By Chidi Nkwopara

OWERRI — Parents, town union executives, traditional rulers and religious leaders have been urged to wage a serious battle against all the serious crimes currently damaging the corporate image of Ndigbo.

A renowned professor of Political Science and Second Republic presidential liaison officer in the old Imo State, Professor Roland Anyanwu, made the passionate appeal during an interactive session with  journalists in his Amaeze, Chokoneze, Ezinihitte Mbaise Local Government Area country home.

He was particularly irked by the increasing cases of kidnapping, armed robbery, political gangsterism, arson, assassinations and other forms of criminal acts, stressing that these were completely alien to Igbo culture and tradition.

“Igbo youths are now treading on a dangerous path because of their inordinate ambition to become rich overnight. I do hope that very soon, this will stop for us to make progress and the governments of the South East States should take the issue more seriously,” Anyanwu pleaded.

The professor said that if Nigerian youths had read and internalized the content of the book, “Curriculum Development in Nigeria,” written by the late royal father of Chokoneze community and former Secretary of FEDECO, Eze Jonathan A. Anyanwu, they would not have gone astray.

He opined that “our society has come to a point where we must restructure and reorganize ourselves for us to move forward positively.”

He also blamed the persistent cases of armed robbery, kidnapping, brutal assassinations and 419 activities in the country on the loose accommodation of all manner of people into Nigeria’s political family.

“Because politics is now an all comers’ affair and is seen as a lucrative business, criminals have infiltrated and hijacked the system and rudely destroyed all that our heroes past labored to build and nurture over the years,” Anyanwu lamented.