(By Ben Dunno – WARRI)
The Onyeisi (Leader) Ndigbo, Delta Central and South Senatorial District, Eze (Sir) Peter Chibueze Chukwu, has urged the Igbos to stop complaining of marginalisation, but to take advantage of its numerical strength to negotiate its political relevance in the country.
Giving the advice at a news briefing in Warri on Monday, January 3, Eze Chukwu, said that the complacency of Igbos in the electoral processes has been responsible for the low representation of the ethnic group in national politics, stressing that the Igbo people has all it takes politically to be politically ascendant.
“Our people are still living with the past experience of the civil war, where successive military rule has relegated our sense of reasoning and abused our collective sensibility by using Igbos against the Igbos and choosing to support charlatans as leaders among the N’digbo…,” the leader said.
“Igbos are no longer marginalized and those who feel marginalized should de-marginalize themselves,” he said.
Commenting on separatist leader of the Independent People Of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu, currently facing treason charges, Eze Chukwu urged the federal government to endeavour to dialogue with him, stating that this would not be the first time a Nigerian government would dialogue with suspects charged with treasonable felony.
He cited examples with the Gen Yakubu Gowon (Rtd.) government that dialogued with the duo of Isaac Adaka Boro, Norton Dick and Anthony Owunaro with some South South leaders in 1966, and the that of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was charged of treason in 1964 by late Alhaji Abubakar Tàfawa Balewa, then the Prime Minister, but later granted pardon by Gen. Gowon in 1966 after negotiating with South West leaders.
“These two great men later contributed to the national growth in different capacities. Isaac Adaka Boro later enlisted in Nigerian Army and fought gallantly, and Awolowo later became the federal minister of finance and gave a good account of himself,” adding that same gesture could be extended to Nnamdi Kanu by the Buhari administration.