A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in South East of Nigeria, Dr. Chinedu Jideofo-Ogbuagu has urged South East Governors to emulate their South West counterparts in dealing with youth restiveness and insecurity in the region.

The South East APC stalwart in a statement on Sunday frowned at the unleashing of security forces against Igbo youths over a sit-at-home call by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in honour of our people who perished during the 1966-1970 Nigerian civil war.

The full statement reads:

South-East governors should not be overzealous concerning IPOB/ESN. If Nnamdi Kanu called for sit-at-home in honour of our people who perished during the 1966-1970 crisis, is that a reason for South-East governors to invite the army, police and civil defence to their state to terrorize innocent South-Easterners.

30th May had been observed for years before they became governors. This year, 30th May even falls on Sunday. If people stayed at home on a Sunday, how did that concern and affect the governors?

Have South-East governors not been following how South-West governors quickly established Amotekun with legal backing, equipped and funded the security outfit.

As if in defiance of South-West governors and their Amotekun, Sunday Igboho did not only set up a parallel vigilante group, but has also been using his illegal group to sack terrorists from South-West forests and been declaring “Yoruba Republic” in different South-West states without anyone proscribing his group or arresting them.

Sunday Igboho’s brother is Vice President and another of his brothers is “National Leader” of APC who wants to become Nigeria’s President in 2023.

Instead of arresting Sunday Igboho, Gani Adams, Femi Fani-Kayode, etc of the Oduduwa separatist movements, a South-West governor has decreed that all pupils and students in his state must recite the Oduduwa national anthem everyday!

South-East governors should face governance and stop seeing Nnamdi Kanu as their problem. He is not. They should stop behaving as if they are in office to compete with Kanu.

I must say that if South-East governors had done well since 1999 (including in the area of security), IPOB would not have come into existence.

They should change now by borrowing a leaf from their more mature, wise and self-confident South-West counterparts. They must not be used by enemies of the South-East to kill Ndigbo and destroy what we laboured since 1970 to rebuild.

Chinedu Jideofo-Ogbuagu