By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

Wife of late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Ambassador Bianca Ojukwu, has urged Igbo people to come together and deliberate on diplomatic ways to secure the release of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, from detention.

He said that in the event of failing to secure his freedom, efforts should be made to ensure that he gets a fair and swift trial.

Iyom Ojukwu argued that it is not enough to merely harp on the devastating effects of the sit at home on the Igbo economy or dish out instructions to the people to normalize Monday's day to day activities, but that Igbo leaders must come up with alternative constructive solutions that will keep Kanu and so many other pro-Biafra activists on the national front burner.

She said that failure to do that will result in the IPOB leader and others rotting away in unmarked cells, abandoned and forgotten.

A statement attributed to the former Ambassador to Spain reads in part: “Failing this, Umuigbo will continue to demonstrate our revulsion against this oppression using the only options available to us.

“I beg of you, Umuigbo. Let us never forget that today our son remains in captivity. His incarceration also remains an invisible and symbolic chain on the wrist of every Igbo man.

“When you sit down to consider, as I have done, what Ojukwu endured, your love for him will increase a million fold and only then will you understand that trying to lead an ungrateful set of people is the most difficult job on this earth. If in doubt ask Moses and Ojukwu what they endured at the hands of Israelites and Biafrans respectively.

“Last night, I kept pondering what our eternal leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, must have gone through in his young brilliant mind when over 50 years ago he had to confront, not only the might of a British Government intent on the extermination of the Igbo race, but also a global conspiracy against the emergence of Biafra led by turncoat, weak-minded Igbo, Ijaw and Ibibio men.

“Those of our people who remain less concerned must stop hiding in spineless shadows and apply some heat to their cold feet. It is your future and that of your children that is at stake.

“Hide in those cringing corners today by your silence, your children will become the slaves of tomorrow....and will surely weep by the proverbial Rivers of Babylon right in their own homeland.

“No! May we never be known as a timid and ungrateful people. We all together with one voice say it loud and clear.”