Poly Chinenye Samez
The torching of Owerri Correctional Service Centre and the Police Headquarters by unknown gunmen in Owerri early Easter Monday is another pointer to the fact that all is not well with the security situation in the State of Imo in particular and the South Eastern region in general.
While I frown at this development, I make haste to recall my incessant calls on the political leaders of the region to think out of the box in order to give the youths good democratic governance and deserving dividends of democracy, as well as, avoiding the use of brutal force in solving agitations for freedom and self determination or any peaceful protest at all.
I have continued to champion a new generation of political leadership in the region that would be people oriented, devoid of self-centeredness, selfishness and crab mentality in governing and leading the people politically. Unfortunately, the chicken has come home to roost. Things have fallen apart, and the centre holds no more. How should we contain and reverse this impending catastrophe?
It’s time for all the political actors, including the religious and traditional leaders in the region to unite to find a common ground to stop this malfeasance from permeating further because the youths are angry and the men are hungry. The girls are in want, no jobs and living conditions deteriorate every minute.
The government and supporters of its impunities and high-handedness are complicit in all of this:
– When they christened IPOB, unarmed crusaders of freedom as terrorists, and the region’s political elites clapped and whined.
– When they massacred in cold blood, innocent unarmed IPOB members at Afara Ukwu Umuahia, and they laughed over it at the conference halls.
– When they offloaded and rolled innocent Igbo youths inside muddy waters and forced them to drink the dirty water, yet no one saw any wrong.
– When they invited the military to bomb Orlu and claimed responsibilities, yet no one was reprimanded.
– When they clamped them down rather than roundtable discussions and negotiations.
– When they thought that brutal force was required to suppress peaceful agitations.
– When all prolonged calls for true federalism fell on deaf ears.
– When clamping into prisons, the innocent young men and women on trumped up charges became the order of the day at various States of the federation.
– When the young and the aged were massacred at Obigbo, and hundreds were arrested and clamped into prisons and the region’s political leaders went on felicitation and congratulatory dance.
– When people lamented injustices and lopsidedness in appointments and distribution of common patrimony, with no attention given.
I maintain that this government and some supporters of its impunities are the enablers of what’s happening and what will happen in future in the region. I pray and wish that it’s arrested now before it blows wild, out of proportion, because the men are not laughing. If they can successfully touch the Owerri Correctional Centre and Police Headquarters unchallenged, it then means that, Agwo nu na akrika.
Let me remind us that this may be only just a sign. If nothing is quickly done in a positive direction, it may be worse than this.
Something reasonable must be done now. The government must change tactics and any tactics other than negotiations may be counterproductive.
Except anyone is grossly inflated in destroying Ala-Igbo, the reasonable thing to do now is to call for a truce via a high powered roundtable negotiation. Let the Governors hasten up in bringing the federal government to commence the negotiation with IPOB and all other aggrieved parties in the region, as they negotiated with herdsmen, bandits and Boko Haram in the North, Niger Delta militants in the South-South or OPC in the South-West.
Deprescribing IPOB as a terrorist organization should be topmost in the negotiation agenda. Immediate release of the prisoners of conscience from their various jails and extending amnesty to them should be another.
I make this appeal passionately because this pregnant rain may fall on all and sundry if nothing is urgently done to stop it. Bring in the rainmakers now! Brutal force can’t solve it as it’s not known to have solved matters of this nature in the past.
It’s highly irresponsible leadership to blame a particular group of people when investigations have not proved that. Let the counter accusations and blame games stop forthwith and let Ako-na-Uche take the driver’s seat! Igbo, tetanu na ura!
