The founder and pioneer national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Chief Chekwas Okorie has warned Igbo leaders against what he described as the dangerous trend rearing its ugly head in the South-East geopolitical zone.
Okorie, who is the Chairman, Igbo Agenda Dialogue, expressed concern over what he called the desperate struggle for political power through conquest instead of the ballot box.
The elder statesman, in a statement on Tuesday, recalled an incident that happened on the 12th of March 2026, when he released an open letter to President Bola Tinubu, with the caption, “Halt the brewing anarchy in Nigeria”.
In that letter, Okorie noted that he drew the attention of the president to events in Nigeria, especially by state and non-state actors, that could cause the breakdown of law and order and appealed to the President to take decisive steps to halt the trend.
“Obviously, my patriotic intervention did not seem to make any impression on the president,” he lamented.
“It was not long ago that an Islamic cleric called Sheik Sani Yahaya Jingir, in a most arrogant and inciting outburst in a public event in Kano, declared that all Nigerians who did not want the Muslim/Muslim presidential ticket of President Tinubu and his vice president should leave the country.
“He claimed that Muslims owned Nigeria. This hate speech was not only outrageous but unprovoked as the president and vice president were already in the last lap of their four-year tenure without any protest from any part of the country as a result of their faith.
“Neither the federal government nor any of its security agencies publicly condemned Sheik Jingir’s obviously subversive open declaration.
“Based on what appeared as government acquiescence to the irresponsibility of Sheik Jingir, more and more actors in the political space have become emboldened to go haywire. The list is long. The government seems highly selective in its interventions, if any.
“Now, this ugly trend is beginning to envelope the entire Southeast. It is no longer safe for members of the opposition parties to hold public gatherings or rallies anywhere in the geopolitical zone without being attacked by heavily armed thugs.
“These attacks last for hours, resulting in severe injuries and loss of lives. In most of these incidents, the security agencies appear helpless. No arrests are ever recorded, at least to be able to trace their sponsors.
“Most Southeast governments have imposed outrageous fees for campaign billboards running into hundreds of millions of naira for a single billboard.
“This is the reason billboards are hardly visible across the Southeast. Members of the opposition parties have also responded by pulling down the billboards of the ruling parties wherever they appeared. This is a recipe for anarchy.
“I call on Governor Hope Uzodimma, the governor of Imo State and the Chairman of the Southeast Governors Forum, to convene an emergency and extraordinary meeting of the Southeast Governors as a matter of utmost urgency to nip in the bud the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Igboland.
“No matter how the Federal Government of Nigeria may downplay the situation in the North, the painful truth is that wars are raging in the Northwest and Northeast sectors. In spite of the assistance of the United States of America, the wars have not abetted.
“Our present Southeast governors will be held accountable if Igboland becomes another war zone. Fifty-six years after the end of the fratricidal war in the former Eastern Region, the scars and destruction of that war are still festering and unaddressed.
“The colonial army could not conquer Ndigbo. Ndigbo survived the war of annihilation waged against us.
“Igbo votes for the 2027 elections can never be obtained by conquest. Ndigbo must remain vigilant and defend their franchise as we are known to do from creation,” he declared.
2027: ‘You’ll be held accountable’ – Chekwas Okorie warns South-East govs over pre-election violence