President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, has condemned the recent police attack and alleged burning down of the residence of counsel to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Ifeanyi Ejiofor.
The apex Igbo cultural organization in a statement in Enugu, yesterday, called for a judicial inquiry into the matter describing it as a case of unprovoked attack on a law-abiding citizen of the country whose only crime was that he peacefully objected to the maltreatment of his people.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo observed that the spurious claim by the police that Ejiofor was “involved in a case of abduction, assault occasioning harm and malicious damage to property” was baseless because nobody was mentioned as the victim of the allegations.
It said that assuming without conceding that Ejiofor was culpable on a charge of abduction, the only option in law available to the police was arrest and prosecution under the laws of Nigeria and not deliberate arson and wanton destruction of his family home.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo further stated that even before its wrongful proscription, IPOB had never been a violent group and could not have summoned enough force to attack and kill any policeman to warrant drafting in reinforcement. The release frowned on the situation where any mild expression of dissent against the manifest injustice being perpetrated against a particular ethnic group in the country will be met with maximum force by the Federal Government.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo further called for a halt to the apparent and incessant physical, economic and political harassment of Ndigbo in a country watered with their blood, noting that they had striven to keep and grow the country with their presence in all nooks and crannies of Nigeria.
(Daily Sun)