Chief Nnia John Nwodo, President Ohaneze Ndigbo has warned that the Nigerian government from all intent and purposes is pushing Igbos to secede again.
He made the disclosure in a chat with the Sunday Sun while answering questions over very sensitive issues which border on the marginalization of the Igbo nation in Nigeria.
Chief Nwodo called attention to the security and intelligence agencies of Nigeria which the Igbos have been completely shut out from.
According to him, '' We are completely shut out from the intelligence paraphernalia of this country. No Igbo man heads any of the intelligence agencies of the country; we do not head any arm of government. We do not sit in any sensitive ministry. The allocation to capital projects in Igbo land are made to achieve some kind of propaganda effect because in actual implementation, nothing is done.
The southeast, he said has been suffering from infrastrutural decay. many roads and highway in the region he said have been left with reckless abandon.
Hos words: ''The Enugu-Onitsha expressway has been on very budget since the end of the war till today. Recently, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), assured us that in the next 17 months, those roads would be reconstructed. But we had been given such assurances in the past and they never came to anything. The Enugu-Port Harcourt road has remained like that since the end of the war. We had been given assurances in the past and nothing has happened. Contractors like Julius Berger don’t come to the East to work; contracts in Igbo land are awarded to second/third rate contractors, who do very little work. The Niger Bridge has remained in its comatose state for a very long time. Jonathan promised us that he would not leave office without the construction of the Second Niger Bridge but it never happened. Under this government, the project was suspended for a long time. I hear that work has resumed but I hope that it is so and that very soon we will see it completed.''
''The Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, has promised us that the River Niger will be dredged; I hope that it is concluded under his tenure. He seems to be a man who does what he says and I anxiously look forward to seeing the dredging of the River Niger executed so that we can have a seaport there. But this has been on the table for decades. The child I had when the project was first conceived is already studying for PhD today. So, these children don’t believe that the system is fair to them.''
''Now, the coal in Enugu has been lying there for God knows how long. As we speak, the Federal Government has not even done a feasibility study to determine the quantity of coal that is available so that it can attract foreign investors. Nkalagu Cement Factory has been moribund for a very long time and it is taking an Igbo, Ibeto, to revive and expand it. Meanwhile, the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment looks away. And they have directors on that company? Nobody cares about the salt and lead in Abakiliki, Ebonyi State. Igbo people have no equal access to the exploitation of our mineral resources. Among Nigerians who are allocated oil wells in the country, we are in abysmal minority. Those licences are not given to us. This is preposterous, unacceptable and discriminatory; we condemn it in its entirety. It has to change; we are equal partners in this federation. Unless we are treated so, Nigeria is asking us to ask for secession once more.''
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