Stop pitting Yoruba against Igbo – Ohanaeze tells AG Malami after claims IPOB attacks on Oba Akiolu

Socio-cultural Igbo group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has warned the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, to “stop pitting the Yoruba against the Igbos living in Lagos.”

Malami had, at a press conference last Friday, October 22, accused leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, of instigating the attack on the palace of the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu and several other destructions in Lagos during the October 2020 EndSARS protest by the youths.

Reacting to the statement, Ohanaeze warned the AGF to desist from playing the ethnic card saying his remarks were “inelegant, imprudent, malicious, treacherous and fallacious.

It also denied the allegation that the IPOB vandalised and looted the palace of the Oba of Lagos and burnt over 150 buses at the Lagos bus terminal.

A statement by National Publicity Secretary, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Alex Ogbonnia, wondered how Malami would be dragging IPOB into the attack on the Oba’s palace when some 15 suspects had been arrested by the police and none of them were Igbos.

“The police brought 15 suspects before a Lagos State Magistrate Court sitting at Ogba, in the Ikeja magisterial district, with charges bordering on theft and felony. The court documents with the charge number CR/MISC/ES/L/002020 revealed that all the suspects charged by the Nigeria Police are Messrs Eniafe Olawale, Gbenga Ajayi, Lamidi Rafiu, Oladunmoye Ayodeji, Soliu Tajudeen, Ahmed Olayinka, Samuel Damilola, Wasiu Grewa, Habib Salit, Nurudeen Yusuf, Safiu Quadri Lekan, Afolabi lukuman and Yusuf Babalola,” Ogbonnia said.

Ogbonnia said IPOB members are children of Ohanaeze, stating any unwarranted attack on the pro-Biafra group is an attack on the entire Igbo.

“Malami should know that the Yoruba do not spill the Igbo blood and vice versa. The likes of Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, who chose the supreme price instead of betraying an Igbo in the person of General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi, have replicated across board in millions. Perhaps, Malami does not know the historic role played by the current Oba of Lagos, as a police officer, for the return from exile of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Ikemba Nnewi in 1982.

“Malami should know that the Igbo-Yoruba relation has given rise to several high profile intermarriages with bubbling grown up children and grand-children. More of the above sources of unity and inter-ethnic solidarity were accentuated when the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, George Obiozor, paid a courtesy visit to the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in his Lagos Office.

“Malami should know that the internet world has left him behind. All his game-plans are crude and anachronistic. The Malami sinister motives of heaping all criminalities in Nigeria on IPOB or the Igbo, including the crimes where arrests have been made and the known culprits already arraigned is most unethical, unprofessional and unbefitting of his office.

“Some other crimes that Malami ascribes to IPOB are still under investigation and arrests so far made are not linked to IPOB. The Malami perversions are very strange to law and, indeed, a new dimension in Nigerian justice delivery system.

“Malami card is to paint the South East as a terrorist zone, to prepare a ground for the use of the newly acquired American Super Tucano Fighter Jets in the zone. Malami should be reminded that the very condition for the sale and release of the jets to Nigeria by the USA is that they will be used strictly to fight the Boko Haram terrorists in the North East and incessant banditry in the North West.

“Furthermore, Malami is playing god by believing that the 2023 is the end of the world and is plotting hard against the Igbo interest. Unfortunately, Malami has crossed the red line.”