Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has disowned, and strongly condemned the viral video calling for the poisoning of Yoruba and Edo people’s food.
Ohanaeze in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, dissociated Ndigbo from the evil vide, saying that the author “is deranged,” and should be totally ignored.
He said that Ndigbo detest bloodshed under any guise, and would not be part of any plot to poison people’s food for whatever reason.
According to Ohanaeze, Ndigbo have a lot of ties and long standing relationship with both the Yoruba and Edo people, as well as other tribes in Nigeria, and would not have conceivably thought of poisoning anyone’s food.
Ohanaeze urged members of the public as well as the Yoruba and Edo ethnic nationalities to discountenance the said video as it has nothing to do with Ndigbo.
According to Ohanaeze, such video was meant to generate bad blood and pitch other tribes against Ndigbo.
Below is a full text of the statement made available to Ikengaonline: “The attention of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has been drawn to a video clip making rounds in the social media which goes by the “name @Anyi_anambra on tiktok “asking the Igbo to put poison in the foods of the Yoruba and Benin people.” The miscreant “promised to encourage other Ibo to poison Yoruba and Benin people.” According to the video clip: “Let Ndigbo get heart of wickedness and to start poisoning Yoruba and Edo. To put ota pia-paia, eat and die sniper, I will put it in Yoruba and Benin food for them to die.”
“Ohanaeze would have ignored the social media video clip as coming from a deranged psychopath or one of the fictitious narratives which with the Internet device is twisted, dressed, coated and delivered to the unsuspecting and obliging public. However, our telephones have been inundated by various eminent persons who have expressed fears on the possibility of some persons carrying out the threats. It therefore becomes imperative for Ohanaeze to respond, especially when the National Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere, Mr. Jare Ajayi forwarded the clip and requested for prompt action.
“In the first place, there is no sufficient evidence that the lady in question is an Ibo. She does not in any way portray the Igbo character of thoughtfulness, discretion, self-censure and equanimity. There is no Igbo man or woman that will contemplate throwing stone in a full market for the fear of who shall be the victim. In other words, the Igbo travel more than any ethnic group in Africa. They also create homes away from home wherever they are found.
“They mix up or integrate with the local community and contribute to developing every community they find themselves. Based on the foregoing, two major derivatives emerge: if one should poison food in Lagos or Ibadan or Benin, is there any guarantee that the first victim will not be Igbo? The lady must be a depressed drowning ethnic bigot, obsessed by the negative side of history and unflinching satanic in orchestration.
“The Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, MFR, frowned at the video tape on the social media. Emuchay vehemently condemned both the video content and the perpetrator as a mischief-maker. They are the merchant of woes who deploy despicable and incendiary rhetoric to create ethnic mistrusts and conflicts where none exists.
“Ohanaeze seizes this opportunity to enlighten the younger generations that the Igbo, Edo and Yoruba share a lot in common. We share in cultural affinity, cosmology, morphology, and hospitality. The age-long inter-marriages between the Igbo, Yoruba and Edo have produced well accomplished great grand-children.
“In spite of an infinitesimal de-enculturated deviant category amongst the three ethnics, the Aguiyi Ironsi-Fajuyi episode at Ibadan on July 29, 1966 exemplifies the inviolable fraternity, amity, and camaraderie that must always be elevated, extolled and venerated amongst the groups at all times.
“Finally, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide wholeheartedly assures the Afenifere, the entire Yoruba and Edo brothers that the threat from the depraved mind should be ignored as idiotic, meaningless and vacuous. We add that, throughout history, proposals by the maladjusted are always dead on arrival.
“We use this opportunity to call on the security agencies in Nigeria to trace the perpetrators of this macabre dance to face the full weight of the law.”
