Junaid Mohammed is a rabid character —Njoku

EZUGWU OBINNA

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Anselm Njoku, has advised Ndigbo to ignore recent remarks by the Convener of the Coalition of Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, who recently said that President Muhammadu Buhari does not owe the Igbo anything. He described Mohammed as a confused man, who is driven by tribal sentiments and therefore cannot speak for Buhari.

Njoku who is the leader of South East APC Lagos gave the advice in a chat with Hallmark. He explained that Nigeria as an entity is Buhari’s constituency and that he owes the Igbo what he owes any other group in Nigeria. According to him, the President owes every ethnic group good governance and fair treatment.

“What we are calling on the President to do is to see Nigeria as his constituency; Nigeria is his constituency, not the North, his home state or even the APC because when one is elected as President of Nigeria, he looks beyond his party and works for the interest of all.

“Buhari should see himself as the President of all Nigerians and not allow people like Junaid Mohammed to confuse him. I see him as a confusionist and I want Igbo people not to take him seriously because he is not President Buhari, we did not vote for him, we voted for Buhari,” Njoku said.

“I want to tell you, once a single Igbo person has voted for Buhari, it is assumed that the Igbo have voted for him. In a contest where there are two people, some will support one candidate while some will support the other candidate but when the contest is over, everybody becomes one.”

Njoku further explained that the Igbo cannot say that Buhari is not their President as he is the President of the entire country, and as such the Igbo will support him in his anti-corruption drive. But he cautioned that the war against corruption cannot be won if there is indiscipline which according to him includes marginalization.

“The Igbo are not saying today that Buhari is not their President. If we say he is not our President, people will ask why are talking like that. But we are saying that Buhari is our President and we will assist him in his war against corruption.

“But the war against corruption cannot be won if there is indiscipline. Indiscipline leads to cheating. When you marginalize people, it is indiscipline. So if you want to win the war against corruption, marginalization of any section of the country must not be allowed because it is indiscipline on its own,” he said.

“Injustice is indiscipline, if two people have something to share and one person takes the lion share leaving the other person with almost nothing, that is indiscipline and that is corruption. So, to fight corruption, you must fight indiscipline and to fight indiscipline there must be equity and justice. ”

The APC stalwart went on to fault Mohammed’s reference to the civil war, explaining that the Igbo wanted secession due to the injustices meted out to them and did not start war against Nigeria but had to defend themselves when the Nigerian army started bombarding their territory.

“Buhari is among the people who prosecuted the civil war, and if you ask him, he will tell you that the war was fought based on justice and equity on the part of the Igbo. There was an annihilation of the Igbo in the North which was like the Boko Haram we are experiencing now, the first time Boko Haram was experienced in Nigeria was during the annihilation of the Igbo in 1966 when they were killed like chicken in the North.

“Anybody who doesn’t support Boko Haram couldn’t have supported what happened to the Igbo in 1966 which made them attempt to secede, and it was supposed to be peaceful, the Biafrans were not armed but the Nigerian military launched attacks on innocent Biafrans which forced them to defend themselves.

“The war was fought and at the end of it, General Yakubu Gowon declared no victor, no vanquished. If that is the case, it should not be held against the Igbo. The man is talking from a very wrong perspective, he is talking from a much tribalized perspective and I know that the President of Nigeria, who also fought the war, cannot accept what he said,” he concluded.

It would be recalled that Junaid Mohammed had in an interview with a national newspaper (not Hallmark) while responding to claims by former Anambra State governor, Chief Emeka Ezeife that Buhari is marginalizing Ndigbo, stressed that the President has not treated the Igbo unfairly as one of them, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu was appointed as the Group Managing Director of NNPC. He stated that Buhari does not owe the Igbo anything, and dared them to attempt secession again if they wished, adding that they would face the consequences.

“If the Igbo don’t like it, they can attempt secession again. If they do, they must be prepared to live with the consequences. Nobody owes them anything and nobody is out to compensate them for anything,” Mohammed was quoted as saying.