Ohanaeze Ndigbo youths on Sunday declared a state of emergency on the increasing number of killings in the South East and the country at large perpetrated by suspected herdsmen.

The youths called on elected public office holders, the executive and the legislative arms respectively as well as the five South-East governors, including their counterparts in Delta and Rivers states, to fortify their internal security mechanism “to enable them safeguard their territory from the invading Fulani marauders whose goal is aimed at annihilating people from their ancestral lands”.

A statement by the National Leader of the body, Amb. Dr. Arthur Uchenna Obiorah, called on concerned authorities to provide security intelligence networks to deal with the menace even as it assured of its support when necessary to secure Igbo land from being taken over by the cattle herders.

The statement reads in part: “Ndigbo home and abroad should consider their position with utmost importance and join their elected officers to ensure Igbo land is secured from the invaders, who seems to have deployed their machinery to sack their people from their farmland in the bid to extend their pastoral grazing zones to the South East of Nigeria.

“Igbo sons and daughters, the political class, people in diaspora and legal professionals from Igbo land should rise to their responsibility to ensure the systemic approach of the herdsmen be put on check and lives and property of Ndigbo are kept secured in their land.”

The group warned that it will not allow strangers who came to its land to transact business resort to kidnapping and killing, saying, “this nonsense has to be checked”.

Issues raised at the emergency meeting included disclaiming the immediate past leader of the body, Comrade Okechukwu Isiguzo, who was asked to desist from speaking on behalf of Igbo youths.

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