Oodua People’s Congress, OPC, has condemned the militarization of some part of the South-East under Operation Python Dance, “in the obvious attempt to arrest the growing influence of the Nnamdi Kanu led Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)”.
In a statement issued by the OPC on Thursday, and signed by its Publicity Secretary, Yinka Oguntimehin, the group said the agitation of IPOB could be fruitfully addressed through dialogue rather than the military option being adopted by the Federal government.
The OPC said history does not favour military suppression of agitating groups, citing the case of Odi where MEND surfaced strongly and serious damage done to the nation’s economy even after the President Olusegun Obasanjo led Federal Government was supposed to have successfully muscled the South South community to silence.
Warning against the implication of the military attack on IPOB and Umuahia leading to the killing of many, the OPC said “all efforts must be made to guide jealously the hard earned democracy which individuals and groups fought hard to enthrone”
The OPC said the nation’s democracy is daily being threatened by sundry issues, chief among them injustice, security and the economy, which it said could naturally be resolved without bloodletting if the Federal Government could be sincere enough to take the best possible option of restructuring the country.
Re-iterating its call for the restructuring of the country along regional line, the OPC advised government “to take conscious effort to ensure that the incessant bloodletting in the country is arrested instead of aiding it through unnecessary militarization of the country like is being done in the South East”.
The statement added that the recent happenings in Abia between soldiers and members of the public had underscored the urgency to reconsider the necessity of Operation Python Dance 2.
