The Minister of labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has expressed outrage over the gruesome murder of a renowned medical practitioner and director of St. Leo’s Hospital, Enugu, Dr. Chike Akunyili and other residents of Anambra state by yet to be identified gunmen.

In a condolence message to the Government and the people of Anambra State, Ngige said the “murder of Dr. Akunyili and others in what has lately become a killing field is an anomie and an unmaking of the Igbo as a race beholden to an ultra-jealous credo of sanctity of life.

“While I stand entirely with the awe and grief-stricken people of Anambra State, basseted lately by incessant killings which distort whom we are, it is auspicious again to beckon on all of us to look inwards and reinvent our Igboness; for what is trending, is certainly uncharacteristic.

“This strange cavalcade of shootings, strangely becoming a fashion is diminishing our hearth, and quietly moving us to the exact spot that we must never be. And time is now to advise ourselves about ourselves and save ourselves from ourselves.

“The stray, dark-colured goat is better tracked while the sun is bright over sky. Let’s use our toes to find the tiny object in the pool, our ancestors would advise!”

The Minister in a statement by his Media Office further called on security agencies to intensify efforts and fish out the killers of Dr. Akunyili as well as those behind other killings in the state. “They should be brought to justice,” he said.

“While hand-wringing about our situation, I urge our people to also remain resilient and neither tank in, cave in nor be desensitized to the inherent virtues of the republican Igbo. That which seeks to push us to a tragic nadir, must be avoided.”

(Saturday Vanguard)

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