By Collins Osuji, Owerri

The youth wing of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has described the position of South East governors over the agitation for Igbo secession as inconsequential and unguided.

The governors and some stakeholders had, in a meeting held in Enugu State, last week, said they were not in support of the call for self-determination of the Igbo.

In the communiqué issued by the Igbo governors after the meeting, they said: “We condemn, in totality, the activities of violent secessionist groups in South East and elsewhere.We firmly proclaim that we do not support them; they do not speak for South East.”

But at a press conference in Enugu, yesterday, the National President of Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC),Igboayaka O. Igboayaka, insisted that the statement lacked merit, acceptability and confidence of over 97 per cent of Ndigbo.

He said: “It is obvious that the South East governors and the stakeholders have lost sense of reality on the ground as regards the quest for self-determination by many pro-Biafra groups.

Let the world understand and know the truth that South East governors and stakeholders are the remote cause of any perceived violence by self-determination groups in Igbo land. This implies that Ndigbo are in lack of credible leaders and denied of justice in Nigeria.

“Igbo youths have lost confidence in the political actors of Igbo extraction.

This loss of confidence and trust has resulted in directionlessness, loss of control of Igbo political actors on the youth.What is, therefore, left for any genuine Igbo political actor is not to make unguarded statements about self-determination quest, but to explore a means to regain the confidence of the youths on their side.”

The youths lamented that those they would have called their fathers and leaders in the quest for self-determination, due to series of injustice, marginalisation and deliberate extra-judicial killings by the Nigerian security agents since 1970, rejected them.

-Guardian