Igbo, Ijaw Collaborate To Tackle Insurgency

Igbo and Ijaw leaders
have vowed to defend their territories in the face of   terrorist attacks by the Boko Haram sect.
They made the declaration in separate speeches during the inauguration of the newly elected National Executive Council of the Ohanaeze Youth Wing in Enugu.
While the new Leader of the Ohanaeze Youth Wing, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, assured that Igbo youths would defend Igboland against the incursion of the Boko Haram sect, the Acting President of the Ijaw National Congress, Charles Ambaiowei, said the Ijaws are capable of defending themselves “if the time comes for everybody to defend themselves.”
Making his inaugural address, Isiguzoro raised the alarm over the gradual incursion of the Boko Haram sect and Fulani herdsmen into the South-East and urged the Arewa Consultative Forum to call the perpetrators to order “if those people are actually Fulani herdsmen.”
Stressing that the Ohanaeze Youth Wing would collaborate with the governors to combat kidnapping, armed robbery and other criminal vices in Igboland, Isiguzoro urged President Goodluck Jonathan to help fight insecurity in the South-East by “extending amnesty to south-eastern militants, who were denied amnesty by President Umaru Yar’Adua based on their being from the South-East.”
He explained that the Igbo militants, who fought in the creeks alongside “their Ijaw brothers” had relocated to the South-East with their armory and their boys after they were not carried along in the amnesty programme.
The Ohanaeze youth leader further urged Jonathan to provide more infrastructure in the South-East in order to guarantee the support of the Igbo youths in the 2015 presidential election, “when he decides to run”.
On his part, the leader of the Ijaw National Congress, Ambaiowei, said that, like the Igbos, the Ijaws are ready to defend their territory in the face of the violent campaign of the Boko Haram sect.
He said Jonathan was the target of the Boko Haram campaign, which he said, was aimed at making things difficult for the president.
Chairman of the event, former Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd), in his remarks, urged Nigerian youths to fight insurgency and insecurity.
Ihejirika said, “President Goodluck Jonathan is performing very well. There is so much we can do in this country but without security, we cannot do much.”