By Chidi Nkwopara

OWERRI —The Ohanaeze Ndigbo has expressed serious concern at the way hundreds of Igbo are systematically eliminated in Nigeria, including the current violent campaigns by the dreaded Boko Haram Islamist fundamentalists.

President of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Abuja Branch, Chief Odozi Nwodozi, yesterday, when he paid a courtesy visit to the founder of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, Chief Ralph Uwazuruike in Owerri, Imo State, said: “Hundreds of Igbo people have lost their lives and many others displaced due to the ongoing violent campaign by the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East states of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno.

“We will like to know what government has done to ameliorate their sufferings,” Nwodozi said.

According to Nwodozi, most of these displaced persons, who relocated to Abuja are still being confronted with more life-threatening challenges and harassment without anybody speaking for them.

“Recently, majority of these displaced Igbo people fell into the hands of fraudulent people in Abuja, where they were asked to pay N50,000 for the construction of a shop at Karo area of Abuja. After building these shops, they were forced out of the shops on the condition that they must pay additional N4 million before taking full ownership of the shops.”

It was his view that if an Igbo son or daughter was the nation’s chief security  officer, Ndigbo would not have been so vulnerable to attacks in parts of the country.

“Sincerely speaking, if an Igbo man is a member of Security Council, such injustice would have been adequately discussed at the council. I urge the President to urgently address this imbalance for fairness and equity, “Nwodozi pleaded.

Commending the non-violent approach of Uwazuruike’s pro-Biafra group, Nwodozi called on him to continuously speak out over numerous challenges facing the Igbo people.

Responding, Chief Uwazuruike commended the zeal of the Abuja branch of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in bringing to the fore, matters of interest to the Igbo nation.

Uwazuruike, who recently re-branded his pro-Biafra group to Biafra Independence Movement, BIM, said there was every need for Ndigbo to rise up and defend their rights in every part of Nigeria.

“Issues of rights and privileges of Ndigbo were matters that our late leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, stood for and he adequately prepared me to continue the crusade. The President must not shy away from the reality that non-appointment of an Igbo man into security council was a deliberate attempt to make Igbo people vulnerable.”