S-East must not become war theatre —Chekwas Okorie warns Govs

Chairman of the Igbo Agenda Dialogue (IAD), Chief Chekwas Okorie, has warned South-East governors not to allow the zone to descend into a theatre of war ahead of the 2027 general elections.

In a released statement made available to Sunday Sun, Okorie noted that a dangerous trend of seeking power through conquest rather than the ballot box was raging across Igboland. He recalled his open letter to President Bola Tinubu on March 12, 2026, captioned “Halt the brewing anarchy in Nigeria,” where he alerted the President to actions by state and non-state actors capable of causing breakdown of law and order, but said the appeal made no impression.

Okorie cited the recent outburst of an Islamic cleric, Sheik Sani Yahaya Jingir, who in Kano declared that Nigerians opposed to the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket should leave the country, claiming Muslims owned Nigeria.

He said the hate speech was outrageous and unprovoked, as the President and Vice President were already in the final lap of their tenure without protest over their faith, yet neither the Federal Government nor security agencies publicly condemned it.

According to him, the apparent acquiescence has emboldened more political actors, and the ugly trend is now enveloping the South-East, where opposition members can no longer hold rallies without being attacked by heavily armed thugs for hours, with injuries and deaths recorded and no arrests made.

He also condemned the imposition of outrageous billboard fees running into hundreds of millions of naira for a single board across the South-East, which has made opposition billboards scarce and triggered retaliatory pulling down of ruling party billboards — a recipe for anarchy.

Okorie called on Imo State Governor and Chairman of the South-East Governors Forum, Hope Uzodimma, to convene an emergency meeting to nip the deteriorating security situation in the bud.

He warned that with wars still raging in the North-West and North-East despite US assistance, the present South-East governors would be held accountable if Igboland becomes another war zone, 56 years after the civil war whose scars remain unaddressed.

“Igbo votes for the 2027 elections can never be obtained by conquest. Ndigbo must remain vigilant and defend their franchise,” he declared.