What Professor Utomi is saying and doing along with other elite from the SE is not surprising nor is it unexpected. Prior to the January 1966 Ibo coup, the political and intellectual elite in the old Eastern Region, led by figures associated with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) and Premier Michael Okpara, held a deeply critical and antagonistic view of the Northern-led federal government and its regional allies. Eastern elites viewed Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa less as an independent national leader and more as a front for the dominant Northern People’s Congress (NPC), led by Sir Ahmadu Bello. Balewa’s administration was accused of using federal power to marginalize the South (you would think they care about the entire south) manipulate national censuses (such as the contentious 1962/1963 disputes), and look the other way during electoral fraud (in other words rigging. Is this sounding familiar?) After losing out in the bitterly contested 1964 federal elections, the Eastern elites were convinced that the constitutional and parliamentary path had been subverted by Northern-dominated federal authority. (Is this not similar to 2023 after the lost, and there's nothing they have not said about Yorùbás and the President who is a Yorùbá man?) Please keep following me. The Sardauna of Sokoto was seen by Eastern progressives and nationalists as the chief architect of Northern feudal conservatism, regional chauvinism, and a deliberate policy of "northernization" that locked Ibo "professionals" and civil servants out of federal opportunities. Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola was widely despised by Eastern elites and progressive southern factions after he aligned the Western Region's government (via the NNDP) with the Northern-led federal coalition. Thier hate for chief Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀ is very well documented. Little wonder then that 60 years ago, the Ibos bared their fangs and brutally murdered scores of Northern and Yorùbá elite while immediately entrenching themselves as the dominant tribe and immediately abolished regional systems so they can have absolute control. We are back to those dark days again. He knows what he is saying, they know what they are planning.