An Open Letter To Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo (Governor of Anambra State)

 Dear Governor Soludo,

Your Position On IPOB's Monday Sit-At-Home Directive Is Sabotage 

I am writing to express my concern about your stance on the Indigenous People Of Biafra's (IPOB's) Monday Sit-At-Home Directive in Anambra State. As a Governor of Anambra State, your role in promoting peace, stability, and progress is crucial. Without any modicum of doubt, the Igbo people's grievances are real and burning like coals of fire, stemming from decades of unprecedented Christian genocide, burning of Churches with worshippers trapped inside them, displacement of vulnerable population, economic marginalization, political under-representation, rape, forced conversion to Islam, and the vicious policy of successive Nigerian Governments not to rehabilitate the South-East geopolitical zone after the Nigerian Civil War of 1966-1970.

Mazi Nnamdi Kanu's unjustified detention by both late President Muhammadu Buhari (the Fulani Jihadists' Patron) and his successor, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has heightened tensions, and IPOB's Sit-At-Home call is a response to these concerns. It is a moral failure on your side, Your Excellency, to stand on the side of Federal Government of Nigeria against the Igbos. Rather than opposing the Sit-At-Home Directive in Anambra State, engaging with your close friend, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other stakeholders could lead to a peaceful resolution, and the release of our man, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. You are a highly rated academician, and I want to remind you of Le Chatelier's Law. The law said that when a system which is in equilibrium is subjected to a stress, that system tends to adjust itself so as to relieve the stress, where the stressors are temperature and pressure conditions. Not only that, it is also widely believed that when an owl sees a   puma, it begins to cry ceaselessly. What I mean is that oppression causes agitation. The IPOB, and by extension the Igbos, would not surely have demanded for self-determination or secession if Nigeria had not sorely oppressed the South-East. You cannot beat a child and stop him from crying because it is the beating that causes the pain. You don't care a hoot to support a dialogue on Nnamdi Kanu's case and advocacy for his release. Mr. Peter Obi won the 2023 presidential election with a landslide victory. Yet, he was robbed in a broad daylight. You didn't come out on air to condemn it. 

Anambra State's stability and the Igbo people's well-being depend on addressing these issues affecting the Igbos constructively. Your approach to the IPOB's Sit-At-Home Directive leaves much to be desired. You failed it woefully, sir! Where is Sunday Igboho today? Is he not walking freely everywhere in Nigeria? Where is Sheik Ahmad Gumi --the terrorism promoter, funder, and sympathizer? Has he been once arrested and detained and molested the way DSS did to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu whom they nearly killed in custody without any good reason? What of the Fulani terrorists whom both President Muhammadu Buhari and his successor, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, pardoned and even went ahead  to give them whooping sums of money for rehabilitation?They were killers. They were kidnappers and rapists of both married and un-married women. They killed several thousands of innocent people. They burnt down Churches with petrol with worshippers inside pleading for mercy which they did not receive. They displaced over 5 million persons in Plateau and Benue States put together. Displaced persons are refugees in rags right in their own land. Do you know that thousands of girls or women are still in the pristine forests of the North with bandits? Yet, Nigerian Governments pardoned the radicalized Fulani jihadists who shed much blood of fellow Nigerians. The same Nigeria Government sentenced our own Mazi Nnamdi Kanu to life imprisonment, yet without any valid Iaw for his conviction. Omotosho sold his career because of filthy lucres! He couldn't show Kanu the law that convicted him. Both Buhari and Tinubu said that the terrorists had repented! It is an Igbo man, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, that cannot repent or be shown mercy! Fulani criminals and armed robbers were pardoned and paid princely sums of money for empowerment. Some were even flown abroad. Did you not hear it? If Sunday Igboho were an Igboman, he would not be free today. If the Fulani jihadists which Buhari and Tinubu pardoned were Igbos, they would have been sent to the noose of the hangman. We, the Igbos, have no man to defend us. It is only an Igboman that can be jailed for life without being shown the law that convicted him. Nigerian laws convict culprits according to the strength and influence of their tribes. No law is against the North and Yorubas. Every law in Nigeria is against the Igbos! You and I know that too well. 

How many times have you condemned the actions of Nigerian Governments against the Igbos? All over the world, it is people of your status that defend their tribes and races. Have you for once said anything against Christian genocide? What have you said against the burning of Churches with worshippers right inside those buildings? How many times have you condemned the displacements of over 5 million vulnerable people? What about forced conversion to Islam? What about kidnapping of Christian women or girls and subjecting them to forced sexuality on daily basis? What have you said about Government's cruel exclusionist economic policy that grounded Warri, Port Harcourt, and Calabar seaports? Over 85% of all containers that come to Lagos seaports (Tincan Island and Apapa Quay) belong to the Igbos. Yet, Nigerian Governments' draconian economic policies won't allow them to clear their goods at closer seaports where it would be easier for them to transport their containers to the South-East! It takes us almost 24 hours to take our consignments to the South-East after clearing them in Lagos seaports. Is it right for Governments to treat us with rods of scorpion? Now, every Igboman wants Biafra. Why should a reasonable person blame them? Do you know that successive Lagos State Governments have an agenda to paralyze the Igbos economically? Lagos State Governments have destroyed over 4, 000 duplexes belonging to our people! Do you know that, Mr. Soludo? In Igbo interpretation, your name "Soludo" means "Follow peace". But unfortunately, you are not toeing the path of peace. You have followed Joe Igbokwe, the criminal armed robber, to afflict us. You have followed criminals like Orji Kalu, Hope Uzordinma, Asari Dokubo (who denied his ancestry as Igboman from Abam Village in Abia State because of money), and the others. You know what---? History will not vindicate you and your goons. You will reap what you sowed.

Yours sincerely,

Uduma Okeh.