A US-based Nigerian academic and author Dr. Cyril Orji has described the factional leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Simon Ekpa, as a clown who should not be taken seriously by anyone.
The professor of Computer Science narrated how the sit-at-home directives of Simon Ekpa forced him to relocate back to America from Owerri after his retirement.
He said he had decided to return to Nigeria to start a new life after his retirement in the US.
“When COVID hit and I retired, I sold my house and moved all my things. I returned to Nigeria and moved to Owerri. I didn’t stay three days, and he declared a ten-day sit-at-home. My wife and I rushed out, saying we’re not going to have this,” he said.
Additionally, Dr. Orji said although he does not call for the self-proclaimed ‘Prime Minister of the Biafra Government in Exile’ to be killed, he “should have been told in a language that he will understand that he is destroying lives,” as he believes that Simon Ekpa is being paid to cause trouble in Igbo land.
Cyril Orji, who holds a doctoral degree in computer science, identified the absence of Igbo leadership and the treatment of Igbo people as second-class citizens within Nigeria as factors that promote the relevance of Simon Ekpa and his activities in the southeast region.
He argued that it would be even more difficult for a Biafran secession to succeed today than in 1966 because all the security apparatus is now concentrated in the northern part of the country.
Commenting on a passage in his book “First Is Last” regarding Nigeria’s pre-independence negotiations, Dr. Orji argued that if Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe had toed the path of Sir Ahmadu Bello, Nigeria might have secured its independence as a “confederacy of regions” and the subsequent civil war could have been averted.
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