Federal lawmakers under the aegis of the Southeast National Assembly Caucus have condemned the continued ethnic profiling of Igbos over the nationwide #Endbadgovernments protest across the country.
In a statement signed by the southeast leaders of both chambers of the National Assembly, Senator Enyinaya Abaribe and Rt. Hon Igariwey Iduma Enwo, described as unfortunate and dangerous the ethnic profiling of Igbos in the ongoing mass protests across the country.
“For the records, the Igbo nation, in obedience to the advice of their leaders, Governors, Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide, parliamentarians and others in the private sector had taken a reasoned and strategic decision not to participate in the on-going nationwide protests”. The statement added.
The lawmakers expressed surprise and disappointment over the level at which Igbos are still made scapegoats, and targeted as instigators of protests, as shown in several statements (such as the Igbo Must Go hashtag and call by a certain ‘Lagospedia’ X(Twitter) handle) and videos trending online.
While decrying that ethnic profiling is unwarranted, and must stop, the lawmakers lamented how such dangerous tendency led to the millions of deaths in Nigeria from the 1950’s to the unfortunate civil war in 1967 to 1970.
The statement explained further; “Elsewhere in Africa it led to the genocide in Rwanda and the xenophobia in South Africa.
“We demand that the security agencies bring to book the purveyors of this hate speeches in line with the cybercrimes act while we continue to appeal to Igbos across the country to stay away from the protests, and remain law abiding.”
