Organisers of the gathering of the Igbos have appealed to President Bola Tinubu to intensify efforts at bringing more development to the South East and other regions
The group in a communique issued at the end of its conference at Okpanam, Delta State, thanked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the perceived gradual improvements in security nationwide, but insisted that a lot still needed to be done.
The Igbo leaders urged the President to lift what they claimed to be ‘The economic blockade unfairly imposed on the Igbo almost 60 years ago, which closed the main Igbo coastal ports of Port Harcourt, Bonny, and Opobo”.
They also urged him to dredge, modernize, and functionally reopen those coastal ports to re-trigger a pole of development in the East, with spillover effects to the Middle Belt and down to Lake Chad.
According to the communique signed by Chief Kingsley Onyenwemmadu Kainebi, President; Ofochi Benjamin Atagana Esq, Secretary/Legal Adviser; and Chief Cosmas Chikeobi Agada, Chairman Local Organizing Committee (LOC）for the Igbo Unification Movement and ‘Ndi Na Asu Bia’ Socio-Cultural Organization,the conveners buttressed the need for greater unity of Igbo speaking peoples down to the coasts of Nigeria, and condemned those they described as entities and circles that either sponsor or permit themselves as instruments of Igbo division, dismemberment, and land-locking.
The communique expressed pride that Igbo dialects are close, mutually intelligible, and facilitating easy and smooth Igbo interactions.
The leaders commended the Senator representing Delta North in the Senate, Senator Ned Nwoko for his efforts towards the creation of Anioma state, and lent their full support for the sake of equity and justice to the Igbo speaking group in Nigeria.
Youths of Igbo extraction from 13 states , under the umbrella of the ‘Igbo Unification Movement’, in collaboration with ‘Ndi Na Asu Bia’ sociocultural organization, met had converged at Okpanam.
The communique stated that they were joined by many dignitaries including the Governor of Delta State, His Excellency Rt Hon Sheriff Oborevwori (represented by his Chief of Staff, Hon Johnson Erijo); Senator Ned Munir Nwoko (champion of the Anioma State movement); Keynote Speakers, Emeritus Professor Uzodinma Nwala, Professor Obasi Igwe, Professor Chidi Osuagwu, Professor Chinedu Innocent Ewonye, Professor Paul O. Opone); and HRH Nwachukwu Anakwenze, Head of the World Igbo Congress.
At the event, there were delegations of Igbo indigenous communities in Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu, Imo, Kogi, Rivers States; all parts of the Igbo society from Anioma to Etche, Igbanke, Igweocha (Port Harcourt), Ikwerre, Ndoki, Ngwa, Opobo, Ubani (Bonny), Ukwuani, Waawa, and many others, as well as significant elements from the diaspora, who they said were in full attendance.
