The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, has advised the people of the South East o use dialogue and peaceful means to tackle the recent imprisonment of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
The Minister gave the advice on Wednesday at the 14th edition of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu Memorial Day Celebration.
The memorial days was held at the Ojukwu Memorial Library, Owerri, the Imo State capital.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu said though the court of first instance had sentenced Kanu to imprisonment, all hopes are not lost, saying with dialogue and peaceful means, Kanu, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous of Biafra (IPOB), could be released from the Sokoto Correctional Centre.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Odumegwu-Ojukwu annual memorial day was instituted by Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, the founder of the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASOB).
The event is usually attended by Igbo people across the five states of the South East and beyond.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu in her address called for a minute silence for the late BBC journalist, Frederick Forsyth, whom she said resigned her job to cover all things that happened during the 1967 to 1970 Biafra and Nigeria civil war.
According to her: “Nnamdi Kanu is in the prison, we should not get angry and it is not issue to use knives, gun, or fighting ourselves in order to solve it.
“This coming Christmas, all of us should endeavour to meet with our National Assembly members and our governors, ask them the way forward to ensure that Kanu is freed from the prison.
“Also all of us should come together, plan ourselves on how to use peaceful means to settle this matter.
“We should plan how to meet with President Bola Tinubu and amicably resolve this matter.”
Odumegwu-Ojukwu added that the people of the South East should imitate other zones and learn to solve any of their challenges through dialogue and peaceful ways.
The minister expressed dissatisfaction that majority of the Igbo children these days don’t speak Igbo language as their parents don’t even teach them how to speak their language.
She advised Igbo parents to teach their children how to speak Igbo language, saying that mother tongue has huge impact in the upbringing of children.
She expressed dissatisfaction that even during the Nigeria civil war, Igbo people were not killing themselves or kidnapping people for ransom, adding that what is happening in the zone presently is strange.
She urged the youths of to be patient and embrace peace and dialogue as that was the best way to achieve progress and peaceful in life.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu said that after the civil war, her late husband was in exile for many years, but with peaceful means and dialogue, late President Shehu Shagari was able to grant him unconditional pardon.
She decried the low business activities being witnessed in the zone now due to the Monday sit-at-home, adding that this was as a result of insecurity in the area.
She explained that since killing and kidnapping became common in the zone, socio-economic activities had gone down, noting that investors are now investing in others zones.
She said: “Before, foreigners such as from Cameroon, Ghana, Togo among others were coming to invest in the South East.
“But since insecurity started, many of the investors, both foreigners and local, had withdrawn from the area.”
Chief Ugwunna Ajaelu, who was the chairman of the occasion, called on the people of the South East to be patient and adopt diplomatic measures on the issue of Kanu’s imprisonment.
Ajaelu said: “All hands must be on deck to ensure that he is released in no distant time.”
