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SSS quiz Ojukwu over Biafra
NKIRU OKEKE,
Enugu
P residential candidate
of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the last election Dim Chukwuemeka
Odumegwu-Ojukwu has been summoned to Abuja for interrogation by the State
Security Services (SSS).
Saturday Champion learnt that men of SSS visited the
residence of the Ikemba Nnewi in Enugu on Wednesday, with the instruction that
he was wanted at Abuja for undisclosed reasons.
Ojukwu, in a telephone interview with our
correspondent in Enugu yesterday noted that the SSS operatives did not tell him
why he was needed at Abuja.
He, however, stated that he may honour the
invitation by Monday, September 13.
"I asked them why, but they didn’t tell me
why. I asked if I am under arrest, and they said not yet," he said.
Confirming the development, the national
chairman of APGA Chief Chekwas Okorie alleged plans by the Federal Government to
arrest and detain its presidential candidate.
Chief Okorie who spoke in a telephone
interview said that men of the SSS were searching for Ojukwu, adding that the
party was at a loss why Ojukwu was needed at Abuja.
Said he: "Men of the SSS went to Ojukwu’s
house to invite him to Abuja without stating why he was being invited. They were
not able to state the reasons. It is a primitive way of doing things."
Chief Okorie who called from abroad where
he was attending a meeting of the World Igbo Congress, said that the party
viewed the development as the latest act of provocation by the government
against Dim Ojukwu, the party and the Igbo race.
He, however, stated that the party was not
opposing the powers of the security agencies to invite a citizen of the country,
but was only concerned that such invitation must be made formally and in a
manner that would respect and protect the constitutional rights of citizens.
"Let me emphasize that Dim Ojukwu is not
too big to honour an invitation from the SSS or to be arrested but we demand
that he must be told why he is being arrested or invited. I don’t know what SSS
could want to ask Ojukwu in Abuja that they can’t ask him in Enugu."
Chief Okorie said the party’s fears were
heightened by the fact that its case against President Obasanjo’s re-election in
2003 was still going on and also by the past experiences of Chief Ojukwu in the
hands of security agents, who acted at the instance of previous administrations.
He warned that the Igbo may not tolerate
the present development and would rather consider it another proof that the "no
victor, no vanquished" proclamation of the Federal Government after the civil
war was a hoax.
Speculations are however rife that
Ojukwu’s latest travails in the hands of security operatives may not be
unconnected with his recent outburst in an interview lending his weight to the
current agitation for the actualization of Biafra.
The Movement for the Actualisation of
Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) had last August 26, organised a stay-at-home
protest to mark what it termed Biafra Day.
In the interview Ojukwu reiterated that he
supported MASSOB "very much," explaining that MASSOB members seeing that the
reason for the civil war was still there, believed that Biafra might be a better
alternative.
Ojukwu however added that it was up to
Nigeria to decide whether Biafra could exist or not.
When Saturday Champion put a
telephone call through to the office of Publicity Director of State Security
Services (SSS) in Abuja, about 6.30 p.m. last night, the phone rang repeatedly
but there was no response.
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