Raphael Ede, Enugu
The Igbo apex socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has condemned the continuous massacre of innocent Nigerians in the Middle Belt part of the country, describing the comparison by the President Muhammad Buhari of killings in Plateau state to those of Zamfara State as most unfortunate.
The foremost Igbo body said that it believed that no human life was greater than the other and that two wrongs do not make a right, while calling on the President to stop the vicious circle of killings in the country.
Ohanaeze stated this in a release issued, on Thursday, by Special Adviser to the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo on Media and Publicity, Chief Emeka Attamah, in Enugu.
The body stated that rather than compare the number of casualties, the Federal Government should rejig its security apparatus, stop further killings and appease the families and communities affected by the senseless killings.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo expressed the fear that from the trend of events, it appeared as if General T.Y. Danjuma’s outcry that there was a grand design by some people to carry out ethnic cleansing in the country and that government was colluding with them was justified.
The group called on the Federal Government to allay the fears of the people, especially with the double standards being exhibited by it in the handling of the issues of IPOB and the suspected Fulani herdsmen.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo observed that while the Federal Government proscribed the IPOB, a harmless organisation, the Miyetti Allah, which have openly claimed responsibility for most of the have gone around unscathed.
The release further said that if the Federal Government could label IPOB a terrorist organisation, there was no reason the Miyetti Allah, the umbrella body of cattle herders, should not be proscribed and their leaders prosecuted.
It stated that if the Federal Government was not being partisan, why the silence on the utterances of Miyetti Allah, which also advanced the killing of their cattle in the Benue massacres for their attacks there.
Ohanaeze asked how many suspected Fulani herdsmen had been taken to court for either the killings in the country or for carrying Ak-47 rifles about in the full glare of security operatives, contrary to the provisions of the law.
It wondered what should be the punishment for those herdsmen alleged to have killed more than 200 people in a Christian-populated area in Plateau State if five Christians had been condemned to death for allegedly killing a herdsman.