”This idea of Biafra is madness, we don’t want Biafra. We only want to be treated equally like other regions in Nigeria” the Chairman of the South-East Governors Forum and the Governor of Ebonyi State David Umahi has said.

The governor speaking on Wednesday on television said that Biafra can not be achieved the way some people are going about it.

He noted that the degeneration of the cry against marginalisation has lead to the violence the South East region is currently facing.

Umahi who decried further the situation in the South-East, mostly that engendered by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other issues, said the agitation by IPOB has been hijacked by criminals, bandits, and kidnappers.

He also said that ”anyone that commits one criminal act or the other claims to be IPOB.”

He said: ‘at the initial time, it was an issue of ‘look, we are being marginalised. A lot of people keyed into that

“Then, along the line, it developed into violence. And then later, the same agitation has been hijacked by criminals, bandits and kidnappers.”

“If anybody had grievances with the centre (Federal Government), the person became a supporter of IPOB. If you sort anything at the federal level and you fail to get it, you become a supporter of IPOB.

“They were a couple of killings in the South-East and the people were a bit helpless and felt the governors were not protecting them,”

“You see, some uninformed elements felt that the only way to solve the problem between us and herdsmen was to ask them to leave the South-East.”

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“Then came the IPOB with ESN (Eastern Security Network), which is the militant aspect of IPOB, and they started to issue orders of threats,” the governor said.

So, along the line, the whole exercise has been hijacked. In the South-East, we no longer have kidnappers; everyone that commits one criminal act or the other claims to be IPOB.”