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South-East has over 30 secessionist groups – Abaribe

The Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, said on Tuesday there are more than 30 secessionist groups in the South-East.

Enyinnaya, who disclosed this when he featured in a Channels Television’s programme, Political Paradigm, stressed that secession agitators are merely protesting the marginalisation of their people and demanding justice and equity in the country.

The lawmaker, however, expressed regret that the focus of Nigerians has always been on the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

He asked the Federal Government to dialogue with the self-determination groups to restore calm and peace in various parts of the country.

Abaribe said: “One of the biggest problems the media has is that they tag everything IPOB. In the South-East, you won’t believe that there are more than 30 different separatist organisations – IPOB, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), there are so many and each one of them comes back to the same thing.

“Why you are having separatist agitations everywhere today in the West, in the South, in the South-South, is that some people are unable to manage our diversity, that is just the fact.”

Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has registered his opposition to the agitations for secession, stating that the cost of staying together as a nation is cheaper than the cost of dividing Nigeria.

Kukah made this call during his speech at the 2021 virtual edition of the Platform, an annual conference organised by Pastor Poju Oyemade of the Covenant Christian Centre, Lagos.

According to the cleric, the Federal Government is responsible for the appalling state of the economy, alienating the citizens in the process.

The fiery cleric said, “Yes, it may be right for everybody to want to go. Yes, it may be right for people to want to feel so dissatisfied that they want an end to what we have today. But the cost of staying together is far cheaper than the cost of everybody going his way.

The most important thing here is that the government must give us a reason – the body language – we need to be inspired as a country to inspire ourselves that this country is worth the psychological, the spiritual, and the cultural engagements.”

The agitations for secession by various groups across the country continue to resonate against the backdrop of the raging insecurity and poor state of the economy.