The organisation called on security agencies to trace the perpetrators of this “macabre dance” and ensure they are brought to justice.
The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation Ohanaeze Ndigbo has condemned the viral video clip on social media asking Igbo people to poison Yoruba and Benin people.
The organisation called on security agencies to trace the perpetrators of this “macabre dance” and ensure they are brought to justice.
A social media handle with name @Anyi_anambra on TikTok had called for the mass poisoning of Yoruba and Edo people.
A woman identified as Amaka Patience Sunnberger in the video clip said: “Let Ndigbo get heart of wickedness and to start poisoning Yoruba and Edo. To put otapiapia, eat and die Sniper, I will put it in Yoruba and Benin food for them to die.”
But reacting, the Igbo apex body in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary Dr Alex Ogbonnia on Wednesday, said it would ignored the video clip as something 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,” but because of people who have expressed fears on the possibility of some persons carrying out the threats.
Ohanaeze said, “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 for prompt action.
“In the first place, there is no sufficient evidence that the lady in question is an Ibo. 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,” the statement said.
“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.”
“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,” Ogbonnia stated.
The organisation reminded the younger generation that Igbo, Edo and Yoruba share a lot in common, in cultural affinity, cosmology, morphology, and hospitality.
The statement further read: “The Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, MFR frowned on the video tape on the social media.
“Emuchay vehemently condemned both the video content and the perpetrator as a mischief-maker. They are the merchant of woes who deploy despicable and incendiary rhetoric to create ethnic mistrusts and conflicts where none exists.
“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 inter-marriages between the Igbo, Yoruba and Edo have produced well accomplished great grand-children.
“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.
“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.”