The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, said sit-at-home portends grave danger to Igbo entrepreneurship.
Simon Ekpa, the self-acclaimed disciple of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, had declared a one-week sit-at-home and has slammed another two weeks’ enforcement of the order in the South East Region.
“The existential threat to Igbo entrepreneurship and businesses now is the insecurity and sit-at-home problem in the South-East. The mutation of this problem is largely unfathomable. It is becoming a cankerworm that is eating deep into our collective fortune as a people,’’ Kalu stated.
Speaking on the theme: Catalysing Partnership with Traders through Innovation, Technology, Analytics & Sustainability, at the “All Markets Conference 2023” on Friday, in Lagos, Kalu said the sit-at-home imposed on the five South-East states has stifled economic growth in the zone.
The deputy speaker lamented that the region has lost about N4 trillion to the weekly stay-at-home imposed on the South-East in the last two years.
According to him, “We have to rise up to nip the problem in the bud. The first wave of the migration of Igbo businesses post-civil war was in the late 1980s and the 1990s, when, due to incessant kidnappings, thievery and a rise in occultism, Igbo businesses domiciled in Igboland moved en masse to other parts of Nigeria and the West & Central African regions to thrive.
‘‘We are currently witnessing the second wave of such migration of Igbo businesses. This time around, it is due to the insecurity and the sit-at-home problem in our beloved region. Ummu nnem, this is not us.’’
Noting that violence was alien to the region, he called for collective efforts by all Igbo sons and daughters to end the menace.
Before the February 25 Presidential/National Assembly elections, the Senior Pastor of Dunamis International Gospel Center, Pastor Paul Enenche had expressed anger over the decision by some agitators in the Southeast to enforce sit-at-home on election day.
Enenche in a video broadcast recorded ahead of the election, wondered why the agitators who had complained of being marginalized would work against the candidacy of a son of their own soil, Peter Obi, the Presidential Candidate of Labour Party.
“This goes to the youths and agitators in the Southeast. What mentality is this? The whole world is advertising the son of your soil to become the next president of Nigeria and you are busy antagonizing and attempting to frustrate the voting process in your region.
“You have cried of marginalization in Nigeria and the opportunity is being presented for that to be addressed through a Nigerian president from the Southeast or an Igbo man and you are resisting it.
“If the devil is against you, you are also against yourselves. Who bewitched you? Are you paid to cause destruction and frustration for your people in the name of agitation? Those driving you, don’t love your people.
“Don’t waste your life and don’t waste your future for nothing. Calm down. Peace be still in the South East,” he said.
