Stay at home order: Igbo Youth Movement joins IPOB

•Insists move is to honour dead heroes

Enugu – The Igbo Youth Movement, IYM, has joined forces with the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, in asking Ndigbo to mark the Biafran Day on  May 30, 2018, by staying indoors throughout the day.

The agitators leaving the venue chanting we want Biafa.

Founder of IYM and Deputy Secretary of Igbo Leaders of Thought, ILT, Evangelist Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko, made this demand in a statement in Enugu, yesterday.

He said that apart from honouring the dead and heroes of the Nigerian/Biafra civil war among others, remaining indoors would also enable the Igbo to reminisce over their “journey in the country,” they have “found themselves.”

The statement read in part, “I am grateful to God that the section of the Igbo elite who for varied reasons were afraid to identify openly with the restructuring gale that has been blowing across the country for over two decades (since the Abacha days), have finally found the courage to stand up and be counted.

To God be the glory. “Credit goes to leaders like Prof Ben Nwabueze and The Patriots, who sustained the restructuring struggle for decades. We must also remain grateful to the great  Ide,  Dr Alex Ekwueme, who, actually, is the father of the six regional structures. “It does not matter that these people woke up to the truth very late; their ceremony at Awka shows that they have eventually become converted to the truth.
“We must thank God for that and pray that their conversion is real. We must also help them sustain the tempo until Nigeria is returned to the regional format that saw rapid development in the First Republic. Returning Nigeria to the 1963 constitution remains the only way out of the impasse the country has found itself in.

“I would like to use this opportunity to plead with our people to remain indoors on  May 30th. It’s the only way we honour our dead and reminisce on our journey in the country we find ourselves.

“Finally, we restate, that the only kind of restructuring that will save Nigeria is a return to the 1963 constitution, built on true fiscal federalism and regional autonomy.

“Any attempt by the oppressor to retain the 36 states as federating units and also sustain the unjust 774 local government areas while claiming that devolving some powers and duties to the states equals to restructuring, will be resisted. 
Only a return to the 1963 constitution will be acceptable,” the statement concluded.