Former
President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dozie Ikedife, Tuesday, warned that the
nation may split, if former Minister of Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja,
Nasir El-Rufai, and other northern leaders did not stop disparaging the
immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Major General Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd) and
other Igbo leaders. The elder statesman stated that the manner El-Rufai and his
fellow northern elders attacked Igbo icons, was becoming too excruciating that
with a little more push, Nigeria may go down the archive of history.
Ikedife,
who spoke at his Nnewi country home in reaction to the recent social media
report, in which El-Rufai was said to have accused Ihejirika as one of the
financers of the Boko Haram insurgents in the country, said that such statement
was capable of attracting the wrath of Ndigbo. The visibly angry Ikedife said
the accusation was another classical case of hounding and haunting of an Igbo
icon in the person of General Ihejirika, who left the Army a few months ago as
the Chief of Army Staff. He said:
“I wish
to recall that when Ihejirika left the Army, those I identified as destroyers
of credit and rumour mongers said that he was dismissed from the Army, but my
investigation revealed that Ihejirika retired as and when due and was indeed
the last member of his course mates to retire from the army. Following that
retirement, the high and the mighty in one section of the country ganged
themselves up and decided to take Ihejirika to the International Court of
Justice for alleged crime against humanity because, as they said, of the way he
hounded, the way he tried to checkmate Boko Haram insurgency when he was head
of the Nigerian army. They accused him of using undue force and fighting Boko
Haram mercilessly. That particular accusation seems to have died down because
it must be understood that in the army, you carry out orders and take
instructions from the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. So, the stigma
they wanted to stick on him did not work”
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