The Yoruba sociocultural organisation, Afenifere, has condemned last Saturday’s attack on Igbos in Lagos during the Presidential and National Assembly elections.
Recall that Igbos in parts of Lagos state came under attack as they went out to join other Nigerians to exercise their civic right to choose who leads them for the next four years.
In a press statement issued on Sunday by the group and signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin, it also frowned at the failure of the security agencies to protect the Igbos in the affected areas as they were being attacked.
While appealing to the Igbos to remain calm, the group called on the security agencies to provide adequate security covers to Ndigbo in subsequent elections.
See the full text of the statement below:
Afenifere condemns in the strongest terms the political violence visited on Nigerians of Ndigbo extraction in Lagos during the Saturday Presidential elections.
Afenifere disclosed that the vandals who claimed to be members of the OPC, had no affiliation to the body according to their checks.
Dirty political merchants and their band of thugs apart from engineering political disenfranchisement of Ndigbo, went ahead to visit violence on them and burning their votes en masse.
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The political vandals they used were said to have been calling themselves OPC but our checks with the genuine leaders of the group have shown that the deragend elements had no affiliation with the OPC known by Afenifere.
We frown seriously at the failure of the security agencies to give adequate cover to Ndigbo in the affected communities as these thugs went berserk carrying out the instructions of their sinking political godfathers.
We want to assure our Igbo Brothers and Sisters that the bond of friendship the Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo have built particularly under the dynamic leadership of Chief John Nwodo remains strong and will not be broken by the nefarious activities of a few strange children in our midst.
We are already in discussions with Ndigbo leadership on the matter and we appeal for calm as these political vandals are only engaged in death kicks.
We call on the security agencies to give adequate security covers to Ndigbo in subsequent elections as we encourage them not to succumb to intimidation and harassment by political vampires.
Our historical connectivity with Ndigbo will survive the Saturday madness and the perpetrators will be shamed eternally.
