Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri and Chuks Onuoha, Aba

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has said that the exclusion of the Southeast zone from the $22.7 billion loan approved by the Senate for infrastructural deficiencies in the country showed that the zone was never an integral part of the country.

Media and Publicity Secretary of the group, Emma Powerful made this claim in a press statement he made available to newsmen in Owerri yesterday.

He also described the situation where the zone would be begging to be included in the loan as shameful and degrading, just as he urged the zone to fight for what is rightfully theirs instead of begging for it.

According to Powerful, IPOB gathered that Southeast Senators and governors were lobbying through the National Assembly for the region to be included in the sharing of the $22.7 billion loan from China, saying that their action was “embarrassing, tactless and indicative of their ignorance and that of those who still believe in the myth of one Nigeria.”

Following the exclusion of the zone, IPOB emphasized that the Southeast has never been regarded as part of Nigeria despite it laying the golden egg.

“Despite years of bootlicking and willful submission to the hegemonic whims of the Fulani caliphate, these minions are yet to realise that Nigeria is not one and can never be. This latest humiliation is heightened when one considers the fact that all the resources, both human and natural, that sustain and drive economic life in Nigeria come exclusively from Biafra land.

“It is a thing of shame that a people so blessed and endowed by God Almighty will so humiliatingly reduce their status to that of beggars instead of fighting for what is rightfully theirs.

“We the global family of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) will continue to openly condemn such brazen act(s) of shameless humiliation by the Efulefu political class domiciled in Abuja and Lagos.

Also, the Youth Wing of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide decried the Federal Government’s effort to secure the $22.7 billion for national development, and leaving out the entire Southeast Region from benefiting from that loan.

The Ohanaeze youths in a statement issued at the weekend expressed bitter surprise over the development.

They described as broad day robbery that the Southeast, one of the six geopolitical zones that make up Nigeria, and  a bona fide member of Nigeria, was deliberately discriminated against when a national development plan and policy.

The statement signed by Obute Ifeanyi, media aide to the National Deputy President, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youths, Dr Kingsley Dozie, wondered why the Southeast was “excluded when it comes to collective enjoyments, but when it comes to collective burden, they are included.

“Wherein lies equity, justice and fairness that is a universal norm?”

The youths said that the controversial loan, which the 9th Senate hurriedly approved, once again, reaffirmed the suspicion that has been very rife that Nigeria is not really one.