Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), has claimed that the person behind the quit notice issued to Igbos living in the North, resides in Lagos.
Falana said this while speaking at a media briefing organized by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), on the raging agitations by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
The legal luminary added that it was the utterances of a one-time Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Prof. Ango Abdullahi, over the brutal killings of four students of the institution, that allegedly led to the protests by the Nigerian students and the arrest of eight students of University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) by the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s military regime.
“The recently concluded election in the UK, two weeks ago, seven Nigerians emerged as Legislators, can we repeat that, can we look at the challenges before us and stop following those ones trying to divide us?
“This information is very crucial to all of us and I want to say this publicly. The man who is giving quit notice (to the Igbos to leave north) does not live in the North, he lives in Lagos, he is a Lagos man. So to stay in Lagos and be giving quit notices is not the answer.
“On May 23, 1986, young people, four of them were killed in the Ahmadu Bello University because somebody had said we are against coup… Ango Abdullahi was the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University when these students were killed by the Police, he came out and said only four students were killed. “That angered Nigerians particularly the Nigerian students and there were protests. One of the universities where that protest was very successful was the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Please listen to me, the man who led the protest was late Chima Ubani, what happened? The state did not like the case that it was a national protest against the killing in ABU.
“What did they do? They didn’t arrest the students who were protesting in the North. They didn’t arrest the students who were protesting in the West, (Ibrahim) Babangida regime went for Chima Ubani and arraigned him and eight of his colleagues under a military rule that required that they be sentenced to death.
“I left Lagos to go to Enugu to defend those men. We got them freed when they returned to campus, the Vice Chancellor expelled them. Again, I went to court and got them freed. Please this story is very important.
“A Hausa Vice Chancellor invited the police and they killed young Hausa students, four of them. Nigerian students protested and an Igbo young man led that protest in the East against injustice, a Yoruba man in the West to free them. So we must look at those things that the elites are using to divide our people. Injustice is injustice, so there is no nation without challenges,” Falana stated.
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