 Welcome back to the breakfast this morning, of course, moving now to our first major conversation for today. We're going to the southeast and we're going to be speaking about the security challenges of the southeast and what must be done to create a peaceful environment once again in Imo and Abia and Inugu and everywhere else that is currently troubled. At this point we're speaking with a member of Nkata-Indium-Ibo, Ifi Akirele, who is joining us from outside the country. Good morning and thanks for joining us. Good morning. Good morning. All right. Yes, good to see you. I'm going to start with asking your thoughts with regards to last few months in the southeast. I don't know if you've seen it as heartbreaking or you're not surprised. How have you taken the security challenges that the southeast has been experiencing in the last couple of months? I don't want to say the security in the southeast. It's everywhere. And so, okay, it's a bit more pronounced. You're addressing us now because I'm from the southeast, but this has been going on all over Nigeria. You've had it up north. You've had it in the middle belt. You've had the same situation. So it's not the southeast per se. It's just a very sad situation. I am sad, but I know that there must be some kind of solution to it. That's why I believe you're talking to me to see how we are coming into it. But I don't want to say southeast per se. It's a situation we're going through in the whole of Nigeria. Okay, so what's the message of Nkata Indiyum Igbo, NNNII, regarding the state of Nigeria and our insecurity? Well, first of all, let me just read to you two minutes who we are. Nkata Indiyum Igbo. Igbo means women, Igbo women. It's Igum in women in Igbo. It's a social, cultural group of professional Igbo women whose motto is partnering for development. It is a group of women who came together to work in partnership with our men and anyone or organization willing to return the region to the socio-economic, political, and historical past when everyone worked hard to uplift each other in the Igwe Buike spirit of Igbo Indiyum. The women of Nkata, we are Nkata, are worried about insecurity prevalent in the region in recent months. That's the question you asked me. We are worried. As daughters, wives, aunties, nieces, and mothers, we are worried and heartbroken at the carnage going on. Ours is not to seek who is right or wrong but to plead for peace because women and children are the grass that suffer when two or more elephants fight. We want to use any platform available and thank you for giving me this opportunity to please plead with federal, state, and other institutions of leadership like the traditional institutions, and religious leaders to intervene and bring about peace in our region. We are tired of the bloodshed, the poverty and the rapes, and all that comes with insecurity. This is what Nkata stands for and I think that kind of answers what you were asking me. What do I see? How do I feel about what is going on? It's a prevalent in the whole country but now it's quite bad in the southeast. We as women have to intervene and we're not coming in to judge anybody. When you talk about this thing, women, we have the womb. We carry the womb. Everybody out there, the bandits, the non-gun men, the iPop, the victims, everybody came out of a womb. So we are very objective about the situation. We don't want to judge you. What is your problem? You came out of a womb. We as mothers are crying out and when women rise, I have this strong feeling that God will intervene because we are crying out for peace. All right. Mrs. Akirele, you mentioned that one of the goals is to strive for peace. How does the Nkata in the Yom Igbo intend to achieve that peace, especially in Igbo land? There's nothing more powerful than advocacy. You keep on talking and talking. An opportunity has been given to us by your esteemed establishment. I've spoken now. I'm telling you, this will stimulate other women, probably gather other women, female groups. Women are not to go to war. We believe in dialogue. We believe in looking at both sides of the story because there's one common factor. These are our children. The girls, the boys being killed, the boys being kidnapped, the girls being kidnapped, the kidnappers themselves. What is reading? They're all out of a womb. They're out of a woman. So our own motto, what we want to do. We are not partisan. We're not taking any sides. We don't know who's right. We don't even want to know. We just want dialogue. We want peace. And we will keep on talking. We're going to go into the social media. We're going to go maybe to strategic places and ask them to please listen to our cries. Our children are dying. Where the grass was suffering. Whatever political differences, whatever the difference is, please hear the cries of the mothers. All right. Let's also talk about a certain group of your children. Like you said, the those who are calling for secession, Namdi Kanu, the IPOB, and the likes. Yesterday and over the weekend, the southeast was practically shot down with the BFR remembrance and the Citatum order. What is in Kataini? What's your reaction to those who want to secede from Nigeria and to the IPOB and their cause for secession? My dear, everybody believes in what they believe in. It is not Unkata that is going to judge what they believe in. It is Unkata we want to call. If we can get to Namdi Kanu, we will talk to him as mothers. If we can get to those boys on the street, we will talk to them as mothers. It's a freedom in the constitution. You can express yourself, but please do not make it lead to bloodshed. Dialogue is the best way to solve problems. Look at the Israel and Gaza problem and Hamas. It's dialogue that's brought the ceasefire. If they let these people go, they would have continued killing themselves, but dialogue is the best answer for all of this. We have no opinion, our opinions of whether the IPOB boys are shutting down the southeast or whether they're not shutting down the southeast. No, that's not us. Us is to call everybody together. We would like to talk to those on that unknown government. They can't be unknown. They were born. Somebody carried them for nine months and brought them out. This is another thing. We're appealing to mothers. When you're in your house and you see your son acting funny, coming in with strange things that look like ammunition and all, ask him. These are the sort of things we want to do. Talk to him. Try to make him see that this will not get him anywhere. He could lead to him dying. Even if he says, I don't care, I don't care, tell him that look at your mother. Don't you love your mother? Is this what you want from me? Let us talk. So the IPOBs coming out, they believe in Biafra. We can't stop them from believing in Biafra. Those who don't believe in Biafra exist as well. They cannot equally come out. The thing is that when it is reduced to carnage, killing, blood spilling, we want to appeal to the sense of decency. Protest doesn't mean you should kill yourselves. This is why we have come out. Our own approach is totally from the humanitarian point of view. We are mothers and we cannot allow this to go on. So we will keep talking. We will keep talking. We are not confronting anybody. We're not asking what is the fault. Of course, when you talk to them, they will give you their own opinion. This person did this. This person did that. We will listen. We will go back to advocacy. So basically, one of the key drivers of the message is re-renting and retraining the male child, the boy child, because you're mentioning here that women have a duty to nurture the boys in a certain direction and pull them away from the bad. That's what you're saying. Well, yes, to guide, because there's so much going on economically. There's a lot of hardship. So I think some parenting has lost a little bit of ground. So some of these boys, frustrated, no work, etc., etc., are probably easily drawn into activities that will let off. It's like letting off steam. A lot of them are letting off steam. So what we are trying to do is get mothers to see it from that point of view. Reorientate their minds. Don't agree with what the boys are doing. Talk to them. But there's also girls involved. Girls also have their own problem. So we just want to revolutionize the motherhood and stamp our authority over the nation. Starting with the Southeast as mothers. Mr. Kerele, is there a way that you also feel like that women need to get more involved with governance instead of being on the outside, and of course playing the role that you are advocating for now? Do you also feel like women need to get more involved in governance and in politics and being huge decision makers? And that might very well put us in the right direction. Well, that's a good point you made. Because when you go to a family, a husband and wife, a family that's running very well, I'll use my daughter as an example. Her and her husband make decisions together. They talk about things. They weigh things. She comes up with hers. He comes up with hers. And they tend to come to a good consensus. So I think two heads of different sexes is better than just one. The male, maybe the burden is a bit too much for them. There are certain areas where they do need the female touch. So I do agree that there should be a good balance so that women could compliment their men. Like I said, Nkata is to compliment men. It's to assist our men. They also have a lot on their shoulders. They've got their political position to fight for. They've got their family to maintain. They've got their status. You know, you men, how you like your big manism. You've got all that. So you need a Nkata, the woman, to hold you. So I agree that women should be given wider chances to govern with men, as to compliment them, not to compete, not to confront. No, no, no, no, no. We don't believe in that. Okay. You mentioned earlier that you want to achieve the aims of the Nkata and the Yom Igbo through dialogue. Looking at the practical aspect of that, how do you intend to do that? You mentioned Colin, Masi and Ndikanu. Would you, I mean, talking about the practical aspect of this, you know, actually call him to speak with him, visit state governors? I said, if we had an opportunity to meet him, we would not call him. We will keep advocating and talking and talking and talking. And hopefully it will get to his ears. It will get to everybody's ears. We're not going to go out and call anybody. We're not going to go out and start bringing, doing, as Igbo says, meeting with factions. No, we will just keep on advocating. So we will not, I'm not likely, I don't think we are likely to reach out to Ndikanu because that's not our objective. Our objective is to say, all of you, please follow the path of peace. And you think this, this message would reach them, you know, just, we believe so. Because if you make a lot of noise, you're calling me because somebody reached out to you and told you about Tunkata. The ball, the ball, your, what you've done today will snowball, you will see. And there's so many other women like me that are very vocal of this issue that will keep it up. Our President General, Iyam Jospin Aneni, has been an icon for women from way back. So she is ready any day to speak what I'm saying. I'm just here because we were not able, the notice was very short. And I am one of the coordinators of one of the states. So I said, okay, I'll do it. I'll do it by Zoom because the Wi-Fi system is a bit better from here, you know, but we will keep talking and it's talking, talking, talking. That's what we're going to do. Let's also talk about, you know, being able to galvanize and bring in more women on the cause that Tunkata Aneni is on. How can we get more women across Nigeria and across, you know, even in diaspora to get on with the same cause that Tunkata Aneni is on? Can you be our promoter? Can I come and meet you later? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, what we're doing is we are reaching out to them in the states. We're reaching out to women, you know, Southeast has five states and in every state they have unions of women and they have women leaders. So all of them know about us and they're all so excited and we are actually diaspora is the next step. And why we want diaspora now more than before is because of this message of peace, message of motherhood. So we are doing a reach out. We have a reach out plan, but advocacy is our bedrock. That is what we believe in. And hopefully it also, you know, goes all the way down to the smallest levels, the local levels, the village meetings, August meetings as they are popularly called and the likes, you know, all of that, the conversations can also go all that way. Yeah, we have a big outing in August and that's when village meetings meet, women's meetings. So we have our own big outing that was, you saw the emblem that was shown up. We have wrappers. It's going to be very colorful. We add a lot of joy to what we're doing. But the message is always there, you know, take it. Let's, let's, let's, let's go the path of peace. Let us have peace. Let us dialogue. Let us, let us look at the problems from all sides who are bound to reach a good consensus. All right. If you accurately, pleasure speaking with you this morning. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Giving us the opportunity and I reach out to all my sisters everywhere. Please let's continue with this message. We're gaining ground. Thank you for allowing me to proclaim the Incata motto, which is peace all the way, motherhood and love. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day. Bye. All right. Okay. So still talking about politics, you know, security, state of the nation. We'll be taking a look at the six years, the past six years of President Muhammad Buhari's administration and, you know, rubbing minds with analysts and, you know, political analysts to see just how well he has fared and that's after this break.