South-South leaders berate Buhari for describing Igbo race ‘a dot in the circle’
By Peter Usman://
Some leaders from the South- South geo-political zone have declared that no one among them discuss with President Muhammadu Buhari over the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB just as they berated him for describing the Igbo race as ‘a dot in the circle’.
The Leaders of thought were reacting to the statement and the President’s assertion that some South-South leaders told him they won’t allow Ndigbo access to the sea in case they have their separate country.
President Buhari had during an interview with the Arise TV last week said he was assured by “the elderly people” and “the youths” from the South-South part of the country that the region has no intention of seceding.
He also asserted that the IPOB will not have “access to anywhere” even if they eventually secede from the country.
But the leaders in an interactive session organized by Njenje Media in conjunction with Elombah TV and anchored in United Kingdom, said “when you believe that all Igbo are members of the IPOB it leads to Buhari’s ‘dot in the circle’ political mindset as revealed in the Arise interview”.
Speaking at the virtual conference titled, “Addressing The Dot In Circle In President Buhari’s Interview, A Return To 1966?”, Col. Tony Nyiam (rtd), stated that Buhari’s statement is a threat unbecoming of a President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of all Nigerians, noting that it is an open revelation of an unchanging published mindset that was responsible for the 1966 killings of Ndigbo’s in particular, and the people of Eastern Nigeria in general.
Nyiam added that Buhari’s utterance is enough evidence that can be used in a court such as the International Criminal Court, ICC, adding that the synergy and alignment between the Igbos and the ethnic nationalities of the Niger Delta cannot be unshaken by the mischief of the President.
“And by the way, I would say this, presently the people of Akwa-Ibom are enthusiastic and the people of my region, they are enthusiastic to have an understanding with Ndigbo, that the Ngwa area, Aba, down to Onitsha so that we can have one economic corridor. Eastern Nigeria remains one powerful corridor which no divide and rule tactics would divide us,” he stated.
An Ijaw woman leader, Annkio Briggs said the statement has already shown the mindset of the person of President Buhari.
She said: “It doesn’t matter if the Igbo people or Ijaw people or the Itshekiri people are only 10 people or 100,000 people, you don’t refer to them as a dot in the circle, so it shows very clearly the mindset of the person of President Buhari.
“First of all, I don’t even recall any access or non-access to the sea during the onslaught of the civil war.”
Speaking in the same vein, the former Managing Director of DAAR Communications Plc, Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki said the South-South and the South-East are united in the struggle for survival against the existential threat of the Buhari led administration.
“There are 65 ethnic nationalities as defined by some of our leaders in the entire South-South and the man comes on public television and says he speaks to 2 elders, and some youths, it is laughable. What I see in Mr. Buhari or General Buhari is like a rehash of the Amoral B code of law, an eye for an eye.
“Unfortunately, his determined eye that was injured and he is also determined on how to pay back with other eyes and that shows the President has a Pompeii syndrome and that selective compulsivity is very of this nation,” Obaseki stressed.
In his own submission, the Sectary to the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination, NINAS, Tony Nnadi claimed that the President was trying to be mischievous by trying to create suspicion into the minds of the leaders of both regions.