Governor Rochas Okorocha has reacted to comments by the leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, that he was sabotaging the Igbo cause.
Governor Rochas Okorocha
In a statement released yesterday by Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha's Chief Press Secretary, Sam Onwuemedo, the governor reacted to comment by the leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, that he was sabotaging the Igbo cause.
Read the statement in full below;
"Although Chief Uwazuruike had made his claim and his allegation, the indisputable fact remains that the real Igbo saboteur is Chief Uwazuruike himself and not Governor Okorocha, because all over the world, the real enemies of the people are those who fail or refuse to tell them the truth.
Obviously, what must have prompted Chief Uwazuruike’s media attack on Governor Okorocha this time was the governor’s condemnation of the violent protest in the name of Biafra some weeks ago, and his remark that Igbo people would not use MASSOB as a platform to ask for what is due to them in an entity called Nigeria. But the truth must be told.
Chief Uwazuruike had used his MASSOB to adopt and support the Peoples Democratic Party and former President Goodluck Jonathan when they held sway. He should mention one project the PDP-led Federal Government or former President Jonathan did in any part of Igbo land.
The MASSOB leader was part of the hate campaign against the APC and President Muhammadu Buhari, while Governor Okorocha was telling his Igbo kinsmen to read accurately the body language of the rest of Nigerians. Today, it is left for Ndigbo to tell themselves the truth about who was the real saboteur, Uwazuruike or Okorocha?
It is also left for Chief Uwazuruike to tell his audience why MASSOB went to bed throughout the period Jonathan was the President, only for MASSOB to wake up from their deep slumber now that Buhari is the President.
The Igbo cannot be asking for sovereignty in a country that they were one of the major stakeholders, if MASSOB had failed to achieve sovereignty under former President Goodluck Jonathan that they supported, would they achieve it under President Buhari they never supported? Who would allow them to achieve that?.
Truly speaking, the issue of MASSOB is a distraction. And Igbo leaders and the governors in the South-East geo-political zone won’t be part of that unnecessary distraction. The leaders and governors in the zone have resolved to work with Buhari to attract development to the area. And the projects have begun to come with the elevation of the Imo Airport to Cargo International Airport. Work is already in progress in the place.
Governor Okorocha is an Igbo man and would continue to support and promote genuine cause of the Igbo within the corporate Nigeria and in the overall interest of the Ndigbo both at home and in the Diaspora."