Former governor of Imo Sate, Senator Rochas Okorocha, has opined that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), turned into a terrorist organization because of the way they were handled at first.

Okorocha who currently represents Imo West Senatorial District, said this on Thursday, February 3, while speaking to State House Correspondents in Abuja.

The lawmaker who had met with President Muhammadu Buhari blamed the government for not handling the group properly. However, he said he does not see the separatist group as terrorists rather as ‘children have not been properly educated on the happenings.”

The Senator while fielding question on the rate of insecurity in Imo said;

“It is the poor handling by the state government that exacerbated this to what it is today. If I had remained the Governor of the state at this time, you wouldn’t hear what you’re hearing.

“IPOB are our young men, our sons and daughters, and let no Igbo man tell you otherwise. They believe that they have been marginalized in terms of infrastructure and appointments, and they’ve believed this for a long time. But we’re able to assuage them and give them confidence that things will get better.

“But there was no need to have handled the IPOB matter the way it was handled. In the first place, bringing the Air Force and the Army into the matter, raiding from the air was wrong and completely wrong; Just as it is also wrong for these young men to have gone to the police headquarters shooting and killing people.

“I don’t support any of them either. Today they have turned out to be terrorists. But for me, I don’t see them as terrorists. I see them as children who have not been properly educated on the happenings” Okorocha said.