By Joe Akwarandu
As anxiety over the incessant harassment of innocent civilians by soldiers mounting road blocks in the Southeast continues to rise, a group, the Igbo Women Assembly (IWA) has passionately called on President Bola Tinubu to order for the dismantling and withdrawal without delay of all military checkpoints and roadblocks in the Southeast.
The group said in Umuahia that the checkpoints have become humiliating avenues for pedestrians and motorists plying the highways in the zone as people who use the roads are often subjected to interrogations, raising their hands while crossing the checkpoints, and beatings, saying that such trends portray the Southeast as a war zone when there is actually no war going on in the zone.
Making the call in Umuahia, the President of IWA, Mrs Nneka Chimezie who spoke to journalists in Umuahia after a general meeting/inauguration of the group in the Abia State capital, insisted that the aphorism unknown gunmen was imported to the Southeast by enemies of Ndigbo to destabilize it.
The event was used to inaugurate the Igbo Women Assembly in Umuahia.
She used the forum to call on the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo to cede the presidency of the apex Igbo cultural organization to Rivers State, warning against handpicking of any individual by some persons to fill the vacancy on January 10, 2025.
“The current Ohanaeze Presidency should go to Igbos in Rivers State; unless they come out clearly to say that they’re not Igbo, then it should return to Abia State”, Mrs Chimezie counseled.
Speaking on why IWA was formed, Mrs Chimezie disclosed that the group was formed to promote Igbo language and culture, train Igbo children on decent behaviours as well as make them speak the Igbo language and practice the culture in addition to ensuring that women and children in Igbo land maintain a lifestyle of purity, honesty, respectability and uprightness as depicted in the culture.
