A southeast Nigerian socio-cultural group, the Concerned Igbo Stakeholders Forum has expressed concern over the economic and social consequences of the continued weekly Monday’s sit-at-home action in the region.
Since August 2021, the proscribed self-determination group operating mainly in the southeast zone, the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB had ordered the people to observe every Monday as sit-at-home in protest of the continued detention of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu by the Department of State Services.
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Though IPOB had previously announced the suspension of the weekly civil action, residents have generally stayed indoors every Monday, resulting in economic losses on the people and region as a whole.
Addressing a Press conference in Enugu, the leader of the Concerned Igbo Stakeholders Forum, Chukwuma Okenwa called on the southeast governors to convene an emergency meeting among themselves within the next 48 hours and to follow it up with a multi-stakeholder consultative forum with the intent to generate ideas that will douse the rising tensions.
The group says that the region can not afford to weaken its economic viability, which largely depends on internally generated revenue.
The group, whose membership is drawn from the five South Eastern States of Nigeria, suggests that dialogue and a possible impression on the Federal government to consider amnesty for the detained IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, and other IPOB members detained across the country, as an “esteemed option”.
Editor: Oloyede Oworu
