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Tag: IPOB

  • Handshake across the Niger: IPOB members disrupt summit, reject calls for restructuring

    Members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, on Thursday disrupted the cool at the ‘Handshake Across the Niger’ summit held in Enugu.

    The summit, which had earlier progressed without hitch, witnessed an uproar as soon as the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo harped on restructuring.

    Nwodo’s demand for restructuring was greeted with loud disenchanted voices from the pro-Biafra agitators.

    The Ohanaeze President while recognizing their freedom of expression in a democracy, said such must be done in a civilized manner.

    This is as an array of Biafra apologists, who had stormed the summit in their numbers, disrupted his speech with a shout of “No, No, we want Biafra not restructuring; IPOB are not terrorists, herdsmen are terrorists; Nnamdi Kanu we know, who are you?”

    The women among the pro-Biafra agitators, to the shock of guests, pulled off their top wears, leaving only brazier, as a way of driving home their point.
    It took several minutes for the organizers to calm them down, with an assurance that they would be allowed to present their case formally to the summit.

    Chairman of the local organizing committee of the summit, Chief Ifeanyi Ubah, former aviation minister, Femi Fani-Kayode and several others moved straight to the area where the IPOB members were seated and made efforts to pacify them.

    Ubah, who later apologized to the guests over the uproar, ‎appealed to the IPOB members to remain calm as one of them would be invited to make a presentation.

    They continued pro-Nnamdi Kanu chants outside the venue, while insisting that they would not accept anything as alternative to Biafra.

  • Benue massacre: IPOB didn’t kill as much as herdsmen before you declared them terrorist, Soyinka lampoons Buhari

    Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka on Wednesday lambasted the incumbent administration of President Muhammadu Buhari for not being proactive in curtailing the excesses of herdsmen who recently murdered over sixty people in Benue State.

    The literary icon further stated that the Indigenous People of Biafa, and its leader, Nnamdi Kanu did not perpetuate as much as the herdsmen are flagrantly doing before the Federal Government declared them (IPOB) a terrorist organization.

    Soyinka who was recently under fierce attack for his perceived quietness on the ‘misdeeds’ of the Buhari administration said this in article he titled ‘Impunity rides again’ and released on Wednesday.

    “I am not aware that IPOB came anywhere close to this homicidal propensity and will to dominance before it was declared a terrorist organization.

    “The international community rightly refused to go along with such an absurdity. The conduct of that movement, even at its most extreme, could by no means be reckoned as terrorism. By contrast, how do we categorize Myeti?,” Soyinka said.

    The Nobel Laureate further alleged that President Buhari was handling the Fulani herdsmen killings the way his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan handled the raving Boko Haram crisis back then in 2014.

    In his words: “Yes, Jonathan only saw ‘ghosts’ when Boko Haram was already excising swathes of territory from the nation space and abducting school pupils. The ghosts of Jonathan seem poised to haunt the tenure of Mohammed Buhari.”

    He further recalled that after “a hideous massacre” perpetrated by the herdsmen in 2016, a security meeting was called and the cattle rearers “attended the meeting — according to reports — with AK47s and other weapons of mass intimidation visible under their garments”.

    “They were neither disarmed nor turned back. They freely admitted the killings but justified them by claims that they had lost their cattle to the host community,” he said.

    “Such are the monstrous beginnings of the culture of impunity. We are reaping, yet again, the consequences of such tolerance of the intolerable. Yes, there indeed the government is culpable, definitely guilty of ‘looking the other way’. Indeed, it must be held complicit.”

     

    Reacting to a statement that herdsmen were in defence of their stolen cows, the nobel laureate, said, “How do we assess a mental state that cannot distinguish between a stolen cow – which is always recoverable – and human life, which is not.

    “Villages have been depopulated far wider than those outside their operational zones can conceive. They swoop on sleeping settlements, kill and strut. They glory in their seeming supremacy.”

  • IPOB unveils Hausa radio service

    The Indigenous People of Biafra, led by wanted Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has launched its Hausa Radio Service.
    The launch, on Thursday, was contained in a statement by its spokesman, Emma Powerful.
    The statement said the maiden daily broadcast will begin on January 6, 2018 at 7pm Nigerian time on Short Wave 15110 KHz 19 Meter Band.
    Powerful said in the statement: “In keeping with our promise to facilitate the creation of an unbiased informative platform to take the message of liberation to the down trodden and oppressed indigenous populations of Northern Nigeria, we the family members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) worldwide and it’s indomitable leadership, wish to happily announce the official launch of the much anticipated IPOB sponsored Radio Nigeria Hausa Service.
    “The broadcast will have the widest coverage of any radio signal in Africa. It will be received all over West, East and Southern Africa. Every Hausa speaking community in Africa will be able to receive it.
    “In our opinion, we feel it has become imperative to educate the poor masses of Northern Nigeria.
    “The ruling class cleverly enslaved and impoverished ethnic populations of the North by keeping vital information and knowledge away from them.
    “This information deficit is what Radio Nigeria Hausa Service has come to remedy.
    “All the hitherto hidden history of the conquest of indigenous Hausa speaking populations of the North will be laid bare for the world to know.
    “More importantly, enslaved minorities of Arewa North, brutally savaged by Fulani terrorist herdsmen, through this unbiased platform, will acquire the necessary education needed to liberate them from the suffocating stranglehold of the caliphate born to rule class.”

  • News Hour: Forget second term bid, Nigeria will not exist in 2019’ MASSOB tells Buhari I TNGtv

  • ‘We won’t allow Gowon to lie against Ojukwu,’ says IPOB

    ‘We won’t allow Gowon to lie against Ojukwu,’ says IPOB

    The Indigenous People of Biafra on Thursday asked a former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, to stop making provocative and false statements against the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu- Ojukwu and the civil war.

    Gowon had recently in an interview with a private television station said Ojukwu’s lies caused the civil war in the country between 1967 and 1970.

    The former Head of State added, “We agreed to put our heads together, to regain the trust and confidence of Nigerians. We went to Aburi, to agree to deal with the situation of our country; by ourselves. We did not go with any prepared position on the federal side, but Ojukwu came with a paper he prepared. His prepared position was on a pink paper. Usually, a pink paper at the staff college means directing staff solution to the problem.”

    He alleged that the civil war broke because Ojukwu went on television and gave his account of the Aburi Accord, which was at variance with what was agreed upon; thereby deceiving the people of Biafra to going into war against the Federal Government.

    But IPOB in a statement by its Media and Publicity Officer, Emma Powerful, described Gowon’s comment as “ total falsehood from the mouth of a hater.”

    The group accused Gowon of having the penchant of distorting history, especially as it concerned the civil war.

    The group expressed worry that Gowon, at 83, could lie against the dead (Ojukwu) who could not defend himself in the circumstance.

    The statement partly read, “At the ripe old age of 83 and with the little window God has left open to him to repent and show remorse, Yakubu Gowon has chosen to continue to deceive himself with his bouquet of falsehood.

    “It was the Labour Party government of Britain that cleverly convinced the Arewa North to put pressure on Gowon to feign illness, thereby making it difficult for him to tell the country what was agreed in Aburi because they were not comfortable with the agreement.

    “Today, Gowon, whom we are led to believe is a prayerful Christian, has said he wasn’t able to speak when he returned from Aburi because he was ill. Question is: Was his information minister also ill? Were all government’s spokesmen in Lagos also down with illness at the same time, that made it difficult for Lagos to make a pronouncement on Aburi Agreement several weeks after the meeting?”

    The group said Gowon’s attempt to rewrite history would have worked had IPOB not been in existence.

    “This day and age, any attempt to rewrite the history of the Biafra-Nigeria war will be intellectually resisted and objectively dismantled. Fake history is at the core of why Nigeria will never be united. Gowon must come clean, apologise and make atonement.

    “We are IPOB, we won’t allow distortion of historical facts and neither will we allow the denigration of the revered memory of our all-time hero, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. He remains, till date, the only man that tried to bring genuine independence, not mere flag independence, to an African nation.”

  • IPOB, Wike set to clash

    Rivers State Governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike is set for a major falling out with the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPoB following media reports that linked the governor with the recently designated terror group.

    Mr. Wike and IPoB have been accused of being behind the mass panic caused by hoaxes about soldiers coercing school children to receive killer vaccines that spread the Monkey Pox virus.

    The Federal Government and experts have debunked reports of the story as false.

    A reliable source in IPoB told our correspondent that the group, which is agitating for the restoration of the erstwhile Biafra Republic, has become suspicious of Wike’s continued commitment to their cause. The source, who did not want to be identified because IPoB has been outlawed, accused the Rivers State Governor of exploiting his group for his selfish ends while threating members like mentally incapacitated people. According to him, the monthly subvention of 50million naira has been stopped over what the Governor allegedly described as lack of accountability in the running of IPOB affairs.

    He said, “Some of us think we can no longer trust this man. When Operation Python Dance II started clamping down on our members, we had thought that we can carry out reprisals in Rivers state since Governor Wike as a strategic partner should give us cover as someone in the opposition with a common enemy.

    “The man has stopped dropping the agreed sum and for over 2 months no one has heard from him which is a further proof that he is practically playing games with the movement after achieving his aim.

    “We were however jolted when Wike started saying things like IPoB are not welcome in Rivers or IPoB should not come to Rivers state, IPoB should stay away. Much as some of us initially thought that his attitude was to cover the relationship he has with us at that time, we have now become suspicious since the October 17 court date when the Federal Government failed to produce our Supreme Leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in court.

    “The thing is that most of us now think that Wike knowingly allowed the APC (All Progressives Congress) to know that he was connected to the Monkey Pox vaccine message that we were sending around. It was a surprise when APC linked Wike to it and later some CSOs even provided details that should only be known to those that planned the strategy. If we did not reveal the secret, which we know we did not, then it could only have been the Governor.

    “He has betrayed us when they decided to say IPoB was a terrorist organization, he betrayed us when our leader’s house was invaded by soldiers, he betrayed us when our leader was not provided in court and he has again let us down by exposing the way we frustrated the criminal medical outreach of the Nigerian Army. It will not only be stupid to continue trusting Governor Wike but it is also dangerous since he may one day decamp to the APC and completely give away our strategic secrets.

    “We are now having to go back to the drawing board because we cannot give up on our quest for Biafra just because of a sellout, which is why it was agreed that there should be no official IPoB statement on Governor Wike’s betrayal. It is not even as we are worried about him because when you have a cause that the comments of someone like former President (Goodluck) Jonathan tallies with then you don’t allow little setbacks to hold you,” the source explained.
    Mr. Wike’s spokespersons have not commented on the IPoB allegations that he betrayed them as they have not answered calls to their mobile numbers while text messages sent to them were not replied.

    Wike had last month dismissed claims that the opposition, including himself, were sponsoring IPoB. He said “Who are those being affected by the activities of IPOB? Are they not those in the opposition states? In the hay days of Boko Haram, does the Inspector of General of Police (IGP) mean it was the opposition then that was sponsoring Boko Haram just to distract the government then?

  • BREAKING: Kanu absent, co-defendants arrive court

    Three of the co-defendants facing charges of treasonable felony against the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, have arrived the Federal High Court in Abuja.

    They were brought to court by prison officials at about 10am on Tuesday.

    However, Kanu, whose lawyers said was last seen on September 14, 2017 following a military operation in his hometown in Abia State, is absent from court as Justice Binta Nyako is now set to commence proceedings.

    His co-accused already in court are the National Coordinator of IPOB, Mr. Chidiebere Onwudiwe; an IPOB member, Benjamin Madubugwu; and a former Field Maintenance Engineer seconded to the MTN, David Nwawuisi.

    But Bright Chimezie, who became a co-defendant in the case following an amendment of the charges was also absent.

    Kanu was on bail before he was declared missing.

    Announcing his appearance on Tuesday, Kanu’s lawyer, Mr. Ifeanyi Ejifor, told the judge that the IPOB leader was still in the custody of the Federal Government.

  • BIAFRA: US Embassy, spokesman sued over comments on IPOB

    The Embassy of the United States of America‎ (USA) in Nigeria and its Spokesman, Mr. Russel Brooks, have been dragged before a federal high court sitting in Abuja over the comments and the stand of the US government on the Indigenous People of Biafra,when it was proscribed by the Nigerian government last month.
    ‎The federal government last month secured an ordered of the court proscribing IPOB as a terrorist organisation.
    But the US Embassy, through‎ its Spokesman said IPOB is not a terrorist organisation under US laws.
    In the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/977/17, dated and filed 11th October,2017, the plaintiff, Nze Charles Ugwu, through his lawyer, Simon Kanshio, Esq.,‎ UGWU claimed that Nigerian laws are not inferior to laws of other countries and that the statement by the US Spokesman was to undermine the sovereignty of the Nigerian state which is anchored on its constitution.
    He therefore, wants the court to compel the spokesman to withdraw his statement and declare the embassy as a promoter of terrorists activities in line with the Terrorism Act.
    ‎The plaintiff asked the court to determine the following questions:
    *Whether by a true interpretation of Sections 1, 4 and 5 of the Terrorism (Prevention) (Amendment) Act, 2013 and the United Nations Convention on Terrorism the 1st Defendant’s statement endorsing the proscribed terrorist group named Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) does not amount to promoting terrorism in Nigeria?
    *Whether the United States of America represented in Nigeria through the 2nd Defendant is no longer obligated to be bound by the United Nation Convention on Terrorism which the United States of America signed and ratified?
    *Whether the 3rd Defendant as the Chief Law Officer of the Federation is not duty bound under the Terrorism (Prevention) (Amendment) Act, 2013 to advise President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR to declare the 1st Defendant a persona non grata for supporting the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) a proscribed terrorist group, thereby promoting terrorism in Nigeria?
    The plaintiff, in an affiidavit in support of the suit said Kanu and his fellow members of IPOB went about his so called freedom agitation in a violent manner which has led to killing of hundreds of persons and destruction of properties worth billions of naira within the last two years, thus necessitating the arrest of Kanu and some of his men.
    He said Kanu, who is standing trial and is currently on bail breached all his bail conditions and went about his agitation in a manner that is capable of inciting genocide against Igbos in the Northern part of the Country.
    “That I know as a fact that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu established his own Biafra National Guard (BNG) together with Biafra Secret Service (BSS) and was training men to raise arms against the Nigerian State.
    “That I am know that recently the Nigerian Army had a clash with some boys trained by Mazi Kanu during the Operation Python Dance II, a routine operation which is usually carried out by the Nigerian Army, leading to the destruction of lives and properties.” He noted
  • Biafra: Starve IPOB of funds to end menace, FG tells international partners

    Biafra: Starve IPOB of funds to end menace, FG tells international partners

    The Federal Government has appealed to its international partners to proscribe the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and starve it of the funds that gave the group sustenance.

    The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed made the appeal in an article, entitled ”Thwarting Terrorism in Nigeria”, which appeared in the US newspaper, ’Washington Times’ on Thursday.

    He recalled that the Federal Government on Sept. 20, proscribed IPOB which had been violently agitating for a separate state in the South-East of the country.

    Mohammed said that Nigeria had just defeated one preventable terrorist insurgency, adding that that IPOB must not be given the chance to get a foothold.

    He said that IPOB’s actions qualified the group as a terrorist organisation in most jurisdictions.

    “The terrors lay bare their opportunism. They masquerade as a separatist movement, yet they endanger the very people they claim to represent. In reality, IPOB cares about IPOB and nothing more,” he said.

    The minister listed some words of the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, such as “If they fail to give us Biafra, Somalia will look like a paradise compared to what will happen to that ‘zoo’ (Nigeria).”

    “I don’t want peaceful actualisation (of Biafra)”; “We need guns and we need bullets”; “If they don’t (give us Biafra), they will die“

    According to the minister, these statements credited to Kanu had exposed the group as a terrorist organisation.

    Mohammed likened IPOB to ETA in Spain, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and the PKK in Turkey all of which he noted had been proscribed by the U.S. State Department.

    The minister stressed that the administration would not make the same mistake as the previous in allowing terrorists to capture land.

  • Monkey Pox Fake News: It’s a set up by IPOB against the Igbos, group alleges

    The Igbo for Nigeria Movement, INM, has fingered the outlawed Independent People of Biafra [IPOB] to be responsible for the reports in some quarters that the Medical Outreach of Operation Python Dance II by the Nigerian Army is to plant monkey pox viruses in some children, describing it as another wicked attempt to set Igbo people against the Nigerian Army and other members of the Nigerian State.
    Reacting to the development, INM said the circulation of the rumour has portrayed Ndigbo as unthinking and shallow-minded people who cannot differentiate between reality and fiction.
    Addressing newsmen on Tuesday on the report, national president of INM, Mazi Ifeanyi Igwe observed that the fact on ground showed that the larger population of the South East are law abiding citizens with very cordial relationship with the military and all security agencies in Nigeria, including the Nigerian Army., adding that only those with criminal intent which the Army has thwarted are pained and out to use anything possible being it outright falsehood or blackmail to discredit the Army.
    He said, “We want to appeal to Ndigbo to decisively deal with the IPoB problem as it has been established that this criminal lies emanated from the terror group. Even as the damage is unfolding, Emma Powerful, the supposed spokesperson of IPoB continues to make inflammatory remarks, which were sadly reported by some mainstream media that ignored the fact that his group is a designated terror organization.
    “Unfortunately, IPoB is laying the groundworks to kill and destroy more Igbo people than any security agency could have ever done even if they had mounted a coordinated genocidal campaign against the southeast geo-political zone. This is a concern that is backed up by logic:
    “The IPoB lies has practically shut down schools. Emma Powerful asked teachers and pupils to stay at home until Operation Python Dance II leaves the southeast. This is going to disrupt education calendar in Igbo areas and this will leave our students at disadvantage since the other parts of the country would not pause their calendar for the southeast. Since Operation Python Dance is now poised to be an annual event are we going to be shutting down our school every year while other regions make progress?
    “Should Monkey Pox evolve into an epidemic that requires mass vaccination the lies and rumours that have spread like wildfire will prevent people from accepting life saving inoculations and treatment. This could cause casualty on a catastrophic scale. Let us be reminded that some parts of the country only a few weeks ago have to get vaccinated for cholera. The vaccines were shipped and conveyed by people in the South that included Igbo yet persons of northern ethnicities that received the vaccines did not wrongly accuse or fear the Igbo even at a time IPoB’s hate speech was at its vilest. The lies have set up our people to die needlessly should there be a national health emergency.
    “While IPoB’s lies may serve its immediate propaganda goal, it will create a new generation of vaccine deniers in the long term. We only need to take a cue from the impact of the anti-vaccines movements in the United States; they rely on the kind of rumours being spread in Nigeria now to push their agenda but the impact of the follies is being felt by way of resurfacing of diseases that the US had once eradicate while children are dying needlessly. Unless something is urgently done we are at risk of babies dying while those that survive would do so with the ravages of diseases like polio that vaccines could have easily dealt with. We will also bear the burden of staring afresh to roll back any eradicated disease that resurfaces as a result.
    “If our Hausa-Fulani brothers or any other ethnic group for that matter are resolute on decimating the Igbo as Emma Powerful is lying they will easily achieve that by tampering with our food sources since Nigeria’s food chain is heavily interconnected. The southeast does not produce all the meat, fish, grains and tubers it consumes and these are items that can be tampered with or bioengineered to deliver pestilence. It is therefore unkind to accuse others of what we are incapable of,” he added.
    Igwe called on state and federal governments to take immediate steps to stop further propagation of the lies by getting legal interpretation on IPoB’s continuing capacity to issue statements as an already-labeled terror group.
    He said, “The court order that designated IPoB as a terror group also outlawed its activities which leaves us at a loss of why a terrorist under the name of Emma Powerful continues to freely operate with the group’s name without being arrested. He should be immediately arrested.
    “Our hope is that the Nigerian Army would remain on standby with its Operation Python Dance II Medical Outreach to cater for those in need of medical attention once the lies making the rounds have been properly exposed.”