27th December, 2020
Apex Igbo social-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has accused the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari of taking the marginalization of the Igbo ethnic group to an unimaginable level.
The group made the assertion while commenting on the list of personnel recently promoted to the position of commissioners by the Police Service Commission in a statement released by Chief Emeka Attamah, the Special Adviser on media to the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo.
According to the group, only one out of the 37 new police commissioners is of Igbo ethnic stock.
While calling for the review of the promotions in the spirit of fair play, equity and justice, Nwodo regretted that such marginalisation was responsible for the fact that all police commissioners serving in the South-East hail from the Northern part of the country.
The group said: “A look at the list shows that the Northwest zone has 12 new Commissioners of Police, Northeast, 8; Southwest, 7; South-south, 5; North-central, 4, while predictably South-sast brought up the rear with just 1 new commissioner.”
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo observes that the already existing imbalance in the force exemplified in the fact that all police commissioners in the Southeast come from the North; and that not many Igbo officers are in the high echelon of the force should have made it imperative that more slots be given to the South-east.
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo is irked that the already depleted South-east population in the force deserved only one slot, and unequivocally condemns and rejects this provocative act of marginalization.
“Ohanaeze frowns at this propensity of ensuring that Igbo land is constantly under siege by having security heads from zones other than the Southeast in charge of security in the zone.
“It also rejects the unending and unnerving tendency of making the Southeast the whipping-boy of the country in all matters of recruitments and appointments at the federal level.
“Ohanaeze Ndigbo notes that while this habit of exclusion and denial has been the stock in trade of successive governments over the years, the preponderance of the marginalization in the present dispensation is unimaginable.
“What is more worrisome is the gross impunity with which these despicable acts are being perpetrated towards a people that are the mainstay of Nigeria’s unity and development.”