From Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
National Legal Adviser and immediate past president of University of Nigeria Alumni Association (UNAA), Onitsha Branch, Chris Ajugwe, has described the gruesome murder of Dr Chike Akunyili moments after attending the association’s programme in Onitsha as an extraordinarily devastating, sad and chilling news to the alumni in Nigeria and the Diaspora.
Ajugwe who initiated the Dora Akunyili Memorial Lecture as the then president and sat at the same high table with Dr Akunyili throughout the event held at Sharon Hall Onitsha, lamented that the leadership of IPOB appeared to be helpless as their peaceful agitation for self-determination for Ndigbo seems to have been hijacked by hoodlums, who unleash reign of terror and mayhem on the people, with innocent blood flowing like river in the streets and businesses collapsing in Igbo land.
The legal practitioner insisted that it was a veritable fact that the so-called unknown gunmen operated throughout the length and breathe of Anambra State on the black ‘Tuesday’ from dawn to dusk and even beyond killing people at random, unhindered, as all security agencies in the state had taken flight.
He said that all other guests who attended the University of Nigeria Alumni Association event that day went back safely regretting that the killing of Dr Akunyili was totally uncalled for and forever painful.
Ajugwe said President Muhammadu Buhari should bear direct responsibility for the state of anarchy and killings in the southeast owing to his adamant posture towards addressing long decades of marginalization and deprivation of Ndigbo in the appointment of sensitive positions and development projects.
“Despite all pleas to Mr President to reflect federal character in his government as enshrined in the Constitution, Buhari had remained adamant, preferring to treat Ndigbo as slaves and second class citizens in their fatherland. He therefore bears direct responsibility over the state of anarchy in the South East,” he said.