Ndubuisi Igwekani is the National President of the Igbo Freedom Movement (IFM), a forum which he described as being in the vanguard of securing the freedom of the Igbo people. He, however, opines that the discovery made at the Okija shrines was a good development but suggested that the same operation should be carried out in other parts of the country where shrines exist. The Anambra state born activist frowned at the colour being painted of the Igbo nation, most especially Anambra State, urging the Police to do a thorough job on the issue. He further spoke on the forum‘s aims and objectives. Excerpts:
The Okija Shrine has been a major news issue lately, what do you think about the discoveries?
Okija shrine has been there for a long time, and as a Christian, going by the Nigerian constitution, I realise that everybody has the right to choose the religion he wants and the dead bodies you may see in that shrine might be the ones that were dedicated to the shrine and once they died they had to be returned to the shrine. What I am trying to say is that our people believe in God not that Igbo people are demonic.
Do you think the Police are using the Okija shrine as publicity stunt?
I wont like to put it that way until the police finishes their report, and the Inspector General of Police is going there to see what is going on and we are waiting for them. What I want them to know is that if there are other findings there, I want them to know what is happening there is also happening in other shrines in the world and those who worship the devil know it requires human head and people and we will remember this is where Ngige and Uba were taken to and I believe they will be called upon and let the register be brought out, let us know the mission of people that are visiting there, so I stand where the secretary (Colonel Achuzia) of the Ohaneze stands. He said what happened is also at other areas of the world especially in Nigeria, but I am not saying people should use other people to do rituals, you remember the issue of 419, sometimes when they dupe somebody, they will ask him to look for somebody to go and look for human body and if that person can't get, they will ask the person to bring money so they look for money to buy and may be they got the information that the shrine used to keep some people.
You remember the story of Ezego, they say he died in the shrine and it is the same shrine that killed him, somebody did business with him and he duped the person of his money and the person reported him to the shrine and at the end of the day the shrine killed him in a motor accident and they believe his body is in the shrine. So what I'm trying to clarify is that it is happening in other parts of the world and I want the police to do a neat job and let tell us exactly what happened and let them not say the Igbo nation is demonic.
Do you agree with the view that the shrine is being used to paint Ndigbo as cannibals?
Anytime we want to make noise that we want to produce the President of this nation, they will find one thing or the other to tarnish our image so that the people of the world will now see us as demonic people, we are not demonic.
The police should do their work properly and tell the world the basic truth and the exercise should not end in Okija, they should visit the other shrines and know what is going on and what the shrine is all about and if the government wants to ban it, then let them ban it, and let me know how they will succeed because there is freedom of worship, what of the people that are killing our people in the North, what are they using the bodies for? Our brother Gideon, his head was brought down in Kano state, what did they use it for?
So all these things that are happening are not only in our place but what we are saying is that we are not supporting rituals, we don’t take nonsense in Anambra state, and we want to pursue the bad people from our state, so we don’t want people to say our nation is demonic that is it.
What do you think should be done with the shrine?
First, the Police should finish their investigation and if the community still wants the shrine, its going to remain there because that's the place where they worship. Nobody should deny them the freedom of worship ,but if the priests are using people for sacrifice, they should be crucified and if the dead bodies are killed by the gods, let the dead bodies be returned there.
What is the Igbo Freedom Movement all about?
I was the national director for sports under the platform of MASSOB, and the state administrator of MASSOB in Abia state, born and brought up in the North and it was frustration and persecution and infringement of our fundamental human rights. The Igbo Freedom Movement was introduced purely to fight for freedom and protection of lives and property of easterners. We have not less than 47,000 members all over the country, so it is a very large organisation that any where Igbo man is,Igbo Freedom Movement is there. The problem is that people fail to realise that we are not MASSOB, some of the MASSOB are in Igbo movement. This organisation is a purely Igbo movement for the protection of lives and property.
If you go to the East you'll see how the people are enjoying this organisation. We now have a lot of political saboteurs and a lot of 419 rising up in the Igbo nation because there is no time the Nigerian nation will ever build something genuinely to benefit the Igbo man, if there are contract they start looking for those who have been rejected in our land. That's why you hear godfathers. Imagine a state that produced Ojukwu, Nnamdi Azikwe, Chuba Okadigbo, you now bring somebody that is a school drop out to become the godfather in Anambra state, it is a disgrace and shame to our nation, so Igbo Freedom Movement came into limelight to fight once and for all.
Do you think fighting once and for all will bring justice and equity to the Igbos?
How can you talk about justice when there is no peace, before you talk about peace you talk about justice, it is justice that ushers peace. This struggle is for the nation to succeed, so automatically it is a Christian nation, we don’t have Moslems and we have few people who still believe in the old system, does not mean we are not Christians, so what Iam trying to say is that we base our struggle on Christ and with Christ everything is possible.
What brought about the declaration of August 26 as the BIAFRA day?
That's where we make mistake, if we talk about federation we have to do it the way its been practiced in other parts of the world., I’m a BIAFRAN accepted, but am living in Nigeria. How can Igbo man be a president when you want him to be part of Nigeria. Igbo man cannot be the Inspector General of Police and go to other part of the world you see our people trying to build one Nigeria. Before you ask what any Igbo man want, he will tell you it is one Nigeria, but today the one Nigeria we struggled for from independent till today, and the same Nigeria cannot accommodate us today. There is nobody that can stop our people, but if they want us to be part of any union, we must go back to the roundtable, so we can discuss. There are many nationalities in Nigeria, you cannot force someone into any organisation. What am saying is that we need the freedom of Igbo land.
What do you stand to gain from the August 26 holiday?
We are going to gain a lot of things from it, first we aregoing to draw the attention of the international community, for they to know our people really deserve it and for them to know we really control the East, for them to know we are tired of this nation called Nigeria, we want to tell them that our people are really forsaken, and we want to tell them what our problems are.
