From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The Igbo National Union (INU), an umbrella body of Igbo nationality groups, has urged the federal government to do the needful by hearkening to the age long yearnings of Igbanke people and reunite them with their ancestral roots.
This is even as the group has warned against the alleged intimidation of the people of Igbanke over their demand to join their kin in the proposed Anioma State.
The group said history records that the Igbanke are part of the Ika speaking people of the old Mid-Western State, predating 16th century Bini (present day Edo and Delta states).
In a statement signed by the Chancellor, Prof Justin Mbajiogu, and the National Secretary, Sir Justin Onyenso, the group said the Igbanke being in the present day Edo State was done in error of either through coercion, state creation, boundary adjustment, and or circumstances beyond their control.
The group said it would stand firmly by the desire of Igbanke people through resolution to be reunited with their larger Igbo ethnic nationality, stressing that the entire Igbo nation is solidly behind them, adding that: “The Igbanke were erroneously lumped together with tribes, which cultures and traditions are starkly different from theirs.
“The Igbanke people are people with similarities of cultural and traditional affinities to other Igbo sub-groups of the Igbo nation; with slight dialectical differences. Therefore their clamour to be reunited to their Igbo root is welcomed and long overdue.
“The mistakes of the past have to be corrected for a peaceful co-existence and harmonious habitation with their Edo State neighbours.”