‘Nobody can force Nigerians to live together’

Secretary General of the Prof Ben Nwabueze-led Igbo Leaders of Thought (ILT), Prof Elochukwu Amucheazi said yesterday that Nigerians, and especially Ndigbo, couldn’t be forced to live together under the present government framework.

He stated that living together under the current scheme of things that had continually put the southeastern into slavery was no longer acceptable, stressing that separation was inevitable, unless the country was restructured.

Reacting to comments credited to Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, at a forum to mark the 50th anniversary of Biafra that “Nigerians are greater together,” Amucheazi stated that it was obvious that the structure foisted on the country can no longer work, stressing that actions of the present administration had further confirmed it.

“I don’t think that what happened yesterday (Thursday) was a sincere attempt at addressing the Nigerian problem. First, you have to think about who the sponsors are and why at this particular time. I think they have two objectives: One, to downgrade or ridicule the agitation for Biafra and to intimidate Osinbajo, the Acting President from doing the needful. Every person is saying restructure the country and we all know the extent of the restructuring and how far it can go and so they wanted to intimidate him.”

You heard about the attempted coup. They brought him to talk about the usefulness of a large political entity. Who is against that? But must it be mischievously drawn political boundary from the British. I think there is need for Africans to settle down and redraw the boundaries imposed by these European imperialists.

“People are running round the circle. The political creation by the British is not working. You can’t tell me that it is a big household that you want to have slaves and masters and that will make it become a big household and you try to sustain it. It is not possible. If we come together and discuss, you can contrive a way of living together and that is what the whole thing is all about. Not coming to sermonise to me that it is good for all us to live together. Like I said, it is a diplomatic offence from the British and America, just as Obasanjo talked about Presidency, so that the people’s attention can be diverted. I don’t think that thing has achieved any purpose”

He continued: “How you can live together when you have made a section perpetual slave? Even the President tells you that. Look at the security apparatus he has set up; do you see any Igboman there? Look at all the infrastructures, the railway line where they are going to China to raise over Five billion USD and they are not thinking about Eastern rail corridor? Yet it is a loan, which the southeast will join in paying back. Look at the second Niger Bridge that has become a political issue. There is no reason why we think that this political framework must stand,” he said.

Amucheazi also chided former President Olusegun Obasanjo that the civil war was not aimed at ‘exterminating Ndigbo,’ saying that confessions made before and after the war indicated that they planned to, “exterminate the Igbos so as to enslave the remnants”.