The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, on Wednesday condemned the viral video of a lady threatening to poison Yoruba and Edo people.
In a TikTok video, the lady with the name @Anyi_anambra asked Igbos to lace the food of Yoruba and Edo people with poison.
In the video, the lady promised to encourage other Igbos to poison Yoruba and Benin people, saying: “Let Ndigbo get heart of wickedness and to start poisoning Yoruba and Edo. To put ota pia-paia, eat and die sniper, I will put it in Yoruba and Benin food for them to die.”
Condemning the call, Ohanaeze’s Secretary-General, Okey Emuchay, assured the Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, that the lady behind the video is a merchant of woes who deploys despicable and incendiary rhetoric to create ethnic mistrust and conflicts where none exists.
Emuchay disclosed that Yorubas, Edo, and Igbo people share a lot in common, hence, the video should be ignored.
In a statement signed by Ohanaeze’s National Publicity Secretary, Alex Ogbonnia, Emuchay urged security agencies to go after the lady behind the video.
The statement reads: “Ohanaeze would have ignored the social media video clip as coming from a deranged psychopath or one of the fictitious narratives, which with the Internet device is twisted, dressed, coated and delivered to the unsuspecting and obliging public.
“However, our telephones have been inundated by various eminent persons who have expressed fears on the possibility of some persons carrying out the threats. It therefore becomes imperative for Ohanaeze to respond, especially when the National Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere, Mr. Jare Ajayi, forwarded the clip and requested prompt action.
“In the first place, there is no sufficient evidence that the lady in question is an Igbo. She does not in any way portray the Igbo character of thoughtfulness, discretion, self-censure and equanimity. There is no Igbo man or woman that will contemplate throwing stone in a full market for the fear of who shall be the victim. In other words, the Igbo travel more than any ethnic group in Africa.
“They also create homes away from home wherever they are found. They mix up or integrate with the local community and contribute to developing every community they find themselves in. Based on the foregoing, two major derivatives emerge: if one should poison food in Lagos or Ibadan or Benin, is there any guarantee that the first victim will not be Igbo? The lady must be a depressed, drowning ethnic bigot, obsessed by the negative side of history and unflinching satanic in orchestration.
“Okey Emuchay, MFR, frowned at the videotape on social media. Emuchay vehemently condemned both the video content and the perpetrator as mischief-makers. They are the merchants of woes who deploy despicable and incendiary rhetoric to create ethnic mistrust and conflicts where none exist.
“Ohanaeze seizes this opportunity to enlighten the younger generations that the Igbo, Edo and Yoruba share a lot in common. We share in cultural affinity, cosmology, morphology, and hospitality. The age-long intermarriages between the Igbo, Yoruba and Edo have produced well-accomplished great-grandchildren.
“In spite of an infinitesimal de-enculturated deviant category amongst the three ethnics, the Aguiyi Ironsi-Fajuyi episode at Ibadan on July 29, 1966, exemplifies the inviolable fraternity, amity, and camaraderie that must always be elevated, extolled and venerated amongst the groups at all times.
“Finally, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide wholeheartedly assures the Afenifere, the entire Yoruba and Edo brothers, that the threat from the depraved mind should be ignored as idiotic, meaningless and vacuous. We add that, throughout history, proposals by the maladjusted are always dead on arrival.
“We use this opportunity to call on the security agencies in Nigeria to trace the perpetrators of this macabre dance to face the full weight of the law.”
