Why Ndigbo may not fully accept APC — Igbo women group

Igbo women, under the auspices of the Igbo Women Assembly (IWA), have said that it will be difficult for Ndigbo to fully embrace the All Progressives Congress (APC) due to the way the party has treated the region since 2015.

The National President of the group, Lolo Nneka Chimezie, told reporters after their meeting in Enugu that the APC-led administration has not been fair to the Igbo in terms of appointments and allocation of infrastructure.

She said her people have been treated as second-class citizens.

Chimezie, lamenting the treatment the Southeast has been subjected to by the APC-led government, insisted that the inability to address these issues indicates a deliberate attempt to continue humiliating the people.

She said, “We frown at the way the southeast has been pushed away from happenings in Nigeria, especially in government appointments.

“The APC government is not fair to the southeast. From 2015 till now, as long as we know, there is supposed to be some equity in resource sharing in Nigeria, but the APC government has ensured that this is denied to the Southeast.

“The way they treat matters concerning us in the southeast is not fair. We all witnessed the destruction of Igbo property after the election in Lagos. The incarceration of an Igbo chieftain, Chief Frederick Nwajiagu, in Lagos for saying that if the Nigerian government cannot protect Igbo in Lagos, the IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) should be invited to protect them.

“But we have a situation where others have been threatening the Southeast, and there is less concern from the government. Someone threatened that if they didn’t vote for the APC, they should be prepared to leave Lagos, and nothing was done to him.

“Nigerians were gathering to protest over the hunger in the land, and they started accusing Peter Obi of being behind it. Another person gave a quit notice to the Igbo, and the only thing the government said was that they wouldn’t tolerate negative and divisive utterances. So, what are they trying to tell us? Does it mean there are different laws and actions for different people depending on your ethnicity? Why haven’t the police arrested those campaigning against the Igbo and spreading hate speech?”

The women further demanded the immediate release of Nwajiagu and the leader of the IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, insisting that they were “unjustly being hounded because they are Igbo.”

“We want the federal government to release political prisoners, including Frederick Nwajiagu and Nnamdi Kanu. They have wives and children. We don’t know who is taking care of their children; otherwise, we term it that what IPOB is saying is true,” she added.

Chimezie further lamented the militarization of the Southeast under the guise of quelling the activities of the IPOB, stressing that the various security checkpoints are now being used to extort and chastise the people.

She demanded the immediate withdrawal of the security checkpoints, saying the Southeast had lost over 1,000 youths due to the actions of security personnel manning the checkpoints.

Another chieftain of the group, Mrs. Omiko Nwachukwu, urged Igbos to think of home and invest.

She said that improving and investing in the region was a way to curtail certain actions being meted out against them in the country.

Nwachukwu stated that the APC government had not been inclusive in its affairs, adding that it has caused so much pain to the people of the region.