Ebonyi State Governor, Engr. Dave Umahi, this Wednesday morning, March 31, 2021 came under fire from frontline rights group, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), for his “medicine-after-death” visit and “mourning” at “the scenes of the Monday night (29^th March) attacks, killings and property violence levied against defenseless rural Christian dwellers in Nkalaha, Obegu, Amazu, Nkalagu and Umuhuali Communities in Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State during which dozens were slaughtered and maimed, properties including dwelling homes destroyed and other valuable items carted away or looted.”

This, according to Intersociety in a statement issued in Onitsha, Eastern Nigeria, “are a clear case of a Governor who conspiratorially and vicariously signed away personal, collective and territorial security and safety of his own people and put them in present and future dangers by having them handed over to jihadist entities, done in return for being in office as ‘two term Governor of Ebonyi State’.”

The statement was signed by Intersociety’s Principal Officers Emeka Umeagbalasi, Obianuju Igboeli, Chidimma Udegbunam and Samuel Kamanyaoku. In it, the group said:

“Under Governor Dave Umahi as Ebonyi Governor and Chairman of the Southeast Governors Forum, the Southeast Region and Igbo enclaves in neighboring Benue and Kogi States and faith security of the homeland Igbo People have grown porously and become gravely at risk and endangered. The homeland Igbo Ethnic Nationality, apart from their 1967-70 Civil War insecurity and other safe conditions, have never been so threatened and endangered. The present ‘Southeast Governors Forum’ involving Governor Dave Umahi as its chair and Governors of Anambra, Enugu, Imo and Abia states is the weakest in Nigeria and a threat to future security and safety of the homeland Igbo Nation and her People.

“Rather than governing and leaving leadership imprints in their respective states, the current Igbo Governors are not only nothing to write home about but have also entered their names in the negative book of posterity as ‘foundation layers’ towards destruction and enslavement of Igbo People and their natural territories. By watching over the destructive invasion of the homeland Igbo Nation and invocation of religious war against Igbo People, masqueraded as ‘inter-regional cattle grazing’, the Southeast Governors chaired by Engineer Dave Umahi have also become “students of Malthusian Theory” and conspiratorial “importers of radical Islamism” against their own people and homeland and shall be held responsible in the event of eruption of looming citizens’ reprisal radicalism.

“Intersociety therefore makes bold to say that Governor Dave Umahi who visited the affected communities reportedly in mourning mood, is clearly shedding crocodile tears and his ‘mourning’ can best be described in the idiom of Igbo Land as “soro muo gbue mmadu, soro mmadu jee izo”. As an outstanding and indisputable research and investigative rights group, we had long time ago found that as at end of 2014, there was little or no number of Fulani cattle herders’ settlements in forests, bushes and farmlands of the Igbo Nation, except in urban centers or their outskirts occupied by Hausa natives, later joined by some Fulanis, most of whom ‘Fulani Ngida” or sedentary Fulanis. Cattle herders then were involved in making seasonal ‘travel-and-return-trips’ southwards or in rainforest regions.

“Today, as factually attested to by our series of research, over 700 violent Fulani settlements abound in the forests, bushes and farmlands of the homeland Igbo Nation in the Southeast and Igbo parts of Benue, Kogi, Delta, Edo and Rivers States and most saddening is that the five years old violent settlements, started in 2016, were done with full approval of the present Southeast Governors led by Gov Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State. The Fulani jihadist attacks in Ebonyi are not the first or the second nor the last. Deep look into reported ‘inter communal clashes’ in the State has also raised strong suspicions and accusing fingers in the direction of jihadist herdsmen; whereby they launch camouflaged attacks at targeted communities and retreat to their hideouts after such attacks and put such communities and their neighbours at daggers drawn.”

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