Tobias Sylvester
Former Governor of Imo State, Senator Rochas Okorocha has described members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as “poorly educated children”.
Rocha Okorocha Speaks On IPOB Agitation
Speaking to State House Correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, the senator stated that the proscription of the IPOB as terrorists was a wrong move.
Quizzed on the security crisis in Imo State and the Southeast, Okorocha blamed the “poor handling” by the current Imo state government, saying, “Wherever things are not working well, hold the leadership responsible. I was Governor of Imo state for eight years. And within those eight years, there was absolute peace in that land. IPOB did exist. And all these additional forces existed too.
“It is the poor handling by the state government that exacerbated this to what it is today. If I had remained the Governor of the state at this time, you wouldn’t hear what you’re hearing.
“IPOB are our young men, our sons and daughters, and let no Igbo man tell you otherwise. They believe that they have been marginalised in terms of infrastructure and appointments, and they’ve believed this for a long time. But we’re able to assuage them and give them confidence that things will get better.
“But there was no need to have handled the IPOB matter the way it was handled. In the first place, bringing the Air Force and the Army into the matter. Raiding from the air was wrong and completely wrong. Just as it is also wrong for these young men to have gone to the police headquarters shooting and killing people.
“I don’t support any of them either. Today they have turned out to be terrorists. But for me, I don’t see them as terrorists. I see them as children who have not been properly educated on the happenings.”
Asked if the Federal Government was wrong to proscribe IPOB as terrorists, he said, “The activities of IPOB called for that. But it was a needless action to have even started. Something that you can handle and not allow to escalate.
“If the federal government made them to call them terrorists, it is the state government that made the recommendations and created that image that presented the boys as terrorists.
KanyiDaily recalls that Okorocha also revealed that he visited President Buhari to ask for his intervention on the EFCC’s planned prosecution which he claimed was politically motivated.
