Why centrifugal forces are pulling the country down —Archbishop Chukwuma

Interview with the Anglican Archbishop of Enugu Ecclesiastical Province and Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Most Reverend Dr Emmanuel Chuwuma, speaks with JUDE OSSAI on the agitations heating up the polity.

WHAT is your reaction to the quit notice issued by the Northern Youths to Igbo living in the North?

I frowned at the action of the coalition of Arewa youths. I was not also happy with the nation’s security agencies for waiting to be prompted to arrest the signatories to the quite order and their sponsors before doing the needful. The action of the northern youths was worse that whatever that the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu was accused of committing, yet the later was picked up by security agents immediately they set their eyes on him.

On the divergent views on whether Ndigbo should start quitting the North, I urge the Igbo not to rush home but to stay back and watch the Federal Government’s disposition and action first. Igbo should not embark on any rash decision of abandoning their hard-earned investments and property because of the regrettable threat of the northern youths.

Nigeria seems to be at a crossroads. Will it survive the separatist agenda?

Nigeria will survive its current problems. There is no issue of separatist agenda. The present situation has made the need for a referendum on the continued existence of the Nigerian marriage more imperative. Those who used to think that Nigerian unity is non-negotiable have seen that it is actually negotiable and are yearning for a re-negotiation. A situation where our people will be brought back home with one leg, one arm or mutilated body will not be tolerated at all.

If we know that we can no longer live as one anymore, then we better discuss it and fashion out ways to disperse peacefully and not for anybody to issue quite notice to the Ndigbo.

Such will not hold any water. Nothing warrants anybody the right to give Ndigbo the ultimatum to leave the North, and I am disappointed in the utterances of some leaders and elders in the North who are fanning the embers of hatred and declaring support to the action of the northern youths. Referendum is the answer to the present situation in the country.

If there is an agreement on whether to leave, how and when to leave, then it becomes a different thing. But the way the so-called coalition is going, they are goofing. If they are doing that and dreaming to take over the properties of Ndigbo in the North, it will  amount to joke taken too far. The northern youths should be very careful because their action can trigger off another Civil War. And it is only those that did not witness the first Civil War that can wish for another. Let leaders of the North call their youths to order.