Governor David Umahi Ebonyi state said Thursday that the people of south-east would not secede from Nigeria.
The governor said this at the weekly briefing organised by the Presidential Media Team in Abuja.
“We do not want to secede from Nigeria but we want a Nigeria where justice and equity prevails. We want peace,” he said.
Umahi, who lamented the increasing insecurity in the south-east, said the peaceful agitation by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other groups in the region have been hijacked by bandits.
He said the insinuation in some quotas that foreign machineries are the ones causing mayhem in the region as mere war propaganda, stressing that citizens from the south-east are responsible for the killings, the burning down of police stations and destruction of property in the region.
The governor said the agitation for a better region by Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASOB), the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Eastern Security Network (ESN) are offshoots of the years of neglect by previous governments.
He condemned the mayhem in the region and urged security operatives in the region to intensify efforts in curtailing the situation.
The governor called on youth in the region to aggregate their demands and present to the governors for onward transmission to the federal government.
Speaking on the recently launched security outfit in the region code-named Ebube Agu, the governor said the outfit is legitimate and has come to stay, adding that peace loving citizens of the states in the region have nothing to fear.
Commenting on the recent burning of some offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the south-east, the governor blamed it on criminals, who have been brainwashed that there won’t be an election in 2023.
“Some of them have been indoctrinated to believe that there will be no election in 2023 and that is very dangerous because if you say that there will be no election in your region, then the National Assembly could make an emergency law to say there will be emergency rule there and there is nothing you can do about it.
“So it is a very terrible mindset for anybody to be doing this because INEC offices have not been burnt in South-West or other parts of the country so we don’t know who is doing this but I know that they are criminals,” he said.
The governor urged Nigerians to be more patriotic and do more for the enhancement of unity among citizens.
He said political offices must be made less attractive to enable Nigerians embrace other means of livelihood as a way of addressing poverty in the country.
