The Imo State government has expressed utter dismay at the action of a lone protester believed to be a member of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on Wednesday culminating in the ugly disruption of Governor Rochas Okorocha’s speech at the Chatham House London, where the governor was invited to deliver a lecture.
The government described the embarrassment and insult cast on Okorocha as an insult on the entire Igbo nation.
A statement signed by Mr. Sam Onwuemeodo, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor reads in part: “We do not hesitate to commend the high level of maturity which the governor and few of the senior government functionaries who made the trip with him had exhibited in the face of such provocation.”
According to the statement, the shameful action calls to question, the sincerity of the agitations of members of a group like IPOB which had always claimed to be fighting the course of Ndigbo.
“Indeed, if IPOB apostles would undertake to embarrass an Igbo leader of Okorocha’s status in London, then, their claim that they are fighting or agitating in the interest of Ndi Igbo should be taken with a pinch of salt by those who had hitherto, believed them,” Onwuemeodo said.
Onwuemeodo said it was very unreasonable for IPOB members to think that a man like Okorocha, who has built schools across the nation as his own contribution to the unity of Nigeria and had in the past also sought to be the president of the country, would come out to support IPOB or any other pro-Biafra group campaigning for sovereignty.
