The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has said it was not surprised by the choice of President Buhari for another Northerner as Chief of Army Staff.
Buhari had appointed Major General Farouk Yahaya as the new Chief of Army Staff. Yahaha will replace Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, the former Chief of Army Staff who was killed along with 10 other military officers in a plane crash in Kaduna.
Before his appointment, Major General Yahaya was the General Officer Commanding 1 Division of the Nigerian Army and the incumbent Theatre Commander of the Counter-terrorism Counter-insurgency military outfit in the North East code-named Operation HADIN KAI.
But reacting to the appointment, the Secretary-General of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, said, “We congratulate whoever is appointed as Chief of Army Staff.
“It is very unfortunate that a Northerner will never solve the security situation in the North or Nigeria because of the alleged deliberate recycling of insurgency by the Northern cabal and the attendant benefits accruing from large budgetary allocations for the defence of the country.
“Mr President has again proved that he is a sectional president and he will continue to favour a particular section of the country and the continuous abuse of the principle of Federal Character.
“Appointing this new Chief of Army Staff shows that Mr President will never appoint and involve a Southerner. Mr President does not have confidence in a Southerner. On that note, we never lobbied for a Southerner to become the Chief of Army Staff.
“We wish the new COAS all the best and he must ensure he changes tactics from what was being obtained before the late Chief of Army Staff, Ibrahim Attahiru was appointed. We know that Attahiru was very competent and willing to see to the end of the insurgency.
“We hope this is not a nomination from the cabal. We hope it is not a nomination to continue to siphon budgetary allocation for defence. We hope this appointment was not manipulated and imposed on President Buhari. Moreover, we hope that military operation in the Southeast will have a human face by upholding human rights principles. We use this opportunity also to call on Mr President to rescind the order of shoot-on-sight and call for the withdrawal of military personnel in the Southeast.
We also call on all agitators to take it easy with their agitations.”
Also speaking, the National Publicity Secretary for the group, Alex Ogbonnia, said Igbo people are not happy with the appointment, stressing that there are lots of Southeast Generals qualified for the position.
“Before President Buhari changed the service chiefs in January, there was a clamour for a Southeasterner to be appointed. But when he eventually made the changes, Ohanaeze was quick to congratulate those appointed and commended Buhari for at least doing the most needful. But we reminded the president that there was nobody appointed from the Southeast.
“We had also hoped that he would appoint a new IGP from the South-East. But when the appointment was made, it was anti-East as usual. So, we are not happy that he has the tradition of deliberately leaving out the Southeast in his appointments. This is not good at all and we keep saying that part of the problems we have in the Southeast is the strong feeling of injustice, marginalisation and rejection, a feeling that gives room for the brightened agitations in Igbo land.
“We are not happy that the presidency has left out the South-East. The president has given us a big assignment but it is very difficult to convince our young ones to calm down. The more we try to ask them to calm down, the more they tell us they are being marginalised.
“We are not happy, it is very painful, and very unfortunate that as it was in the beginning so it is now, and we hope it won’t remain like this forever. We have a lot of Igbo Generals that are highly qualified and competent but unfortunately, you can see how they’re being treated. We feel sad; the more we try to tell our young ones that these things will come to an end, the more the president makes it hard for us.”