had any semblance of life and hope had since been buried by President Muhammadu Buhari with his primitive clannish, expansionist and domination agenda.

His actions and inactions against the indigenous ethnic people of this country, has roused the instinct for selfpreservation and heightened the consciousness for self-detersination among the people of the Middle Belt, South-West, South-East and South-South Nigeria respectively. The way he is going, President Muhammadu Buhari may end up the last President of Nigeria, as we know it.” (New Telegraph)