Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide yesterday condemned a viral clip in which a woman who claimed to be Igbo called for the poisoning of Yoruba and Benin people.
The organisation said the threat came from a “depraved mind” and should be ignored “as idiotic, meaningless and vacuous.”
“We add that, throughout history, proposals by the maladjusted are always dead on arrival,” Ohanaeze said.
In the video clip circulating on X (formerly Twitter), a woman’s voice is heard making anti-Yoruba and Edo comments in what appears to be a virtual meeting on TikTok.
Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, identified the woman.
The voice said: “Record me very well; it’s time to start poisoning the Yoruba and the Benin. Put poison for all una food for work. Put poison for una water, make una dey kpai one by one….
“I want make Ndi Igbo get that heart of wickedness. Una too dey quiet.”
Ohanaeze, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Alex Ogbonnia, called on security agencies “to trace the perpetrators of this macabre dance to face the full weight of the law”.
The organisation said it would have ignored the clip as coming from a deranged psychopath or one of the fictitious narratives spread on the Internet.
“However, our telephones have been inundated by various eminent persons who have expressed fears about the possibility of some persons carrying out the threats.
“It, therefore, becomes imperative for Ohanaeze to respond, especially when the National Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere, Mr. Jare Ajayi, forwarded the clip and requested for prompt action.
“In the first place, there is no sufficient evidence that the lady in question is an Igbo.
“She does not in any way portray the Igbo character of thoughtfulness, discretion, self-censure and equanimity.
“There is no Igbo man or woman that will contemplate throwing stone in a full market for the fear of who shall be the victim.
“In other words, the Igbo travel more than any ethnic group in Africa. They also create homes away from home wherever they are found.
“They mix up or integrate with the local community and contribute to developing every community they find themselves.
“Based on the foregoing, two major derivatives emerge: if one should poison food in Lagos or Ibadan or Benin, is there any guarantee that the first victim will not be Igbo?
“The lady must be a depressed drowning ethnic bigot, obsessed by the negative side of history and unflinching satanic in orchestration,” the statement read.
It added that the Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, vehemently condemns both the content and the mischief-maker.
“They are the merchant of woes who deploy despicable and incendiary rhetoric to create ethnic mistrust and conflicts where none exists.
“Ohanaeze seizes this opportunity to enlighten the younger generations that the Igbo, Edo and Yoruba share a lot in common.
“We share in cultural affinity, cosmology, morphology, and hospitality. The age-long intermarriages between the Igbo, Yoruba and Edo have produced well-accomplished great-grandchildren.
“In spite of an infinitesimal de-enculturated deviant category amongst the three ethnics, the Aguiyi Ironsi-Fajuyi episode at Ibadan on July 29, 1966, exemplifies the inviolable fraternity, amity, and camaraderie that must always be elevated, extolled and venerated amongst the groups at all times,” the organisation said.
Ohanaeze assured the Afenifere, the entire Yoruba and Edo brothers that “the threat from the depraved mind should be ignored as idiotic, meaningless and vacuous”.
“We add that, throughout history, proposals by the maladjusted are always dead on arrival.”