South East breaking News
Leaders from South- South geo-political zone have disowned President Muhammadu Buhari over IPOB, adding that they did not have any form of discussion or agreement with Mr. President
The Leaders of thought also berated Nigeria’s President for his ‘Dot in the Circle’ statement and his assertion that some South-South leaders told him they won’t allow Ndigbo access to the sea in case they have their separate country.
It could be recalled that President Buhari during the controversial Arise TV interview last week said he was assured by “the elderly people” and “the youths” from the south-south part of the country that the region has no intention of seceding.
Buhari also said IPOB will not have “access to anywhere” even if they eventually secede from the country.
However, in an interactive session organized by Njenje Media in Conjunction with Elombah TV and anchored in United Kingdom (UK), the South South leaders present at the Conference berated President Muhammadu for describing the Igbo race of Eastern Nigeria as ‘a dot in the circle’.
Earlier Some Nigerians have cautioned Buhari that “When you believe that all Igbo are members of the IPOB it leads to Buhari’s ‘dot in the circle’ political mindset as revealed in the Arise interview”.
The South South leaders that attended the virtual conference titled, “Addressing The Dot In Circle In President Buhari’s Interview, A Return To 1966?” were Asari Dokubo, Annkio Briggs, Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki, Mr. Tony Nnadi, Lt. Col. Tony Nyiam, Rear Admiral Yanga (retd) among other participants.
Opening the stage for discussion on the matter, Annkio Briggs said the statement in the interview has already shown the mindset of the person of President Buhari.
The Ijaw woman said it doesn’t matter if the Igbo people or Ijaw people or the Itshekiri people are only 10 people or 100,000 people, you don’t refer to them as a dot in the circle, so it shows very clearly the mindset of the person of President Buhari.
Briggs who debunked claims by President Buhari in statement of Ijaw leaders said, “First of all, I don’t even recall any access or non-access to the sea during the onslaught of the civil war.
“It was the federal government that came through the sea and the creeks. So having settled that, there are millions of elders and there are millions of youths in the Niger delta, and there are ethnic nationalities in the Niger delta that make up the south-South.
“For the President to therefore assume that whoever has told him that there won’t be access to the sea, that gives him pleasure and gives him joy because obviously an attempt to divide and rule both the South-South and the South-East, which in the past between our people would have keyed into, and I warned against during the celebration of my hero Adaka Boro.
The Ijaw Woman in her statement separated IPOB from Igbo people affirming that the ties of the Niger Delta with the Igbos remain ever strong.
“As a south-south person, as a daughter of the Ijaw ethnic nationality, and as a people that have heritage, blood heritage which the Igbo people and other ethnic nationalities, we have to make it very clear to whoever is listening and to whoever is playing these games that they cannot hit the heads of the ethnic nationalities of the Niger delta and we are many, the ethnic nationalities of the Niger delta against the ethnic nationalities of Ndigbo.
“We may not agree on things per se, but one thing we do know and have, is a common enemy, a common problem, a common crisis and we do almost have a common desire, which is our “collective survival”, she added.
Also in his contribution to the issue, the, former Managing Director of DAAR Communications PLC, Dr Don Pedro Obaseki backed Mrs Brigg’s stance that the South-South and the South-East are united in the struggle for survival against the existential threat of the Buhari led administration.
Obaseki said, “There are 65 ethnic nationalities as defined by some of our leaders in the entire South-South and the man comes on public television and says he speaks to 2 elders, and some youths, it is laughable. What I see in Mr Buhari or General Buhari is like a rehash of the Amoral B code of law, an eye for an eye.
“Unfortunately, his determined eye that was injured and he is also determined on how to pay back with other eyes and that shows the President has a Pompeii syndrome and that selective compulsivity is very of this nation.”
Dr Obaseki believes the President is trying to be clever by half by trying to play the devil’s advocate in between the South-South and the South-East.
“All he said in that interview were lies from the pits of hell, but unfortunately he has created a lie, he believes the lie, he is living the ‘lie’ and on all interviews that he has done, he has made it clear that his agenda is simple, a decimation of those he feels are lesser human beings in this country, he has made it clear from his body language, spoken language and all else that Nigeria is a different country with different nations”.
Obaseki submitted that Buhari’s fallacies are a bundle of propaganda and misinformation, and cannot stop an idea whose time has come.
In addition, Col. Tony Nyiam (rtd), while making his position known stated that Buhari’s statement is a threat unbecoming of a President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of all Nigerians. He noted that it is an open revelation of an unchanging published mindset that was responsible for the 1966 killings of Ndigbo’s in particular, and the people of Eastern Nigeria in general.
Nyiam added that Buhari’s utterance is enough evidence that can be used in a court such as the international criminal court (ICC) adding that the synergy and alignment between the Igbos and the ethnic nationalities of the Niger Delta cannot be unshaken by the mischief of the President.
In his words, “And by the way, I would say this, presently the people of Akwa-Ibom are enthusiastic and the people of my region, they are enthusiastic to have an understanding with Ndigbo, that the Ngwa area, Aba, down to Onitsha so that we can have one economic corridor. Eastern Nigeria remains one powerful corridor which no divide and rule tactics would divide us.”
Making his own submission, Sectary to the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS), Tony Nnadi claimed that the President was trying to be mischievous by trying to create suspicion into the minds of the leaders of both regions.
Nnadi said, “I can confirm from what I know that there is no such promise extracted from anybody. Everybody that is involved in the matter, of course, they would find some charlatans they can give money to go and make noise, that happens all the time but the ones who are with us in this meeting are enough to tell everybody from all sides from that 360 degrees surrounding, from that Ogoni, through the Ijaw areas, all the way to the Edo, where again is the Niger Delta, they are completely involved.
“I am happy with what my brother, Don Pedro Obaseki, Ankio Briggs, Col Nyiam, said, who else are you going to ask, other than these rented crowds they get from time to time.”
Source : Daily champion newspapers