By Agatha Emeadi
His Grace, Dr Emmanuel Chukwuma, the Archbishop of Enugu Ecclesiastical Province, Anglican Communion, has berated the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, for faulting the gesture of the United Kingdom to grant members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) asylum over alleged persecution.
The minister had argued that the UK move would sabotage Nigeria’s fight against terrorism.
Irked by the minister labelling IPOB and MASSOB terrorist groups, Archbishop Chukwuma said that Mohammed had left the substance to chase mere shadow.
Hear him: “Look at what is happening in the country today, no where is safe again. Fulani herdsmen are causing mayhem, killing and maiming people everywhere, they kill and rape women in their farms, they kidnap school children everywhere in the country. They carry AK-47 and other dangerous weapons yet the Federal Government has not proscribed them or labelled them terrorists.
“Rather they are busy hounding unarmed IPOB members, which I see as leaving the substance to chase shadow. IPOB created their ESN, Eastern Security Network, and they are guarding the forests in Igbo land against terrorists, but you have gone there to dislodge them so that the Igbo will be defenseless and continued to be massacred.”
He, therefore, advised Mohammed that rather than chastise IPOB, he should advise the Federal Government to incorporate them into the security network of the Southeast, saying that in the few months their ESN began operation the region had been relatively safe until the government went to Orlu in Imo State to dislodge them from the forest.
Archbishop Chukwuma also called on the Federal Government to without further delay declare Fulani herdsmen as terrorists.
This, he said, would help stem the ugly tide of insecurity that is spreading like a wild fire in the country.