The assertions made by Colonel Sagir Musa, Deputy Director Army Public Relations, 82 Division in your Wednesday, June 7 opinion editorial are both instructive and informative. Being a novice in matters pertaining to security, it will be unwise of me or any other non-security personnel to refute his claims based on received intelligence and the overall corporate objective of our military to secure our democracy most professionally and in manners devoid of political undertones.
While I relished his in-depth analysis of the matter at hand and as it concerns the purported and executed Sit-at-Home order by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)/ MASSOB in recent times, it suffices me to state unequivocally that his assertions regrettably were tainted with prejudice and bias. It is not that it is untrue possibly, that the faction of defectors from the southeast of our motherland had no “grand machination to inveigle and embarrass the NA and other security agencies in the build up to the Sit-At-Home order” quoting him, it is that his choice of words reflects partisanship not expected from the non-partisan military but also deepens the divide for an already badly fractured nation.
Recall that the Presidency until recent times had insistently detained the leader of the IPOB movement Nnamdi Kalu against court orders, resulting to backlashes, deepened revolts and the hero worship of a created villain. Recall also that it took the constructive handling of the acting president to quail the virulent turmoil of the Niger Deltans. At least, we have a measure of peace today.
No section of the Nigerian populace can be undermined if we must move from where we are to where we want to be. Neither does any section of the Nigerian populace have the monopoly to vulgarism and brazen disobedience to constituted authority. Secession I know is not the answer to the lingering problems faced by the people of the southeast neither is complete abandonment by the power at the center.
As the IPOB/MASSOB factions have rights to opinions or desire for separation so does civil groups across the north. But still, to request the complete sacking of the Ibo people from the north who in the real sense of the word secession, based on research do not look forward to its materialization having made homes abroad is a reaction too steep.
Decisive leadership is what is needed, leadership that includes and does not malign any section of the Nigerian populace. If this president must succeed, he must realize he cannot exclude a section of his people. They will call him names and sing sad songs of him, no problems. Let him tar their roads, and create economic opportunities for them to succeed. It is called repaying evil with good. Then would his enemies as perceived who have railed insults also sing his praise as the one who lifted them from the shackles of mal-administration of yore.
Oliver Eze, Abuja.
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