Gist Arena

T he leader Arewa Youths Consultative Forum, Yerima Shettima has called on Igbos residing in the North the go about their daily activities and ignore the directive of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, asking them to vacate the region. Shettima noted that having withdrawn the quit notice, Igbos resident in the North have nothing to be afraid of. He assured Igbos that no violent action would be taken against them, stressing that northerners are peace-loving. Speaking with Punch, Shettima said, “There is no need for them (Igbo) to go anywhere. They can ignore IPOB; they are not even popular. “We have a culture; we have a background and when we say something we stand by it. We are not like IPOB that talks from both sides of the mouth. “Before we arrived at our decision, we consulted widely. Our people are not violent. We have leaders and when they speak, we obey them. It is part of our culture. “Our focus is to unify the country and for the nation to re...

F ormer Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has accused Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, of being behind the deaths recorded yesterday at the popular Eke-Ukwu market in Owerri, the state capital. In a series of tweets, Fani-Kayode rained abuses on Okorocha and insisted that it was not hate speech, when some of his followers labelled his posts as such. He tweeted: “When will this pot-bellied illiterate, this filthy sodomite, this one-legged ritualist and this ravenous beast stop killing people in Imo? “Calling a mass murderer a mass murderer,a racist a racist,a bigot a bigot,a monster a monster and a tyrant a tyrant is NOT hate speech. “It is called speaking truth to power and it is the life-blood of democracy. Anyone that thinks otherwise needs to go back to school.” The incidence which recorded the death of a 10-year-old boy and two others, has been roundly condemned after a video of the shooting emerged online. Source: DailyPostng

E meka Ojukwu Jr., a legal practitioner and son of Igbo leader, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, has disagreed with President Muhammadu Buhari’s comments that Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable. Buhari made the statement while addressing the country last Monday. Ojukwu, in an interview with Punch, claimed that Nigeria is “a product of negotiations”. He said: “I don’t think the tone of finality in the President’s speech is right. I have always said Nigeria is a product – a child – of negotiations. It is a child of negotiations in that when they started the agitation for the country’s independence — Zik (Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe) from the Igbo side, Chief Anthony Enahoro from South-West, and (Ahmadu Bello) the Sardauna from the North — they were all going to London. “They had problems but they patched their differences and, ultimately, without firing a gunshot, the British government gave independence to Nigeria. “For somebody to wake up and say ‘there are no negotiation...