…condemns modalities of distribution of palliatives
From Maurice Okafor,Enugu
The President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Chief Nnia Nwodo, has condemned the killing of young mthe country by security agents over acclaimed non compliance to the stay at home order and some other precautionary measures introduced by the government to curtail spread of corona virus disease in Nigeria.
In a press statement issued on his behalf by his special adviser on Media and publicly, Mr EmekA Atama, Chief Nwodo called on the Federal government to set up a high-powered judicial inquiry into the frequent killing of young men and women by trigger-happy security operatives posted to the Southern part of the country.
“In the past few days alone, four vibrant young men were killed in cold blood by security agents in Aba and Onitsha, while another young man was brutally mowed down by a soldier in Warri which led to a reprisal killing of a soldier that culminated in the killing of more people by soldiers”.
The AUTHORITY checks revealed that Nwodo’s call for justice excluded the Friday evening, April 17, killing of another young man by a police officer at Ebem Ohafia in Abia state, which reportedly elicited a reprisal attack by an angry mob and led to the burning of a police vehicle and some other properties of the police station in the area.
The Ohanaeze President General expressed great sadness at the frequency and dastardly manner the security agents snuff out life in these otherwise promising young people in their prime.
His words ” It is only in the South that such mindless wastage of human capital takes place often and unabated without the heads of the army and police batting an eyelid”.
He challenged anybody to point out similar occurrences in any part of the North, especially during this period of Covid-19 lockdown.
Chief Nwodo cautioned that the aggressive actions of security operatives were steadily pushing young men, especially in the South East, to the wall and could elicit reprisal violence from them, adding that any group not wanted in a union has the right to opt out of it.
In another development Chief Nwodo lhas tasked the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, to explain the modalities used by her ministry to determine the distribution of the Covid-19 lockdown palliative.
He stated ” The distribution has been shrouded in mystery, and from available information, there is gross imbalance with the three Geo political zones in the North getting #245.2 billion from the fund for palliative, while three zones in the South got a meagre sum of #52.8 billion.
Nwodo said that the manifest injustice exhibited in the sharing of COVID-19 palliatives is enough for Minister of Humanitarian affairs, Disaster management and Social development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, to be made to vacate her office.
The President General Ohanaeze Ndigbo worldwide,Chief Nnia Nwodo, described the act cited as another glaring example of lack of equity in President Buhari administration,alleging that the distribution of the lockdown palliative is skewed in favour of the North by the declaration that those who have up to #5000 in their bank accounts will not benefit from it, arguing that ownership of that sum does not mitigate the pangs of the lockdown.
Chief Nwodo further observed that it took Covid-19 to accentuate the duplicity in governance in the present administration in the country where the people in the North have been paid five thousand naira monthly for the five years of the administration to the exclusion of the neglected and second class citizens of the South, and urged the Federal Government to take steps to redress this obvious injustice to give other parts of the country a sense of belonging.
