The Director General Voice of Nigeria, VON, Mr. Osita Okechukwu has said that the non-arrest of Arewa Youths threatening Igbo residents in northern Nigeria was strategic, to avoid making them as popular as Nnamdi through his long incarceration.
Okechukwu said arrest of Yerima Shetimma and his cohorts would make them celebrities which may spur another round of agitation in the country.
Okechukwu spoke against the background of Ohanaeze Ndigbo’s frown on the complexity of the security apparatus to the danger posed by the Arewa Youths’ hate speech against Ndigbo.
Okechukwu in a statement in Enugu on Sunday disagreed with the position of Ohanaeze Ndigbo that the security agencies were playing double standards by not making arrests over the quit notice on Ndigbo residing in northern Nigeria.
Okechukwu said it was the long detention of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamadi Kanu that brought about his recent fame and rejected any other arrest that could make the inconsequential Arewa youths famous.
He said:”Methinks the non-arrest of Yerima Shetima and cohorts of the Arewa Youths for their arrant, unpatriotic, unconstitutional and provocative quit notice is strategic.
“Strategic in the sense that more than any other factor was the arrest and long detention of harmless, but as well provocative Nnamdi Kanu of IPOB which led to this sordid scenario.
“Detention made Kanu with no fixed address became an instant celebrity. Had Kanu not been arrested his agitation could have fizzled out unnoticed.
“I didn’t consult the Inspector General of the Police or any security officer for that matter, but common sense. The security chiefs might have reasoned that it is better to allow the storm to boil over, instead of creating another celebrity. As time is the healer of all wounds.”
