THE apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, on Monday warned the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and his regime that the secret ‘shoot-on-sight order’ to soldiers on Igbo youths was a call for another “pogrom and genocide.”

Ohanaeze said it had uncovered the plan of the Nigerian military to massacre Igbo youths using Fulani-Hausa military commanders.

The Igbo socio-cultural group cautioned the Federal Government to refrain from the use of force in resolving the present national crises.

The President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prof. George Obiozor, in a statement by Ohanaeze’s spokesman, Chief Alex Ogbonnia, said extrajudicial killings of innocent Igbo youths by security agencies, especially the military, had brought forth the new security situation in the South-East.

The statement, titled, ‘Re-shoot-on-sight order to Nigerian soldiers’, read in part “The attention of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has been drawn to the shoot-on-sight order given to the Nigerian soldiers on how to engage Igbo youths in the coming week.

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“The SaharaReporters, on May 8, elaborated on the new secret plan which by the grace of God has come to the public domain. The report further revealed that the exercise would commence from Orlu in Imo State, South-East Nigeria. This is very disturbing.

“The pattern of deployment of northern military officers to the South-East lends credence to the above report. SaharaReporters revealed that in preparation for the above, the Nigerian Army has posted northern Muslims as commanders over its operations and brigades in Anambra, Imo, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Benue, Edo, Delta and Rivers.

“In Anambra State, the Cantonment Commandant of the 302 Artillery Regiment, Onitsha, is Col. Abdulsalam Sambo, a Hausa-Fulani Muslim; while in Imo State, the Brigade Commander of 34 Brigade, Obinze, is Brig.-Gen. Ibrahim Tukura, another northerner; in Abia State.

“The Brigade Commander of 14 Brigade, Ohafia, is Brig.-Gen. M. Ibrahim, still, a northerner; while in Akwa Ibom State, the Brigade Commander of 2 Brigade, Uyo, is Brig-Gen Faruk Mijinyawa, another northerner.”

While describing the report as truly worrisome, Obiozor, former Nigeria’s Ambassador to US, admonished the regime of President Buhari to “learn a lesson from history by not fighting an unwinnable war against nationalism but seek possible peaceful options that are the only solution that guarantees national unity and peaceful coexistence”.

The Igbo apex socio-cultural organisation unequivocal stated that the current problems confronting Nigerian, occasioned by ethnic militia, agitation for secession, insurgency, among others were a product of sustained orchestrated injustice in governance.