The Senator representing Sokoto North in the National Assembly, Aliyu Wamakko, has condemned the recent violence unleashed against Northerners and their businesses by members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, in the south-eastern states of the country.
Issuing a statement on Saturday, the activities of these miscreants are now snowballing into a raging fire that is threatening the peace and stability of Nigeria as a country.
He said: “What could have been dismissed as the action of a few ‘misguided’ youths is now clearly becoming an agenda for which there is almost a wholesome backing from those who should have cautioned their children and nip the emerging crisis in the bud.”
“While expressions and legitimate demands fall within the constitutional rights of all citizens in a constitutional democracy, it is sad to note that what we are witnessing today has transcended beyond genuine expression into a full-scale war against Nigeria and a section of its peoples,” Mr Wamakko lamented.
The Senator recalled that many Northerners living peacefully in some states in the South-East had come under “undue harassments” lately while a number of them had been murdered in cold blood for simply coming from a section of the country.
“Prior to the assassination of Ahmed Gulak last Sunday in Imo, tens of our people have suffered similar fate in the hands of the increasingly emboldened IPOB militants.
“Those killings are largely under-reported perhaps because the victims are not prominent and partly because of a deliberate culture of silence in a section of the media about what are happening.
“In the past week alone, there have been three incidences of arsons and looting against properties belonging to Northern traders travelling in the South-East.
“Last weekend, a truck of onions with about 500 bags of the commodity was ransacked by members of the IPOB in a daylight robbery in Owerri.
“They sold the onions and ran away with the money before the police could save the other truck they similarly took.
“Around the same time, two trucks conveying palm oil from Enugu to Kano were intercepted and razed down in Nsukka, for no reason.
“Just yesterday, a truck delivering livestock to Anambra was burnt down along with the animals it carried in the streets of Awka,” he lamented.
Mr Wamakko, who is a former governor of Sokoto State, called on Igbo leaders in the Southeast to call their kinsmen to order.
He said: “Regrettably but curiously, our friends and compatriots, leaders of Igbo extraction, have remained dead silent in the face of increasing assault and effort by their own people to stock a nationwide mayhem.
“For whatever reason it is, I want to loudly call them out to speak up. Silence is no longer acceptable in the face of this clear danger and threat against the country.
“The silence by political leaders and other prominent persons from that part of the country tells us only one thing: Their tacit approval for the activities of the murderous IPOB gangs.”
