Former aide to ex-President, Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe, has noted that “majority of the home based Igbos are in heart, body and soul part of the Biafra movement,” and that they worship him like a ‘Saviour.’
The former Presidential aide said he consulted widely across the country to come up with the real mindset of the people.
He noted that although youths are placed in the forefront of the agitation, the elders are solidly behind them.
According to him, “In the East, though the youth are in the forefront like in the North the elders are also with and behind the position and expressed aspirations of the youths.
“Those who are opposed to the Biafra project are mainly the migrant Igbos, who are traders and businessmen, living and resident far from home; with heavy investments in their places of business and domicile. Many intellectuals and politicians are also in this group.
“For these sets of Igbos, a restructured Nigeria is a better, safer and more secure option. “Nnamdi Kanu and the leadership of the IPOB have apparently taken over the southeast as the new and emerging conscience of the Igbos.
“They enjoy a new cultish support from the youthful population, who virtually worship them as their saviours.
“One outstanding feature of the group and their fanatical followers is the fact that they are intensely serious, committed, determined and focused on the Biafra project.
“It will appear that no appeasement will be acceptable to them apart from a free Biafran state. “Unfortunately they are completely dislocated and detached from the mainstream political elite class in the east and elsewhere in the country.
“Ironically, they are not the generation that the North holds in unforgiveness. They did not even fight nor were born in period of the civil war.
“They appear to me to care very little about the North or any other part of the country except perhaps their South-South neighbours. They do not know the North and the North does not know them.
“They are young but not naïve. War is not in their “planned route” to freedom; it will appear.”
Comentários