IPOB sit-at-home does not affect South-East governors – Umahi

Gov. David Umahi of Ebonyi has said the sit-at-home syndrome in the five states of the South-East does not affect the governors.

Umahi said this on Tuesday in Abakaliki, during the inauguration of his Senior Special Adviser on Religion and Welfare Matters, Rev. Fr. Abraham Nwali, as the new South-East Zonal Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

He said the sit-at-home order by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra “amounts to war brought by the people upon themselves.

“Governors of the southeast have done their best to check the situation and when people sit at home, it is not biting the governors.

“When you sit at home, there is food for the governors in their homes and some of their children are outside the country,” Umahi, who is the Chairman, Southeast Governors’ Forum, said.

He said that fears were high about a possible splinter groups emerging in the zone with their own agenda.

“There have been sit-at-home this Monday and Tuesday and I heard there is another on Friday with the church’s own on Sunday.

“Another group might come up and declare its own on Wednesday and Thursday, then the end will come.

“The situation will then be clear to the people but we implore the church to announce the dangers of this practice.

“The church can intervene through adequate enlightenment on the dire consequences of the sit-at-home order.

“Other geo-political zones are not sitting at home and we are killing ourselves in the name of agitation,” the governor said.

He congratulated the new CAN executive and announced a donation of N5 million to it plus a jeep for the chairman.

The National President of CAN, Rev. Sampson Ayokunle, who inaugurated the executive, charged the members to use their new offices for the service of God and humanity.

“You should use the new offices to touch lives as official positions are meant to create impact, make differences in peoples’ lives and enhance productivity,” Ayokunle said.

In a brief speech, the new Southeast CAN Chairman, Rev. Fr. Abraham Nwali, pledged that the new leadership would work toward the uplift of the zone and Nigeria in general.