Southeast Security: ‘Our Governors Betrayed Us’ — Ohanaeze

Ohaneze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization has dissociated itself from the communique of the Southeast regional summit held at the Enugu Government House on Wednesday.

A member of the Ime Obi, the highest decision-making organ of the group and former secretary general of Ohaneze, Nduka Eya, who spoke to journalists in Enugu said the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu was not supposed to be part of the regional summit.

He said the idea for the summit was Ohaneze’s and that the governors were included as the political leaders of the zone.

“Who summoned the security summit? Who was responsible for the governors of the Western Region coming together to announce the formation of Amotekun? Was the inspector general of police there? Why is our own always different?

“I was surprised that there was a security meeting, held behind closed doors, ahead of that summit. On Sunday, the Ime Obi, which is the highest decision-making organ of Ohaneze Ndigbo, met to discuss our common security matters. Coincidentally, the southeast governors met on the same day in Enugu. I demanded to know if Ohaneze invited our governors, because they should be part of Ohaneze. They said yes.

“The governors were eventually informed about our meeting. Gov Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State replied that they had agreed to form a southeast security synergy. Then on Tuesday, two days after, a security summit was summoned, and a communiqué read by the same Umahi had it that the governors had accepted community policing.”

The Ohaneze chieftain said the group wanted their own security outfit and not the community police model sold to the governors by the IGP.

He said people of the Southeast want a security outfit in the mould of the Southwest’s ‘Amotekun,’ adding that anything shot of that would not be acceptable to majority of the people.

At Wednesday’s South-East Security Summit that held in Enugu, governors from the region reached the decision to adopt the federal government’s community policing model, saying it is “totally in tandem with what we are doing”.