A socio-cultural organisation, Okpara Igbo Forum (OIF) has condemned the influx of the Almajirai in the Southeast and Southsouth.
Rising from an extra-ordinary executive meeting held via virtual conferencing on Saturday May 16, 2020, the group called on Ndi Igbo to be vigilant and security conscious in the face of what it described as “a ploy to set up sleeping cells of insurgents and marauders in our land.”
In a statement issued and signed by its President General, Chief Onyebuchi Obah (Dim Okpara Igbo), the association urged Southeast governors to rise in unity against the mass movement of the Almajirai into Igboland.
“We call on the governors of Igbo speaking states to stand up and speak with one voice in total rejection of these mass movements of Almajirai into our land,” OIF said.
Frowning on the flagrant abuse of border closure and lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, the group posited: “We are not against the decision of the Northern Governors Forum to choose this period of the deadly pandemic to put a stop to the Almajirai culture, our question is why are you conveying them en-masse into our land instead of sending them back home to their parents and guardians as you promised? Or are these the ones that were brought in from Niger Republic and Chad to thumbprint ballot papers and also help in fighting and tormenting us in our own land?
“While acknowledging the fact that all Nigerians are free to move and live anywhere they choose to live, we still insist that this pandemic season is not the right time for such massive migration. The idea is to end the unproductive Almajirai culture, so why sending them over here instead of working towards eradicating it completely?”
Meanwhile, OIF whose aims and objectives are derived from its motto: Maka Odinma Ndi Igbo (For the good of the Igbo nation) has resolved to continue its sensitization programme on the outright rejection of the mass movement of the Almajirai to the Southeast region.
Other exco members that attended the meeting were Chief Nwokeji Mbala-Muoka (secretary), Odogwu Chizoba Ogboo (treasurer), and Odogwu Dozie Eboh (PRO).