Governors of the five south eastern states have come under heavy criticism for keeping silent on the predicaments of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
A pro-democracy rights group, Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy and Development, FENRAD, condemned the silence of the governors.
FENRAD noted that the silence of Governors since the illegal smuggling into the country of Nnamdi Kanu is part of the reasons citizens of Nigeria within the jurisdiction of the five governors transfer their loyalty and allegiance to the IPOB leader and his secessionist bid.
“Had the five regional governors been alive to their responsibility without creating the kind of leadership vacuum, discontent and disconnect they created resulting in disillusionment among the common people in the region, the youthful energy that went into pushing for the region’s exit from the rest of Nigeria or into plebiscitary restoration of Biafra would have otherwise been put into good (regional/national) use, FENRAD laments,” the group said in a statement signed by Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, its Executive Director on Sunday.
The group pointed out that Kanu’s tactics may not have been the most encouraging but his course is a legitimate one within guaranteed human rights documents.
“The Southeast governors need not be reminded of the carnage that was Biafra or how proper it is to revisit that past and save our collective future as they (the governors) all lived through the thirty-month war.
“A time like this when ethnic sentiment is playing out in the handling of disturbances like terror, banditry, kidnapping and herders’ rampage in Nigeria, and when an Islamic cleric like Sheik Gumi had solely become Nigeria’s de facto spokesperson in charge of the nation’s back channel with bandits, or better still Nigeria’s ambassador plenipotentiary to the ungoverned territorial forest spaces and reserves occupied by bandits, the Southeast governors need to be equally heard as their region’s voice.
“Governors like El-Rufai and others in the North, who are no less governors than their Southeast counterparts, together with other higher-ups in the federal government including the president himself who called a whole ethnic nationality “a dot in a circle” have shown the region where the APC-led government is headed and yet none among a region’s elected speaks “quit!”.
“The five governors should remember they were elected to be good representatives and voice of their people and not to be in league or cahoots with the federal government.
“Kanu’s ESN security agency came following the silence of the same five governors on the overrunning, maiming and sanguinary destruction, in both lives and properties, brought upon settled communities by the marauding and migratory herders, President Buhari’s own untouchable kindreds and brethren, a regional insecurity for which the same five governors showed no resolve to address head-on.
“FENRAD regrets that while governors of other regions were able to come up and to back up with legislation concrete regional security outfits like Amotekun and the like, it took the Southeast governors more than a year after meeting with Mr. Mohammed Adamu (former Police IG) to float the amorphous Ebube Agu outfit funding of which has largely remained a mirage.
“Today, the operational style, base and other logistics concerning Ebube Agu are not even a matter of public record. So the question becomes whose silence and indifference created Eastern Security Network, ESN in the first place? The group queried.
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