From: David Onwuchekwa, Nnewi
Senior Special Assistant to Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State on political matters, Hon. Arinzechukwu Awogu, has declared that the state government was not in conflict with the members and leadership of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Speaking at the residence of former Biafran warlord, Col. Joe Achuzia, who is also the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Elders of the Indigenous People of Biafra (SCIPOB), the governor’s aide noted that Anambra State, as the cradle of the Igbo race, was not unmindful of the accommodation it owed to all shades of opinion.
“We are not in conflict with our IPOB brothers. We are as a matter of principle on the same page with them in the quest for a better treatment for our people and it is our view that with some degree of understanding and a little flexibility in our approaches to resolving the Igbo question, we could make Ndigbo win on all sides of our struggles for a better homeland,” he said.
Awogu with his entourage was at the residence of the Civil war famed aeronautic engineer, Col. Achuzia, to celebrate his (Achuzie’s) 90th birthday.
Achuzia said that he bore the brunt of the civil war as he was thrown into jail for seven years after the war ended on the orders of the Federal Government under General Yakubu Gowon.
He bemoaned that those that were in power at the end of the civil war did everything against his person because of his role in the civil war except that they did not harm him which he attributed to God’s will, and for him to live to 90 years could only be God’s extraordinary grace.
Achuzia who did not mince words on topical issues demanded that he, as a person, should be addressed as “a Biafran”, saying that it reflected his true identity.
He added that he was particularly impressed with the way Governor Obiano resolved the issue of the Boko Haram convicts that were brought to Ekwulobia, in Anambra State to spite Igbo which he said created a sense of apprehension among the people.
He affirmed that it was only a true son that could have wrestled the Federal Government into relocating the terrorists from Ekwulobia. Achuzia declared that Obiano’s relocation of the Boko Haram convicts from Anambra State and the entire Igboland was the second frontal confrontation the governor was having in his defense of Ndigbo against the Nigerian establishment, the first being the Governor’s insistence on burying Biafran war victims and opting to go to jail as a result.