The governor of Abia, Okezie Ikeazu says it is the responsibility of the Federal Government to defend the decision to name the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) a “militant terrorist organisation”.

Speaking in an interview with The Osasu Show, Ikpeazu said Southeast governors only proscribed the activities of the group to douse tension in the region.

Key excerpts:

• Put the action of the Southeast governors within context. It became expedient for the Southeast governors to look at their mandate.
• My mandate as a governor is to secure life and property of not only Abians but everybody that is doing business within the geographical space called Abia.
• My duty and responsibility as at that day was to make sure that I avert bloodshed of monumental proportion.
• People make all types of agitations across Nigeria. But for me as governor, I supported proscription as at that day because we did not want the news to gather at one location or another under the aegis of IPOB.
• I don’t think the Igbo are getting a fair deal in this country. There is no other ethnic group in this country’s post-war experience that believes in one Nigeria more than the Igbo.
• The information that is available to the federal government is not available to me and if that is what they have said, it is up to them to defend it.
• But me as a person, sitting in my small corner, I can speak on any other Nigerian; ‘oh, the decision is a hasty decision’ but looking at it from the prism of the federal government is another angle.