Biafran Agitators Must Agree to Negotiate– Okorie

National Chairman of United Progressive Party (UPP), Chief Chekwas Okorie has insisted that Biafran Agitators must come to the negotiation table. He stated that, “For instance, the distribution of key appointments have left much to be desired. It has left some people, especially my Igbo people with very strong feeling of alienation. This kind of feeling cannot engender the kind of patriotism that is expected to get everybody’s hand on deck. “That I have voiced out without being abusive about it, without being combative about it, but being suggestive so that this government may become more broad-based. I have also criticised the method being adopted by government so far in the Biafran protests among the Igbo people of Nigeria. “Arresting Nnamdi Kanu was a fundamental error, that need not to have been made and having made it, I was quick in suggesting that he should be released unconditionally in order to enable him lead his own group and meet Federal Government alongside other groups that are agitating for the same thing, to dialogue on how to carry Nigerians along so that everybody would feel part of it. “That again, to me, is constructive. I have even offered to play a reconciliation role, a mediatory role, a key role in that dialogue, not because I am looking for job, but because I have sufficient respect without being immodest amongst my people over the years, because the young ones are more likely to oblige me with their presence. As we speak there are approximately 12 groups based in Nigeria and outside Nigeria that are agitating for Biafra.” He also noted that Nnamdi Kanu worked under him while he was APGA chairman. Okorie said, “Nnamdi Kanu, Ralph Uwazuruike and many of them were under my tutelage at one time or the other. When I founded APGA in 2002, I appointed Nnamdi Kanu the first chairman of APGA in United Kingdom (UK) among other members of the executive. “And he remained loyal and consistent and even all through the APGA crisis, he remained with me till 2011. In fact, Nnamdi Kanu had been in APGA six months before the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu joined. It was Nnamdi Kanu’s leadership that organised the first and famous Brinston Academy Town hall meeting in UK where Ikemba made his major and profound statement at that time, telling the entire audience that if at any time that they looked for him and they did not see him, that they should follow me. “It is all on video, it is all on record. Ikemba made that statement in seven different places and it was all on video. The last event Nnamdi Kanu organised for me was on the 2nd of November 2011 where I addressed another town hall meeting in UK before proceeding to US from there and it was in that month of November, on the 25th that Ikemba unfortunately passed on. “That is why when I made the statement that I have earned the respect of most of our youths, that if I invite them to a meeting that I believe that they would honour me with their presence. I am driving this based on my long association with them.”