Gunmen, last Saturday, razed the country home of the President General of Ohanaeze Ndi’gbo, Prof George Obiozor, and Umuguma police headquarters in Oru East and Owerri West local government areas respectively. Eyewitnesses said two police officers on duty were killed during the attack on the police compound but the police spokesperson in the state, Chief Superintendent of Police Michael Abattam said no casualty was recorded.
While people were still lamenting the attack on the police facility, about 10 gunmen, in a convoy, struck at the Awo- Omamma home of Obiozor. “They were spotted throwing explosives at the magnificent building,” an eyewitness said. The Ohanaeze chief was not at home at the time. The police spokesperson confirmed the incident, saying that a part of the house was destroyed. “Some bad boys went to the place to set the house ablaze. Nobody has been identified yet, but we are investigating it,” he said.
The Imo State government, in a statement personally signed by Governor Hope Uzodinma, described the attack on the country home of Prof. Obiozor as “cowardly and the height of desperation” on the part of some politicians. He said that the government was already working with security agencies to identify and punish the perpetrators. “The time of those who unleash this kind of mayhem in the state is over. We shall hunt them down to face the full weight of the law,” he vowed. While commiserating with Obiozor on the burning down of his home, the governor assured Imo people that government would continue to do all within its constitutional powers to protect lives and property in the state.
Prof. Obiozor was elected the Ohanaeze Nd’Igbo president general in December 2020. In an editorial “Why Nd’igbo needs Obiozor” which Peoples Daily printed on August 3 commending the choice of the former career diplomat, we said, “It is true, in Obiozor, a well respected diplomat, the Igbo have found the right man to sell their ambition to produce Nigeria’s next president in 2023. He is the right hand to reach across the Niger for Northern solidarity if that sentiment must sell. But first, a badly politically splintered homeland must be reconciled to itself. Will Obiozor be able to pull that off? Only time will tell.
“The significance of the Obiozor victory goes beyond that narrow Igbo unity. It lies in what President Muhammadu Buhari said in his congratulatory message to Obiozor. The message sent by presidential spokesman Garba Shehu, urged the ex diplomat to ‘deploy his immense experience within and outside to forge greater unity in the country.’” Our editorial continued: “The import of Buhari’s exhortation to Obiozor is in the background to his emergence as leader of Nd’Igbo. Under his predecessor, John Nwodo, Ohanaeze ceded its place to an ultra nationalist Igbo platform that stands to reenact the disastrous misadventure of Igbo secession that led to a civil war in 1967-70. Millions lost their lives in that failed attempt at breakaway.
“Ohanaeze and the Igbo political establishment were simply overwhelmed by the frenzy whipped up by a youngster called Nnamdi Kanu until the Buhari government applied the wedge by declaring it a terror group and banning it. Even so, the group still wields much influence in Igboland through its reign of terror. Obiozor must stop it and push for greater Igbo involvement with the Nigeria Project.”
What we did not warn him about was that he must not under estimate the challenge he had just taken up. That job came with a huge risk to his personal life and family. Last Saturday’s attack was a foretaste of the worst to come. Kanu, the leader of IPOB, has made a show of condemning the attack but he was only shedding the proverbial crocodile’s tears. We know he had a hand in the burning of Obiozor’s home.
This said, we implore the Nd’Igbo leader to stay the course, no matter what the enemy brings his way. His role is cast in that of the biblical voice in the wilderness, crying to prepare the “way of the Lord”. Obiozor, never you waver in your duty to your mother land.