By Waliat Musa

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described as ‘Igbophobic’, discriminatory and unconstitutional, the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to approve the establishment of specialised technology-based and health universities in five of the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria while excluding the Igbo-speaking South East.

HURIWA wondered what the Minister of State in the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Emeka Nwajiuba, was doing in the federal cabinet as a representative of Imo State in the South East when his boss and political leader sidelined the Igbo-speaking zone.

The group asked Buhari to dump his alleged Igbophobia and salvage his nearly destroyed legacy as a nationalist by immediately approving specialised technology-based and health universities in the South East.

It said: “Mr. President, stop hating Igbo-speaking ethnicity. We are a very fascinating people who love other people of our nation. Stop demolishing all the fabrics of our national cohesion and integration by openly and brazenly denying Igbo people their constitutionally guaranteed rights and positions.

“You are denying us the fundamental human right to scientific education by establishing universities in other zones but the South East. This hatred you are displaying against a section of Nigeria at such an advanced age is untenable and unsustainable. For sure, you will go down as one of the most divisive and bigoted Presidents Nigeria has ever produced. But you have enough time within your remaining one and half years to make amends and become a nationalist.”

HURIWA added: “For six years, we have watched as the current Buhari administration has continued to escalate her insidious hatred and maltreatment of the Igbo-speaking people of Nigeria through a cocktail of well coordinated apartheid style denial of the constitutional elementary federal character principles in appointments into top internal security and defence sectors as it affects the South East of Nigeria.”