Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha has demanded for the particulars of Igbo indigenes in foreign prisons.
Okorocha claimed that some of them were being unjustly imprisoned.
The governor made the statement when he received the Defence Advisers and Attaches from various countries serving in Nigeria, in government House, Owerri led by Director Foreign Liaison at Defence Intelligence Agency, Brigadier-General Augustine Agundu.
A press release by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Sam Onwuemeod, said, “Most of the Igbo sons and daughters are languishing in the various prisons of the world with some for obvious reasons and some unlawfully imprisoned.
“I beg as a governor of the State that if you go home especially those from China, Korea, Turkey and USA and you facilitate their release, I will be ready as to come over and pick them and reintegrate them in our society.
“Imo is where you have the brain box of the nation, literacy rate is very high here, we are very industrious people, we control the commerce of this nation, you have come to the right place for the cultural interaction and exchange and you will meet the right people.
“Often than not, Nigeria receives a misconception and we suffer a very bad image across the world, yet, this is the place that everyone wants to come.
“Believe me, most of the foreigners that have come to Nigeria 90% of them don’t normally want to go back and the question is, if Nigeria is bad, why are those coming in, finding it difficult to go back, so I think it is rather what I may call the press misinterpretation and the media war we suffer from, in this country.
“Nigeria remains one of the few nations in the world that can give you comfort of the home, where there is no discrimination or segregation. “I charge you as people who have seen the goodness of this nation to be our ambassadors and tell our good stories to the world when you go back to your countries. We need people to tell our stories, of how great this nation is.
“We have a population of over 200 million people with diversified cultures and languages but yet united. “The news you hear outside Nigeria does not reflect the true character of Nigeria, sometimes people believe that Boko Haram is everywhere in the country not knowing that it is only in Maiduguri.
“And as you are aware, this terrorism act is everywhere in the world now, no country is safe from terrorism nor safe from insurgency. It is happening so fast that if your country has not been attacked today one day it will be attacked.
“It has become today incumbent on all the leaders in the whole world to rise using all the military forces to fight this ugly menace of terrorism in our world; having in mind that an injury to one nation is an injury to another nation.
“The unity of this world starts from the military, if the military forces come today, the much desired peace we have been looking for will come to fruition. The release also quoted the leader, Director Foreign Liaison at Defence Intelligence Agency, Brigadier-General Augustine Agundu.
He said: “We came in company of the foreign defence attaches attached to Nigeria, on 3days cultural tour to the State with their families to see the beauty and cultural diversity of the State. “Terrorism and insurgency have no border which called for world leaders to come together to fight the scourge to ensure peace and security globally.”
