From David Onwuchekwa, Nnewi
First Republic Aviation minister, Mbazulike Amechi, has described, as a cheap and blatant falsehood, a recent allegation that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) planned to attack Lagos State.
Amechi explained that the amity and understanding between the Yoruba and the Igbo were so deep, fundamental and sacrosanct that they were sealed with the blood of two great heroes.
He recalled that when the northern soldiers went to arrest and kill General Aguiyi Ironsi at Ibadan in 1966 that the then military governor of Western Region, Col. Adekunle Fajuyi, told them that Ironsi was his guest, that they could not arrest or kill him at his lodge or in the Western Region. He said the two eventually died together in the hands of non-commissioned officers.
“Again, when the Federal Government of Tafawa Belewa tried Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the Yoruba leader and premier emeritus of the Western Region and found him guilty of some offences, they sent him to prison and to serve his sentence at Calabar prison.
“The then premier of the Eastern Region, Dr. Michael Okpara, quickly arranged and directed an Igbo man, who had a building near the prison, to vacate his building and Awolowo moved in with his catering and all domestic staff provided by the Eastern Government.
“His wife was placed on ministerial salary and requisites paid from Enugu. She was issued an official car with a driver paid from Enugu. If anybody thinks he can pit the Igbo against Yoruba or kill the solidarity of the South to liberate themselves from the programmed enslavement by any external force, that person is dreaming,” the elder statesman said.
He said he was told that the Senate president had admonished the southern governors to go and solve the crises in their states, asking whether there were more crises in the South than in the North, “where whole villages are wiped out and buildings burnt, where hundreds of young men and women are kidnapped and killed, where Boko Haram has expanded as far as Niger, Katsina and Zamfara states.”
He insisted that if there were security crises in the southern Nigeria, that they were caused by Fulani adventurers from the North. He said the southern governors had resolved to contain them, adding that the people of southern Nigeria, “and, indeed, Benue State must rise and save and defend their part of Nigeria from the fantasy and wild day dream of colonisation, Islamisation and Fulanisation.”