A prominent Igbo leader living in Finland, Hon Matthew Okorie has offered to broker a meeting between one of the leaders of the banned Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Simon Ekpa and the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo leadership, South East governors and stakeholders to restore peace, law and order in South East that has been bedeviled by insecurity and sit-at-home protests that has crippled its economy.
Ekpa is a self-determination Biafran agitator who has been spearheading the Mondays sit-at-home protest in the South East, that brings to a halt all economic activities in the region, which he said was a protest against the detention of the leader of the IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kalu who although he had been released and freed of all charges by the Court Appeal is still being detained by the Nigerian government and new charges filed against him.
In a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja from his Finland abode, Hon Matthew Okorie, a former candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for Aba Central State Constituency in the Abia State House of Assembly in the last general election, said that he was immensely disturbed about the insecurity in his homeland and had decided to do something about it especially as one of the key characters in the issue at stake is also based in Finland.
He dismissed claims that Simon Ekpa is unapproachable saying while he understands the grievances that was at the root of the Biafran agitation by Simon Ekpa, he believes that the issues of marginalisation could be addressed without violence insisting that there are a lot of disinformation on Ekpa’s agitation, dismissing the story that Ekpa was being sponsored by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to destabilise the South East for his own political gains.
Rather he claimed that Ekpa would be open to peaceful resolutions of the issues at stake and therefore seeks the buy-in of Igbo leaders to negotiate an end to the Sit-at-home protests whose enforcement has led to loss of many lives and properties.
He said a recent report showed that by 9th August, this year, it would have been 730 days since the South-east region began to observe the weekly sit-at-home exercise as declared by proponents of separatist state of Biafra, to press for the release of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Of the 730 days, every Monday, beginning from August 9, 2021 had been observed as sit-at-home in the region, thus grounding economic activities in the region and causing the region an estimated loss of N7.6 trillion in productivity, potential investments as well as loss of lives and properties.
The report also showed that since the commencement of the exercise in 2021 and this year, 105 Mondays of the 520 working days have been lost in terms of productivity or any real economic activity.
Okorie said that the South East cannot be allowed to be destroyed economically and is therefore ready to play any assigned role to broker a meeting between Ekpa and Igbo leaders in Finland anytime they are ready, which he hopes should be soon, because the situation in the South East is dire and requires urgent attention.
He said that he was also excited to learn that the president-general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu has also muted the idea of having face-to-face meeting with Ikpa who is the architect of the sit-at-home campaign. He recalled that Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, recently agreed to hold a discussion with the acclaimed prime minister of Biafra Government in exile, Ekpa, and his group to find a lasting solution to the incessant sit-at-home orders in Southeast.
He noted that the president-general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyawu, made this known through a statement made available to newsmen. According to Iwuanyanwu, “As a father, I hereby request Ekpa and his group for a discussion and an opportunity to air their grievances.”
Okorie said since Iwuanyanwu declared his intention to meet with Ekpa, nothing more has been heard either from Iwuanyanwu or Ekpa, thereby leading to his intervention to make the meeting a reality.
Okorie, who is a technocrat based in Finland and not a member of IPOB, but a patriotic Nigerian concerned about insecurity in his South East region, said he was motivated by the stories of killings, kidnappings and growing poverty in the South East that he was ready to facilitate meeting between the Igbo leaders and Ekpa in Finland in order to restore peace and prosperity back to the region.
