By Segun Ayinde, Abeokuta
The Ogun State chapter of the apex Igbo sociocultural group, Ohaneze Ndigbo has faulted the sit-at-home order by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, to protest the detention of its leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu who is currently at the Department of State Security, DSS, custody.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Orient Daily, the State Secretary of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Barr. John Ogunebunwa, condemned IPOB’s attack on people to force them to obey its sit-at-home directive, describing the action as illegal, noting that the people have the right to move from one place to another.
He described IPOB’s order to force the people who are willing to go to their places of work or businesses to sit at home as “criminal”, adding that people have the human right to do that voluntarily without being coerced against their wishes.
Ogunebunwa charged the group to stop attacking people on whether to sit at home or not, insisting that as they have the right to protest the detention of Kanu, the people also have their rights to go wherever they want to go without being disturbed.
He said” The sit at home is a form of protest and people have the right to protest the constitution of Nigeria allows people to protest. Since sit-at-home is voluntary and when you volunteer you don’t complain whoever decided to stay at home has volunteered to sit-at-home he or she cannot come to say his business has been paralyze.
“Forcing people or may be attacking people that do not sit at home that one is illegal, the law does not accept that, this is why I say it is voluntarily. Immediately it is no longer voluntary, it has become criminal for somebody to attack somebody for not staying at home.
“If I have the right to go out so if somebody now disturbs me from going out that person has committed a crime so law must take its course. The IPOB are talking of somebody in detention for him to be freed, that means they know the law then for them to now tell somebody not to go out, if that person decided not to go out that means no problem but that person decides to go out I think he should be allowed to go out.
“When you want to protect the right of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu then you also protect the right of those who don’t believe in that, so it is everybody in the East. Whatever agitation we do we should follow the due process of law.”
Recalled that Mazi Kanu was re-arrested and repatriated to Nigeria through the joint efforts of security operatives and Interpol and had been remanded in the DSS custody by the court for trial bothering on treason, terrorism, among others.
The sit at home order had cripple economic and social activities in the region such as Imo, Enugu, Anambra among other states in the East in which indigenes who go out were attacked by IPOB members to remain at home.