Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State has said that Igbo leaders in the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are plotting to topple the Federal Government led by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He warned them against desecrating the Supreme Court with the ultimate aim of toppling the Federal Government.
In a statement the governor personally issued yesterday in Owerri and made available to Daily Sun, he cautioned Igbo leaders to watch their backs while indulging in what he referred to as the PDP-instigated mindless protests against the supreme court of the land.
Governor Uzodinma said he had observed with troubling curiosity that in all the PDP protests staged in Abuja against the supreme court, only Igbo leaders were in the forefront, with no leader from other parts of the country among them.
His words: “The protests is a script; a veiled version of Revolution Now agenda, to topple the Federal Government and it is unfortunate that Igbo leaders are wittingly and unwittingly lending themselves to the actualisation of this perfidious agenda, thereby making themselves willing sacrificial lambs and also endangering the lives of innocent Igbo all over the country
“ I think if these Igbo leaders should do a sober soul search, they will realise that the people from the North West who remained calm and law abiding when the supreme court sacked all the elected officials from governor to National and State assemblies of APC and gave same to PDP, were neither cowards nor fools but patriotic Nigerians who respect the laws and institutions of the land.”
The governor said although the PDP is pretending that the supreme court judgement on the Imo governorship election petition was the main reason for the protests, the truth is that there is more to it.
He insisted that they also used the process to cast aspersions on the Federal Government, thereby publicly dragging the integrity of major institutions of government to the mud.
Governor Uzodinma accused those leading the protests of harbouring a hidden agenda because they know that Emeka Ihedioha never won the governorship election and they also know that the Imo governorship election petition was dead and buried.
“These Igbo leaders should try and look beyond their noses and maybe they will see that they are being set up as intemperate, volatile, lawless group of people who can be used to rock the boat because they can be goaded into hasty actions and will not play by the rules of civility and democracy.
“If they look carefully, they will also see that it was not by accident that no prominent leader from any other part of the country was marked present at those protests “ the governor stated.
He said it was a shame that it is Igbo leaders who will be remembered for the very unpatriotic act of openly inviting foreign powers to interfere in the internal affairs of the country.
The governor said it was an open secret that the protests are hugely funded from somewhere to discredit the entire electoral process, not because of the Imo judgement but because the PDP has a grouse to settle with the entire 2019 elections and will do everything to bring down the entire Federal Government apparatus.
He said: If Igbos decide to exit themselves from a family bus with enough seats to accommodate every family member, they should have themselves to blame when they find themselves on the fringes of the family business.”
THE SUN, NIGERIA