Northerners residing in Enugu said at the weekend that they were safe and going about their business without any fear of attack or molestation.<\/p>\n
The confirmation came againsty the background of Tuesday attack on the Igbo in Kano State.<\/p>\n
But the usual piece which existed between the Igbo and their northern guests in areas heavily populated by the Hausa was noticeable as it was business as usual.<\/p>\n
Usman Gindigi, a cobbler who said he had been doing his business for the past four years in Enugu added that he had nothing to fear, even as he was being accommodated by an Igbo man free of charge in his boys quarters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see any sign of attack coming from Igbo people here in Enugu. They know we are not the ones that threw the bomb in Kano. Instead of fearing revenge attack from Igbo people, I fear the attack of Boko Haram people,\u201d Usman spoke in Hausa.<\/p>\n
A biscuit and sweets seller at a get of a secondary school, simply known as \u2018Baba\u2019 by the pupils, said even if there was such a counter attack by the people of Enugu, he will be well protected by his Igbo friends whom he had struck a brotherly relationship with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t fear anything like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo warned in a statement that keeping the restive Igbo youths calm against reprisal attacks had been an onerous job for the umbrella organisation.<\/p>\n
The Secretary-General of the organisation, Dr. Joe Nwaorgu, who signed the statement, emphasised that \u201cwe can no longer guarantee the civil response of our people in a country that has become one huge slaughter house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNdigbo cannot continue to bear this unnecessary and unprovoked loss of Igbo blood. These Islamist fundamentalists murderers must be tackled with the same ruthlessness with which they destroy innocent lives. The Federal Government must convince the people, especially Ndigbo that they were safe in Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warning that no tribe was essentially completely made up of cowards and that Ndigbo are certainly no cowards, Ohanaeze pointed said: \u201cWe remind the murderers that no ethnic group has the monopoly of violence.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a coalition of pressure groups in a joint press conference, called for a state of emergency to be declared in Kano State and other Boko Haram infested states.<\/p>\n
Led by its cordinator, Chuks Ibegbu, the group said the Kano State Government as well as the Federal Government should pick the burial bills of the dead victims.<\/p>\n
The Nation<\/p>\n