By Babs Oyetoro

Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, yesterday said dialogue is key to negotiating the agitations for secession by different groups in the country.

The lawmaker, who said those calling for secession in the region are merely protesting the marginalisation of their people and demanding that their grievances be addressed, noted that the Igbo people have the feeling of being marginalised in the country.

Abaribe said this on Channels Television’s Political Paradigm programme monitored in Lagos. He also raised the alarm that no fewer than 30 separatist groups exist in the South-East region.

He lamented that instead of focusing on a holistic approach to containing the problem, the focus had always been on the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB).

Abaribe said, “One of the biggest problems the media has is that they tag everything IPOB. In the South-East, you won’t believe that there are more than 30 different separatist organisations. There is IPOB, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), there are so many, and each one of them comes back to the same thing.”

“Why you are having separatist agitations everywhere today in the West, in the South, in the South-South, is that some people are unable to manage our diversity; that is just the fact.

“There is nobody from the South-East that I know who does not feel that the way the people from the South-East are treated today; that there is something fundamentally wrong which should be resolved.

Abaribe made the remarks amid heightened calls for secession not just for the breakaway of parts of the South-East, but also for the Yoruba nation.

He believes those calling for secession are merely protesting the marginalisation of their people and demanding that their grievances be addressed.
The lawmaker asked the government to dialogue with the different separatist groups, to restore calm and peace in various parts of the country.

Abaribe, who also talked about IPOB’s reported issuance of a sit-at-home order in the southeast, noted that such calls could only be effective when its leader goes to court, saying, “And there has been some form of compliance with the directive.”

He added, “It should worry the government if a non-state action is complied with in this manner. It takes us back to what I said at the beginning that there is a need to sit and talk with these people.”

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When asked if he would accept the offer to be the next presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, and what Nigerians should expect if he is elected to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.

His response was, “I would if it falls on me. Within six months, all these things (Nigeria’s problems) will be a thing of the past.”