Igbo Not 2nd-Class Citizens — Nwodo Berates FG Over Poor Treatment

Immediate past President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, has berated the Federal Government for treating the Igbo race as second-class citizens in the country.

Explaining his accusations that the government has continued to show indifference towards the South East people, Nwodo said; ”We are grossly marginalised and treated by the Federal Government as second class citizens.

Nwodo, who delivered a paper on: “Nigeria’s Political and Economic Future – the Dangers We Can Avert”, insisted that this feeling of obvious neglect is further strengthened by the exclusion of the Igbo race from the nation’s security architecture as well as other sensitive and strategic public positions in the country.

“No Igbo man, for instance, heads any security arm of the Nigeria Armed Forces. Our area is the most heavily policed as if there was a deliberate policy to intimidate us and hold us down.

”The brazen impunity in dealing with matters which concern the South East is provocative. We invest and contribute to the economic and social life of the communities where ever we live” he said

According to him, the growing disenchantment and restiveness among the were attributable to the militarization of the South-East as well as the government’s high-handedness in handling issues and events within the region.

However, the ninth (9th) President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, who expressed frustration that; ”This current approach makes it impossible for leaders in the South East to effectively contain the anger of their youths”, said the race remains the most accommodating and enterprising in the country despite Nigeria’s harshness and unfriendly disposition towards its people.

The former Information Minister said the Igbos deserved better being ”the largest ethnic group other than the indigenous tribe in any part of Nigeria”, adding the Igbo people’s investment cuts across the length and breath of Nigeria.

Maintaining that the Igbo people are a religious-tolerant tribe, the lawyer and economist said; “We are proudly Christians but very accommodating of our brothers of other persuasions.”