The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB has described it as false and libelous the publication made by the Daily Trust on May 18, 2023 attributing the rising security crisis in the South East zone to Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
In a release on Sunday by the group’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Comrade Emma Powerful, IPOB stated that the publication is a pure blackmail.
“The attention of the global movement and family of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) under the leadership of the Prophet Mazi Nnamdi KANU has been drawn to the libelous publication of May 18, 2023 by Daily Trust media against IPOB. We want to inform Daily Trust, a compromised media house, that they can’t blackmail IPOB in this era of investigative journalism.
“This Fulani owned media called the Daily Trust in desperation to blackmail IPOB before the International Community rolled out the false dossier of criminalities in Southeast and blamed them all on the peaceful movement of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). In their wickedness, they claimed ignorance of IPOB’s repeated expositions and disassociation from the criminals contracted by the Nigeria government to impersonate this peaceful Biafra struggle.
“Daily Trust feign ignorance that IPOB leadership has suspended the sit-at-home that was suspended since September 2021. Even though some of our people sit at home voluntarily every Monday in solidarity to Mazi Nnamdi KANU’s continued illegal detention.
“Those who claim to be enforcing non-existent sit-at-home orders in Biafra Land are not IPOB members but rather government sponsored infiltrators. IPOB have consistently disassociated ourselves from them. Therefore, for the Alamajiri newspaper to be linking IPOB to the criminals enforcing non- existence sit-at-home at any location in the Southeast is foolishness.
“IPOB is not among those groups committing crimes. IPOB or ESN doesn’t engage in forcing people to obey a sit-at-home order. When IPOB announces a sit-at-home, our people have obeyed, and not by force. Unfortunately, DailyTrust have prepared themselves for public ridicule because of their biased tribal reportage against Ndigbo and IPOB members.
“One don’t need a soothsayer to tell that DailyTrust is in connivance with their fulani government in Nigeria to demonize IPOB. The only crime of IPOB against this bigoted government was foiling the fulanization agenda in Southern Nigeria and our demand for a Biafra referendum.
“By this false publication they want to decieve the ignorant public and the International Community to believe that IPOB is violent and against education by linking us to the so called violent enforcement of sit-at-home orders around the campuses of Chukwuma Odimegwu Ojukwu Universities.
“They should know that IPOB being Ndigbo are lovers of education, not Fulani Boko Haram, that abhors Western education. They also want to destroy highly earned IPOB global reputation by linking IPOB and ESN to the criminal attack on the US Embassy staff convoy at Ogbaru Anambra State.
“We want the unprofessional DailyTrust media and their Fulani government sponsors to understand that their blackmail against IPOB is now tales by the moonlight because the public and the International Community are not daft to believe their lies. Though we have a handful of criminals in Biafra Land, the vast majority of violent crimes in the East are state sponsored.
“Ndigbo is not known for violent crimes. However, the majority of the violent crimes in Alaigbo are imported by the Fulani Government of Nigeria to create opportunities for insecurity and to blackmail this peaceful IPOB movement. That is why the Fulani Government, their Security Agencies, and the compromised media like DailyTrust blame every crime, including the ones they mastermind on IPOB and ESN.
“We have constantly and consistently challenged the Nigeria government to arraign the criminals they claim to be IPOB that they have arrested in court publicly for legal scrutiny, but they have failed. The same government used a compromised judge to obtain a black-market proscription order against IPOB, and they have refused to appear in their own court to defend their illegal proscription of a peaceful struggle and movement.
“DailyTrust viciously painted the Southeast as a terrorist heaven to disparage IPOB’s recent calls for our people to return with their investment to their home, Biafraland. Alaigbo is peaceful and remains the most peaceful region in the contraption called Nigeria, irrespective of the efforts by the Nigeria government to create artificial insecurity.
“Our people remain peace loving, and that’s why UN reported the Southeast as the most peaceful place in Nigeria before the janjaweed government tried to turn it into an insecure region like the Northern Nigeria. We advise DailyTrust to channel their energies and reportage on the Northern Nigeria where bandits and terrorists have taken over most of their rural and semi-urban areas.
“IPOB will be interested in having meetings with Igbo Governors, Polititcians, traditional leaders, and opinion molders who are ready to join us in promoting Biafra Self Determination through a UN supervised Referendum. Britain used divide and rule against Nigeria to exploit her. Fulani used divide and rule against Hausa to enslave them. The same divide and rule Nigeria government wanted to use on Biafrans, particularly Ndigbo, but IPOB decoded and dismantled it.
“Fulanized DailyTrust wrote, “Igbo-on-Igbo orgy of killing in the name of agitation for Biafra must stop.” When has Fulani media and their government become lovers of Ndigbo to call for us to have peace? How many innocent Igbos are in jail while Fulani terrorists are killing and kidnapping without qualms?
“This divide and rule old format of blackmailing Ndigbo as against each other is dead on arrival. Ndigbo love themselves and doesn’t kill one another, but the terrorists recruited into the Nigeria Security Agencies and some Igbo government recruited agents are the ones killing Ndigbo.”