THE People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the November 6 Anambra State governorship election Valentine Ozigbo has blamed the agitations of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on the country’s leadership failure.
The PDP) standard bearer, who stated this during a debate organised by Arise Television and Enough is Enough on Monday, also called for the unconditional release of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu from detention.
He also called on the Federal Government to lift the ban on IPOB, saying their agitations were genuine despite being linked to some of the gruesome killings in the South-East region.
“I honestly feel that what is happening is a failure of leadership. Agitation happens when there’s a failure of leadership,” he said.
“And so when there’s a vacuum, Nnamdi Kanu came up to feel that vacuum.
“Obviously, there are some areas that agitation may lead to that may not be exactly how we wanted, but truly, those agitations are founded in most cases because marginalisation happens in Nigeria and Anambra and Igbo people are part of the victims.
“So, I urge for dialogue and his release. And I urge for IPOB to be de-proscribed so that we can all sit together and solve problems.”
Ozigbo’s comments were in agreement with the statements of Senate Minority Leader Enyinnaya Abaribe, who had said that one of the reasons for secessionist agitations in some parts of the country was the inability of the Federal Government to manage Nigeria’s rich diversity.
“Why we’re having separatist agitations everywhere in the country is that some people are unable to manage our diversity,” Abaribe had said during one of his appearances on Channels Television in October.
He alleged that the people of the South-East were being marginalised and treated unfairly.
He called on the media to stop blaming every event in the region on IPOB because there were over 30 separatist groups in the South-East bent on actualising their dream of Biafra.
“One of the biggest problems that the media also has is that they tag everything IPOB in the South-East.
“You won’t believe that there are more than 30 different separatist organisations. IPOB, MASSOB, there are so many and each one of them comes back to the same thing.”
He said the present administration could only quell separatist groups in the zone, but could not kill the ideology if the root causes of the agitations were not addressed.
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