Nnamdi Kanu , IPOB under fire over Southeast sit-at-home protests

MAZI Nnamdi Kanu and his proscribed separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra ( IPOB) have come under severe criticisms for dissociating themselves from the Monday sit-at-home protests that have led to mindless killings and disruption of economic cum social activities in the South East region.

Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, last weekend revealed that Nnamdi Kanu told him while in detention that he neither ordered nor knew about the Monday sit-at-home which has continued to be observed in the region.

IPOB, during the week issued a statement backing Abaribe and restating that it had washed its hands off the exercise.

“Comments from Abaribe are true, because we stated it before now that Kanu, through his lawyers had asked IPOB members and its leadership to stop the Monday sit-at-home order.

“Those purportedly enforcing the directive have been killing and burning property of Igbo people and they will incur the wrath of IPOB in due course,” the statement partly read.

IPOB through the spokesman, Emma Powerful had on July 30, 2021, issued a statement declaring an indefinite sit-at-home every Monday till Kanu is released.

The statement read in part: “We the global family of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB (IPOB) ably led by our great leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, wish to announce to all Biafra citizens, friends of Biafra and lovers of Biafra freedom and independence that IPOB leadership has declared every Monday ‘a ghost Monday’. This declaration takes effect from Monday, August 9, 2021. Nobody should attempt to flout this directive as doing so may come with huge consequences. Anybody flouting this order is taking a grave risk,”

People of the region have asked the separatist group to take responsibility for their actions and not further insult their senses by dissociating itself from the Monday-sit- at-home protests.

Speaking on the development, a social analyst, Mr. Benson Offor, said “Those who started the Monday sit-at-home should equally look for possible means to stop it if they claim that they are no longer in support of it. It is the monsters that they breed that are propagating it. They know them and know where to find them.

“It is in their hands to quench the fire that they lit and let me say this for emphasis; the fire that they lit in the southeast will soon consume them or even their relations.”

He added: “When we were telling people that IPOB is bigger than Kanu, people thought that we are stupid. What is happening in their camps now shows that we were right, after all.

“We learnt that there is a serious issue of trust among them. Ekpa and his group believed that Nnamdi Kanu’s brother and among others are coming to reap where they didn’t sow.

“Remember what happened when Kanu was arrested. Remember that it was the breakaway group that told people that Emmanuel Kanu, Emma Powerful and DOS members had collected money from the federal government.

“They demanded to see Kanu alive in court and asked people not to believe what Kanu’s lawyers are saying.

“We thought that they were going to call off the sit-at-home when Kanu eventually appears in court, but that was not the case as the group who saw the support that they got from the gullible IPOB or Biafra members decided to continue to push for the sit-at-home.

“How do you expect people to go to the market and offices when the members of security agencies that were supposed to guide the citizens are not even on the road on Mondays?

“The truth is that, if Kanu led IPOB comes out today to say that they have called off the sit-at-home, people will not want to come out to their shops because nobody wants to risk his or life.”

A security expert who spoke on condition of anonymity said from investigations, those still enforcing the suspended sit-at-home are suspected IPOB members who may have gone rogue.

The source said: “Well looking at it from a security point, I think some members of IPOB have gone rogue and have refused to adhere to the cancelation of the programme.

“This is what happens when there is a lacuna in such an unstructured organisation. Kanu was the sole leader of the group. Everything went through him. So when he was arrested, the other supposed leaders couldn’t control the members.

“So those of them who were armed, seemed to have refused to stop the sit-at-home. Also, there is also the possibility that some criminal elements have capitalized on this to carry out their criminal activities.

“They may be working with the rogue IPOB members or working separately but the thing is that failure of leadership in IPOB is directly or indirectly responsible for the continuation.If they didn’t declare the sit-at-home in the first place, we won’t even have the problem.”

A trader, Okorie James said the group was responsible for declaring the sit-at-home in the first place.

He alleged that the inability of the group to control its members whom it armed as be the reason why the sit-at-home has not stopped even when IPOB announced the suspension of the exercise.

The chief mediator of World Zionist Union in the Southeast, Prophet Geoffrey Gbujie, stated that both the pro-Biafra agitators and criminal elements, were involved in the ongoing sit-at-home enforcement.

He added that both groups were rather enforcing the sit-at-home order to enrich themselves rather than agitating for Biafra independence.

According to him, “It is very unfortunate that what Ralph Uwazuruike’s MASSOB initiated and executed thrice without hitches, had been turned to a weekly routine and ritual wittingly and unwittingly by certain pro-Biafra agitators and other unidentified covert actors, whose interests are clearly not in tandem with the raging Biafra national independence agitation.

“Criminals have come into the whole thing to enrich themselves. They harass people, break into stores and shops to loot all in the name of sit-at-home.

“They stop motorists, motorcyclists and keke people and collect their money. I witnessed one incident at NOWAS Junction here in Enugu. I was standing in one of the offices upstairs watching them as the hoodlums attacked people and robbed POS operators”.

Also speaking, a cleric, Ven. Daniel Uche attributed the problem to the splinting of the group, with each of the groups issuing threatening orders separately.

He said, “The situation is so unfortunate that before you embark on any trip, you’ll confirm from any member of the group if the road is clear. If he said you should go, then I go. Otherwise, you’re on your own.

“Yes, government has asked market leaders to open various markets for business. But the problem is not ordering opening of market. The market is always open every Monday, but who will go and sell?”

“The only solution to the problem is releasing Nnamdi Kanu. Just like Mbazuluike Amechi told the President, the matter can’t be solved politically.

“All these gorilla warfare will continue unabated with increased casualties and economic losses until the arrow head is released.”

Criminal elements fingered

The Director, Centre for Victims of Extra- Judicial Killings and Torture, Comrade Frank Kalu-Agu, in an interview with The Nation was emphatic on those behind the traditional sit-at-home or ‘Holy Mondays’.

According to Kalu-Agu, “They’re criminal elements who want to hide under the IPOB cancelled sit-at-home to create a state of insecurity so that they will have access to anything they want. Their plan is just to cause confusion and create a sense of fear so that whenever they like they strike without restraints. In fact, they just want to hijack the streets and lord it over the defenseless citizens”.

He insisted that the whole thing was an attempt to smear the image of the IPOB.

“It happened in Aba during the time of Bakassi Boys. Eventually along the line, criminal elements hijacked it and made nonsense of the whole exercise.

“So, we have experience about this kind of thing. So, it’s not surprising that criminals have hijacked it. Those people are not IPOB. IPOB is organised. They said they have stopped the sit-at-home after one outing. So whosever that is pushing or enforcing it is not IPOB. These are criminal elements”, he said.

Kalu-Agu also suggested that those, he described as enemies of the Southeast might have a hand in sponsoring the violence in the region, which hitherto was the most peaceful in the entire country.

He said, “There is this other group circulating letters to markets, parks, business centres and individuals warning them to stay away from streets and markets on Mondays.
(The Nation )