South-East governors to boycott Igbo bi-partisan meeting in Abia ― Umahi

Chairman, South-East Governors’ Forum and Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi has explained why the governors of South Eastern states will boycott the bi-partisan meeting scheduled to hold at Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s hometown in Abia State.

According to Umahi, the governors disassociated themselves from the meeting for neither being consulted nor being informed by the initiators.

He, however, called on Ohanaeze Ndigbo leadership to speak on the issues.

Umahi made this known at the end of South-East Governors’ Forum virtual meeting on Tuesday where he alleged that the recent killings, kidnapping that are going on in the zone are being sponsored by desperate politicians that have aligned themselves with some bandits to destabilize the zone.

He then vowed that the governors of South-East states will ensure that all their citizens are protected including the security agencies and others from other regions living within the zone.

He said: “Today, 5th January 2021, the South-East governors had their meeting and all the governors were in attendance and the meeting resolved as follows;

“The governors of South East frowns at such attitude and would want to disassociate themselves from such a meeting. If there should be such a meeting which they feel is very necessary, the governors must be seen to be informed and be part and parcel of calling such a meeting. They strongly feel that Ohanaeze is in a position to speak on such issues. So, they want to say that the governors are not involved and they encouraged all their people to boycott such a meeting.

“On security, the governors are so much worried on the killings and kidnappings that are going on by our people in South-East; killing our own people and then killing security agencies and the situation is being heightened by the activities of very desperate politicians. There are so many desperate politicians in all the political parties that are so desperate for power and they have aligned with some bandits in South East to destabilize the nation.

“For instance, two days ago in Ebonyi State, the Fulani settlement that decided to move to Taraba State and retain some of the family members in Ebonyi and of course, the man is still here and a politician as we have intelligently gathered went to put a voice and said that Igbo are chasing away the herdsmen from Ebonyi State. Such a video went very viral and was caused panic in other parts of the country and that is very much uncalled for.

“I want the public to discountenance this and the Governors’ Forum condemns this and we will want the leaders of South-East to rise up to speak against this kind of attitude and against messages that tend to divide us and put our people in danger outside South East. We want them to do this because the security agencies as they have informed us will not continue to fold their hands where they are being killed and their rifles collected from them. Just two days ago, two policemen were killed in Imo State and their rifles collected from them. Some kidnappings happened along the border of Enugu and Ebonyi. A kidnap case happened, thank God we rescued the person yesterday morning.

“So, we are very much worried, it is not those that are not from South East that are doing it, it is our own people that are doing it. They want to cause panic, they want to cause disunity in this country. We want the leaders of South-East to rise above political sentiments to speak out and to condemn this act because should the security people act, the cry will go everywhere.

“We have agreed that the South-East security committee will be expanded, we have agreed that this year we are going to have a common patrol. Our vehicles are going to be the same, the uniform will be the same and we will do this for our vigilante and we will continue to work with the people of South-East to give them greater protection.”

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