Igbo Leaders have urged the Federal Government to ensure ‘desperate
attempts’ by Boko Haram insurgents to bomb the South-East does not
materialise, warning that a successful attack in the region portended
grave danger for the country.
In a statement by Evang. Elliot Uko, Deputy Secretary of the Igbo
Leaders of Thought (ILT), entitled ‘The calm before the storm’, the
tribal leaders described as worrisome the Sallah day arrest in Borno
State of a long trailer laden with bombs and IED’s disguised as cattle
merchants headed for Onitsha and Port Harcourt.
“This simply tells us that those who are committed to bombing the east are very serious at their plans,” the statement said.
“We have two choices facing us. One is to keep quiet and look the
other way until it happens. The other is exactly what we are doing now:
Raise our voice in warning, praying and hoping that this avoidable
catastrophe would pass us by. Truth is that Boko Haram is desperate to
bomb eastern Nigeria. We don’t want that to happen because the
implications are clearly frightening.
If you add this to the earlier attempt to bomb a church with 10,000
capacity at Owerri, the attempt to kill both General Muhammadu Buhari
and Sheik Bauchi, nobody knows how many of such trailers have
successfully transferred the deadly cargo to the east waiting for the
time to strike.
“Had any of these three events exploded according to Boko Haram plan,
Nigeria would have been history by now. Now, we know that the sponsors
of Boko Haram are desperate to attack the South-East, let nobody pretend
the grave implications of a successful Boko Haram attack on the
South-East is lost on them.
“Since the Kano Riots of 1953, easterners have been killed every year
in very gruesome manner in the North for 61 years; sometimes over
introduction of Sharia Laws, sometimes because of a cartoon in Denmark,
sometimes over beauty pageant…, sometimes because of election results.
Pursuing easterners down home to bomb them in the name of Islamisation
by force would be the last straw. Nigeria will not survive a Boko Haram
attack in the East.”
“In this season, which could easily be described as the season of
uneasy calm before the impending storm we remind the authorities that if
Boko Haram does succeed in bombing the South-East with casualties, it
would be impossible to stop the catastrophe that would follow; reprisals
and counter-reprisals.
“A people pushed to the wall will react and the northern crowd will
also react and no power on earth can hold Nigeria together again. As the
enemies of peaceful co-existence are determined to twist the tiger’s
tail, this is truly the calm before the storm.”
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