Herdsmen violence: Ndigbo rally in Enugu today

 Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex socio-cultural leadership organisation of Igbo people of Nigeria, has invited all the Igbo stakehold­ers, at home and abroad, to as­semble in Enugu this afternoon for an emergency meeting to deliberate on the options before them in the face of the on-go­ing activities of cattle herders, which have claimed many lives in Igboland and the Middle Belt region of the country.

The gathering which is tak­ing place at the Ohanaeze head­quarters at 7 Park Avenue, at the Government Reserved Area, Enugu, is expected to be graced by the ‘Who is Who’ in Igbo­land and will be briefed by the Ohanaeze leadership and other prominent elected Igbo leaders at the state and federal levels, after which a comprehensive action plan of Ndigbo in the face of the current challenges is expected to be formulated.
The emergency meeting be­came necessary, as our cor­respondent learnt, in order to douse the boiling tension across Igboland heightened by the in­vasion, last Monday, of Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani LGA in Enugu state, by an un­known number of marauders suspected to be cattle herders, and which resulted in the loss of over 50 lives, while residential houses and places of worship were burnt down.

The AUTHORITY on Sunday was exclusively informed by the President-General of Ohanaeze Worldwide, Chief Gary Enwo Igariwey, that the meeting will be a logical follow-up to the visit of the Ohanaeze executive and some other prominent Igbo leaders to the House of Rep­resentatives, last Wednesday, where they submitted a memo­randum detailing the official stand of Ndigbo in the on-going controversy on the proposed Cattle Grazing Bill pending at the National Assembly, as well as on the dangers posed on the peace, unity and stability of the country both by the bill and by the unchecked activities of the cattle herdsmen.

Accordingly, the Ohanaeze, which is being extolled by Igbo people across the globe on the quality and timeliness of their submission to NASS, is also expected to brief the people on the result of their consultations with similar groups across the country.
The briefing, according to unimpeccable sources inside Ohanaeze, will enable Ndigbo take a principled stand that would guarantee the welfare and safety of Igbo people and conduce to their peaceful co-existence with the other Nige­rians.

Our correspondent was au­thoritatively informed that some of the key decisions might have already been broached at the ‘Ime Obi’ caucus, which forms the inner governing cir­cle of the Ohanaeze, and will most probably form the crux of the stand to be eventually ar­rived at.
These, as we learnt, might in­clude mounting pressure on the governors of the Southeast to forge a stronger working rela­tionship and synergy to enable them co-ordinate issues of se­curity and development of the region with greater synergy.

To that extent, according to our sources, communities across Igboland would be en­abled and mobilised to set up strong and well organized vigi­lante groups, in conjunction with the Nigeria Police Force, in the replica of the Anambra State model. At the meeting, the im­perative of vigilance would be strongly stressed.
The AUTHORITY on Sun­day also learnt that Ndigbo will with one voice, strongly repudi­ate the Cattle Grazing Bill, man­date all their legislators to op­pose it and call on all the state legislative houses to pass their own laws immediately on their pastoral policies which will opt for ranching and make it illegal for cattle and other animals to roam about free.
This, as we learnt, would be in consonance with the fact that all lands in very state are held in trust for the people by state governors, not the Federal Gov­ernment in line with the Land Use Act.

Furthermore, as our corre­spondent learnt that during the emergency meeting, Ohanaeze will send out a message to allay the fears of all non-Igbo Nige­rians residing in Igboland, as their safety in every part of Ig­boland would be guaranteed.
In particular, it would be drummed that any Igbo per­son that harasses any non-Igbo would be arrested and handed over to appropriate law enforce­ment agencies, as the Fulani people who have lived peaceful­ly with Igbo people for ages in Igboland cannot suddenly be­come the culprits that maraud and kill the people.

The AUTHORITY on Sun­day equally learnt that Ndigbo would resolve not to treat the on-going violent activities of the herdsmen as an exclusive Igbo affair but rather to consid­er it within a context of a chal­lenge to the entire Southern and Middle Belt areas, as according Igbo leaders, they do not want Ndigbo to isolate themselves in a problem that is facing more than one region of the country.

An Ohanaeze chieftain who spoke to our reporter in Abuja yesterday pointed out that rath­er than rush into rash actions that would injure the inter­ests of their people that live all over the country, Ohanaeze is rather cognizant of the fact that the best step would be to insist that the Federal Government motivates its security agencies to work harder to stop the ne­farious activities all across the country, especially in South­ern states of Nigeria, as a way of ensuring that communities and groups do not resort to self-help.