Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia state revealed how he prevented an outbreak of war following the agitation for a sovereign state by the outlawed IPOB

Following the agitation for a sovereign state by the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the Abia state governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, has revealed how he prevented an outbreak of war.

 In a chat with The Sun, Ikpeazu disclosed that southeast governors had prevailed on the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, to present his arguments to the federal government from an intellectual standpoint; but that Kanu refused to heed to their advise, and chose to tow a different path.

the governor stated further that Kanu’s stubbornness was what led to the military action in the state. He further disclosed that he had to support the military action because he had a responsibility to protect lives and property in his state, as the ‘chief security officer’. He stated: “If you have a two-year-old child in this house today and that child doesn’t go to school, he doesn’t go anywhere, before you go out and come back, you will discover that somebody with a lot of energy is residing with you here. So the idea is that all these agitations bottled up and all that created what you call IPOB. 

“And then, the federal government over time started watching from the sideline because IPOB was getting money from elsewhere, setting up radio stations, indoctrinating people, all that went on. “But while that was going on, at a point, the leadership of the South-East through Ohanaeze, through the governors started engaging Nnamdi to say, we know that there are issues. 

“Can we find alternative channels to discuss them? Can we make studies and intellectual presentations and confront the federal government with these arguments? But he felt that his own strategy was better and all that. “So, I think it got to a point when the federal government began to feel that the red line was threatened and unfortunately some of us as governors were not taken into confidence as to the details and plans and intentions of the federal government. 

“And it is the irony of this thing they call governors as chief security officers; a chief security officer but you are not controlling the commissioner of police, the soldiers around you, the navy around you. “You cannot tell them to stop, you cannot tell them where to go and all that. ” So that clash came up on us in Abia State and I was confronted as a leader to make a choice between the oath I swore, what was politically expedient and what was right; and I think what was right was for me to do everything to protect the lives and properties of Abians and those that are doing business in Abia. 

“So all that I did, the press releases, my actions, all that I did was geared towards fulfilling my mandate which was to protect lives and properties of not only Abians but of everybody that was within Abia doing business. “I did not wish for one soul to die; whether IPOB or a Fulani man or a Kogi man, I didn’t want anybody to lose his life or for us to begin to spill blood in my state. 

“Like I told some people, my mother told me that everybody should do everything to make sure that war does not ensue in his mother’s kitchen because the pots will break, the plates will break and after the war, with what are you going to eat? “So, I do not want a war in my kitchen. If there must be war, let the war go elsewhere; not in my kitchen. “And then I thank God and I give Him all the glory that he gave us the wisdom to take the steps we took.”.