Ohanaeze Ndigbo socio-cultural organisation has commended former President Olusegun Obasanjo for condemning attempt by some disgruntled elements to send Igbo living in Lagos state packing.
The group under the hastag of “Igbos Must Go” gave August 20 to 30, 2024 for Ndigbo to leave Lagos or face dire consequences.
They also asked the Yoruba living in Igboland to return home before the set date.
However, the former President has risen to condemn such unsavoury quit notice saying that no Nigerian should be displaced in his area of residence for no just cause.
For this reason, Ohanaeze in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Alex Ogbonnia, commended Obasanjo for taking such stance.
“The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide joins millions of patriotic Nigerians and all the members of the civilized community to commend His Excellency, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, PhD, GCFR, the former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on his recent remarks about the Igbo Must Go hashtag. Obasanjo in a press release, admonished that ‘those saying that the Igbo must go from Lagos will be the ones to leave”. The former president added that “he doesn’t believe that anybody in Nigeria should be driven away from any part of the country, asserting that, we own this country together”.
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo notes with grave concern the orchestrated ethnic profiling, hate speech, incendiary and inflammatory rhetoric and outright demolition of Igbo properties and liquidation of their sources of income in Lagos State since a few years now,” the statement reads in part.
Ohanaeze pointed out that the most recent recrudescence is that the “Lagosians and every South-West stakeholder should prepare for the massive protest of #IgboMustGo on the 20th – 30th of August, 2024. An X handle named ‘LagosPedia’ had recently demanded for “the forced relocation of Igbo people from Lagos and other South West states within one month”. The hashtag #Igbomustgo also called on all “the Yoruba living in the South East to return to the South West,” the statement posits.