A southeast Nigeria socio-cultural group, the Concerned Igbo Stakeholders Forum has expressed worries over the economic and social consequences of the continued weekly Monday’s sit-at-home action in the region.
Since August 2021, the proscribed self-determination group operating mainly in the southeast zone, the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, had ordered the people to observe every Monday as a sit-at-home in protest of the continued detaining of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu, by the Nigerian government.
Though IPOB had previously announced the suspension of the weekly civil action, residents have generally stayed indoors every Monday, resulting in economic losses on the people and region.
Addressing a Press conference in Enugu, the leader of the Concerned Igbo Stakeholders Forum, Chukwuma Okenwa called on the southeast governors to urgently convene an emergency meeting first within themselves within the next 48 hours and to follow it up with a multi-stakeholder consultative forum with the intent to generate actionable ideas that will douse the rising tensions.
The Igbo group said that the region cannot afford to lose out from its economic viability, which largely depends on internally generated revenue, in the face of a national economic crisis.
They warned that unless the incessant and now regular sit-at-home action in the southeast zone is amicably resolved urgently, the impact will stifle the region’s economy.
The group whose membership is drawn from the five core southeastern states of Nigeria suggested that dialogue and possible impression on the Federal Government to consider amnesty for the detained IPOB leader as well as other IPOB members who are held in various cells across the country should be what they described as “esteemed option”.