The apex lgbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohaneze Ndigbo, on Friday warned youths in the South-East and the South South to stop their agitation for Biafra.
According to the group, any plan of secession will not work this time.
Chairman, forum of state presidents of Ohaneze in the seven Igbo speaking states, Elder Chris Eluemunoh, told the region to give President Muhammadu Buhari the needed support to perform, saying Ohaneze will never back agitation of Biafra.
There have been demonstrations in some states of the South following the arrest of leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
Members of the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) have joined the group in solidarity.
But Eluemunoh said, “Ohaneze as Igbo cultural group cannot support insurgency, we are totally against it and we will never support it.
“Anybody that has any issue with the federal government should go for dialogue with the president and that is why we went for national conference, Nigeria is a one united country and we do not want any other.
“I believe what the youths are doing is to call the attention of the president to see the infrastructural decay in the zone, this region has been abandoned and neglected and not by Buhari, but by previous administrations started by Olusegun Obasanjo which Goodluck Jonathan also tried to bring back.
“Ohaneze is calling on the federal government to declare state of emergency in the zone on roads for purposes of infrastructural development and that is what the youths are saying, we believe and not secession.
“Our president should forget what happened in the last election and Ohaneze is going to give him full support through prayers and other means and in making sure that Nigeria stays as one indivisible entity.
“Therefore, the youths should stop such agitations for Biafra because Biafra died in 1970 and we are saying it again that Ohaneze will never support it,” Eluemunoh warned.
Ohaneze stated that if Nnamdi Kanu and others who were spearheading such agitation had committed any offence, they should face the law, otherwise be freed.
The group warned that restiveness by the youths could stop if roads like Oba-Okigwe road, Owerri – Portharcourt road which Ohaneze described as the worst in Nigeria were fixed.
“What they call agitation for Biafra is not in the dictionary of Ohaneze Ndigbo and we will never give it a look in, what Ohaneze is saying is that president Buhari’s administration should be supported to move this country forward,” said Eluemunoh.
There is nothing wrong in celebrating the 40th remembrance day of the death of Biafra after all Prof. Achebe said “there was a country” not “there is a country”. Biafra was not Jesus Christ and therefore cannot resurrect. Let the agitators give it another name e.g Igbo Republic