Deputy Director, Public Relations, Department of State Services, Ms. Marylyn Ogar
The Department of State Services has said that it is taking appropriate action over the alleged threat of Ndigbo in Lagos by Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu.
Answering questions at the National Information Centre in Abuja on Wednesday, spokesperson for the secret service, Marylyn Ogar, said the service was handling the matter though she refused to give the details of the action being taken.
Ogar said, “We are taking appropriate action. Yesterday, the service had once again warned all Nigerians not to stoke the embers of discord within the country.
“If the presidential election had come and gone successfully, we wouldn’t want people to begin to whip up sentiments unnecessarily. So we are handling it.”
Meanwhile, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has directed a committee comprising notable traditional rulers in the state to meet with Oba Akiolu over the monarch’s recent death threat to Ndigbo resident in Lagos State.
Following widespread reactions to the monarch’s warning to Ndigbo in Lagos to either vote the APC governorship candidate in the state, Akinwunmi Ambode, or risk imminent death in the lagoon, Okorocha charged the committee, which will be led by the chairman of the Imo State Council of Traditional Rulers, Eze Samuel Ohiri, with the task of resolving the matter immediately.
The committee is expected to have a one-on-one discussion with Akiolu over the threat and to extract a commitment from him.
The governor, who is also the chairman of the APC Governors’ Forum, noted that it was not enough to accept Akiolu’s denial of threatening Ndigbo without traditional rulers from the South-East meeting with him to discuss the controversy and the way forward in the long existing relationship between the Igbo in Lagos and their host community.
Also, the Imo State Peoples Democratic Party officially reacted to Akiolu’s utterance on Wednesday.
The party described the monarch’s threat to Ndigbo as an empty, malicious and unwarranted threat.
In a statement released by the party, a copy of which was made available to one of our correspondents, the Imo PDP condemned the death threat, saying it was unacceptable.
The party wondered why a monarch would be speaking for a political party.
It urged Ndigbo resident in Lagos and other parts of the country to come out en masse and vote according to their conscience on Saturday.
EVEREST AMAEFULE
