Willy Eya, Magnus Eze and Okey Sampson

The abduction of five RCCG pastors in Ondo and killing of a priest, Rev. Father Paul Offu in Enugu State have continued to elicit reactions from prominent Nigerians and groups.

Those who spoke to Saturday Sun on the development expressed worries over the spate of violence and killings in the country.

Reacting on the abduction of five RCCG pastors, the National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin said such kinds of incidents would continue to happen so long as the government cannot enforce the law.

He said: “When people commit crime, they should be punished. They say they would deploy drones and CCTVs but let us see how it would work when the government cannot enforce the laws against the perpetrators of these crimes.”

The spokesman for the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Uche Achi-Okpaga decried the insecurity situation in the country, saying it is only disintegration that is remaining in Nigeria today.

He said the spate of violence in the country without commensurate response from the authorities is pushing people to resort to self-help.

His words, “That the Fulani herders are attacking and killing people has become a beer parlour secret but what surprises me is that when you talk about it, people ask you why are you mentioning the Fulani people. These people are arrested for a crime and tomorrow, they would be released; why? But in the same country, people are free to ascribe all kinds of crimes to IPOB and Niger Delta militants who have done nothing.”

Reacting to the killing of the Enugu priest, leader of IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu blamed some Igbo political leaders over the murder of Fr. Offu on Thurs- day night. In a release endorsed by IPOB Media and Publicity Secretary, comrade Emma Powerful on behalf of the group’s leader, Kanu said the death of the priest was a direct conse- quence of a “disgracefully timid and failed leadership model of acquiescence to the dictates of Fulani ruler- ship in return for crumbs in Igboland.

Kanu regretted that “years of slavish submission to the whims of semi-literate Fulani cattle herders have reduced two successive generations of Igbo leadership since after the war to mere tools of the Fulani caliphate in their agenda of conquest and subjugation of the South.

Kanu said some Igbo leaders connived with the Federal Government to ban, proscribe, kill and clamp down on IPOB which he said, could have fought the herders to a standstill.

“The family of Rev. Fr. Paul Offu and all besieged communities in Enugu and Ebonyi must hold these leaders Ohaneze Ndigbo, Aka Ikenga, Nzuko Umunna, South East Governors’ Forum and other mush- room Lagos-Abuja based Igbo/Fulani socio-cultural associations responsible for these preventable deaths in our land.

“They are the people that conspired and supervised Operation Python Dance 2 that killed, detained and abducted many IPOB in the calculated effort of Caliphate to neutralise the credible threat IPOB posed for their invading Fulani terror herdsmen.

The IPOB leader said notwithstanding the sabotage from within, the group has successfully stopped many large scale Fulani terror invasions and will continue to do so as much remained to be done.

The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) also condemned the gruesome murder of Fr. Offu by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

MASSOB leader, Comrade Uchenna Madu in a statement urged Ndigbo to stop lamenting hopelessly and urged Igbo and church leaders to recognise the capability of pro-Biafra groups to defend their people.

MASSOB charged the Igbo political, religious, traditional and opinion leaders to immediately convene an “ime mkpuke” meeting of Ndigbo now to redress this atrocities in Igbo land.

“MASSOB and other pro Biafra agitators are willing and ready to defend Igbo land in our traditional way,” Madu stated.

MASSOB also flayed the involvement of the Spiritual Director of Adoration Ministry, Rev Fr. Ejike Mbaka’in the Catho- lic priests’ protest in Enugu.

They called Fr Mbaka a hypocrite, because he had prophesied that “President Buhari is the political Messiah Nigeria needs because of mundane and material gains.”

Reacting to the development, the Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Lagos Chapter, Apostle Israel Akinadewon in a short text message to Saturday Sun correspondent simply said, “ we are praying already sir.”