THE apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has reacted to a video of a woman advising Nigerians to poison the food of Yoruba and Edo people abroad, even as the organisation insisted that there was no sufficient evidence she was from the South-East of Nigeria.
Amaka Patience Sunnberger, a Canada-based individual, made threatening remarks about Nigerians of Yoruba and Benin heritage.
However, Ohanaeze Ndigbo maintains that there was no sufficient evidence that the lady who posted the video was Igbo, adding that she did not in any way portray the Igbo character of thoughtfulness, discretion, self-censure, and equanimity.
Alex Ogbonna, the National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, said this in a statement on Wednesday.
Ogbonnia said their telephones had been inundated by various eminent persons who had expressed fears about the possibility of some persons carrying out the threats.
According to him, “the attention of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has been drawn to a video clip making the rounds on social media that goes by the “name @Anyi_anambra on TikTok, “asking the Igbo to poison the foods of the Yoruba and Benin people.”
“The miscreant promised to encourage other Igbos to poison Yoruba and Benin people. Ohanaeze would have ignored the social media video clip as coming from a deranged psychopath or one of the fictitious narratives which with the Internet device was twisted, dressed, coated and delivered to the unsuspecting and obliging public,” the statement reads.
“It, therefore, becomes imperative for Ohanaeze to respond, especially when the National Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere, Mr. Jare Ajayi forwarded the clip and requested for prompt action.
“There is no Igbo man or woman that will contemplate throwing a stone in a full market for fear of who shall be the victim as the Igbo travel more than any ethnic group in Africa.
“They also create homes away from home wherever they are found. They mix up or integrate with the local community and contribute to developing every community they find themselves.
“Based on the foregoing, two major derivatives emerge: if one should poison food in Lagos or Ibadan or Benin, is there any guarantee that the first victim will not be Igbo?” he asked.
He said the lady in the said video must be a “depressed drowning ethnic bigot, obsessed by the negative side of history and unflinching satanic in orchestration.”
He disclosed that the Secretary-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Amb. Okey Emuchay decried the videotape on social media.
According to him, Emuchay vehemently condemned both the video content and the perpetrator as a mischief-maker.
“They are the merchant of woes who deploy despicable and incendiary rhetoric to create ethnic mistrust and conflicts where none exists.
“Ohanaeze seizes this opportunity to enlighten the younger generations that the Igbo, Edo and Yoruba share a lot in common. We share in cultural affinity, cosmology, morphology, and hospitality.
“The age-long intermarriages between the Igbo, Yoruba, and Edo have produced well-accomplished great-grandchildren,” he said.
He, therefore, assured the Afenifere, the entire Yoruba and Edo brothers, that the threat from the depraved mind should be ignored as ”idiotic, meaningless, and vacuous.”
“We add that, throughout history, proposals by the maladjusted are always dead on arrival.
“We use this opportunity to call on the security agencies in Nigeria to trace the perpetrators of this macabre dance to face the full weight of the law,” he said
Eighteen-Eleven Media