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Enugu State governor Peter Mbah’s declaration of an end to the weekly sit-at home order being enforced by Biafra agitators has received the backing of the Catholic Bishop of Nsukka Diocese, Most Rev. Godfrey Onah, the Anglican Archbishop of Enugu Ecclesiastical Province, Most Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma, and the Enugu State Association of Presidents-General of Town Unions. Last Thursday, the governor said ‘the end of sit-at-home in the state begins from today.’
The clerics and town union leaders said yesterday that the discontinuation of the painful and destructive order of the agitators was long overdue. They equally expressed total support for Mbah’s call for the release from detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), saying it is the right path to national healing and stability in the South East region.
Speaking to reporters after leading a prayer session for a smooth end to sit-at-home in Enugu State and the entire South East at the Chapel of Redemption, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNEC), yesterday, Most Rev. Chukwuma, who also doubles as the Anglican Bishop of Enugu Diocese, appealed to the people to support the government’s move through compliance.
“Government has given a directive. My advice and appeal are that they should comply so that we can save the economy of the South East. Now the governor has said it is safe to come out; therefore, people should come out to do their business, and be free and set ourselves free from this bondage. It is a bondage, and we must be set free from it”, he concluded.
Also, in his homily at the St. Theresa’s Cathedral Nsukka, Bishop Onah, while commending Dr Mbah’s initiative to end the sit-at-home syndrome, noted that the suffering in the land was too much. He, however, begged the people to give the new governors of the South East the benefit of doubt.
Bishop Onah traced the insecurity and restiveness in the region to the continuous detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, and appealed to President Bola Tinubu to heed Mbah’s call for Kanu’s release.
“The suffering is too much. But, please, everybody should have mercy. Those that are angry should calm down. Many of us are angry, but we have to be careful how we express our anger or we may cause more problems.
“It’s in this spirit that I understand the initiative by some state governments in the South East, especially the newly inaugurated government in Enugu State, to try to restore normalcy in the South East. But I want to believe and I want to affirm that this initiative must of necessity include an increase in the effort to secure the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from detention.”
On their part, the Presidents-General (PGs) of Enugu State Town Unions wondered why Enugu State should continue to be on lockdown every Monday whereas “both private and public offices in the capitals of other states of the South East region had since resumed businesses, wondering why Enugu’s case should be different.”
In a statement by the coordinating PG, Barr. Paully Ezeh, the association said the loss of Mondays since September 2021 had resulted in untold hardships and caused incalculable economic losses in the state and South East. “The governor’s promise to transform Enugu from a public sector economy to a private-sector driven economy; raise the state’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the present $4.4 billion to $30 billion in eight years, make Enugu one of the top three economies, restore public water supply in Enugu metropolis in 180 days, and eradicate poverty can’t happen if we continue to sit at home on Mondays. It presents our state to investors as a restive, insecure, and unproductive place.
“The association, therefore, appeals to both private and public institutions and people of Enugu to support the government’s efforts to restore full days of work and productivity in the state. We urge aggrieved persons and groups to take the opportunity of dialogue advanced by the Mbah administration and we equally join the governor in his call for Nnamdi Kanu’s release to engender organic peace and national healing”, the association said.
(leadership.ng)
