We are taking appropriate action on Oba Akiolu – DSS

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.