Stop military action in South-East, Igbo group tells FG

A group, Igbo Ekunie Initiative, IEI, has urged the military authorities not to go ahead with their planned  Operation Python Dance 3 in the South East, saying that such operation would amount to unprovoked war against the people of South East.


According to the group, “the region is very calm  and peaceful, hence there is no reason to warrant the planned Operation Python Dance 3,” adding that it would “serve no purpose other than to kill, extort and humiliate citizens of the South East in continuation of Muhammadu Buhari’s declared  apartheid policies of hate, discrimination and war against the people of the South East”.

In a statement signed by its president, Mazi Tochukwu Ezeoke and the secretary, Lawrence Nwobu, Igbo Ekunie Initiative listed the relevant conditions stipulated in the constitution for the President, with the approval of the National Assembly, to declare military operation, saying none of them exist in the South East region.

The statement urged that the operation be taken to areas where armed herdsmen and ethnic militias have been killing people with reckless abandon.

“Any further launch of Operation Python Dance or military operations in the South East, a peaceful region where there is neither war nor insurgency, particularly in circumstances where the military is yet to launch any real operation in areas where Fulani herdsmen have slaughtered thousands of Nigerians,  would be considered a further act of aggression, discrimination, double standards and indeed, a declaration of war against the people of the East by the Muhammadu Buhari administration.”