|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Member representing Ezeagu Constituency in Enugu State House of Assembly, Honourable Chima Obieze has condemned the ultimatum issued by a coalition of northern youth groups in the North asking Igbos to leave the region within ninety days.
The lawmaker who spoke on the floor of the House during plenary described the vacation notice as thoughtless, ethnocentric, barbaric, callous and unacceptable.
Obieze observed that every Nigerian has the constitutional right to live and own property in any part of the country irrespective of religion, ethnic or political background.
“A few days ago a coalition of northern youth groups gave an ultimatum to all our people residing and doing businesses in the north to vacate and leave the north forthwith, giving them a ninety-day ultimatum to leave the north. I do think that it is imperative that this chamber condemns the act which is thoughtless, ethnocentric, barbaric, callous and unacceptable”. He noted.
The lawmaker who is also the Chairman House Committee on Agriculture averred that “ it is only when the people of the south-east or the old Eastern region vote that they want to go, that we should be allowed to go. That is when the north will tell us we should go back on our own. But so long that the 1999 constitution still subsists as the ground norm, the highest law of this land…. no ethnic group, no geopolitical region has the right to tell the other geopolitical zone that they should leave. 
He told the North to stop the witch-hunting, threat and deliberate marginalisation of the south-east and called on security agencies to rise to the occasion and protect lives and property of Igbo resident in the northern region.
“I call on the security agencies in the country if they believe that Nigeria is one, to rise to the defence of all the Igbos in the north, arrest and prosecute all those who made the call. That call is an action that has the capacity to bring war. That call has the capacity to disrupt the peace our people are already enjoying in the northern part of Nigeria.” he said.
WATCH VIDEO: on CityPost TV
Obieze attributed the call by the Northern youth groups to the success recorded in the Sit-at-Home order in the south-east to mourn the death of Biafrans in the civil war adding that people did not obey the sit-at-home order because of Nnamdi Kanu but because they have someone who suffered the ills of the civil war.
“Let me use this opportunity to call on the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and well-meaning leaders in Nigeria, leaders of thought, to condemn this call in the interest of this nation”, adding Nigeria is too big for any individual.
