Of Chima Okaforenugu
People of southeastern extraction living in Finland would meet tomorrow to discuss the endless stay-at-home orders in the region and the consequences of such orders.
A splinter group claiming to be the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have been issuing stay-at-home orders, unleashing violence against those who disobeyed the directives.
The group, led by Simon Ekpa, recently in a viral video, ordered people in the southeast to observe a sit-in at home from December 9-14, 2022. The order was characterized by an orgy of murder and property destruction. in the region by those who supposedly enforce it.
Not even an attempt to dispel the order by the mainstream IPOB, through its spokesperson, Emma Powerful, could save the situation as violence had been the order of the day in the region.
The development led angry Nigerians to start signing a petition for Ekpa’s arrest.
On Tuesday, the detained IPOB leader condemned the attacks. Kanu’s special lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor, who visited the IPOB leader detained in DSS detention on Monday, said Kanu expressed sadness over the attacks and his sympathy for the victims.
Similarly, Kanu’s younger brother Emmanuel also condemned the attacks, saying that Ekpa had acted as a “paid agent”.
He said: “There is no doubt that it is working for some people because no full-blooded Igbo will do anything to endanger the lives of their people. The Leader has always said that he cannot take life because he does not give life. So why would people take other people’s lives?
“Why would you kill the very people you say you are fighting to protect? Has no sense. It is obvious that Ekpa is working for some people to destroy what the Leader has built over the years. Why would he give a stay-at-home order? Under whose authority will he do it?
“My brother (Nnamdi Kanu) told me clearly that he did not authorize any person or group to order sitting at home. So why do that? Who does it to impress? It is only a paid agent who will behave as he does.
The Ohanaeze Ndigbo similarly condemned the violence. On Thursday, Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi Umahi, who also spoke on the issue, added that the splinter group was leading the terrorists to destabilize the region.
Addressing concerned parties and members of the All Progressive Congress (APC) party in Abakaliki, Umahi said Ebonyi state would not be part of Biafra, though he lamented the continued killings and destruction of life and property in the zone.
He said: “When this Biafra agitation started, I told them that this issue would go beyond Nnamdi Kanu. And today it has gone beyond Nnamdi Kanu. Every criminal says it’s IPOB. Every criminal says it’s ESN.
“Is this the Biafra we wanted, to kill ourselves and displace others? That is why we said in the heat of that crisis that the Ebonyi State can never be part of Biafra. We are not Biafra.
“If Biafra wants to kill himself, go to the market and start shooting people who have done nothing, declare himself sitting at home in our homeland and destroy the economy, for what reason? These things are foreign to our culture.
“They have killed a lot of people from Ebubeagu who are trying to protect our people. I ask all the local government people to give us information because we are ready to go into the forest to drive out these bandits.”
It will be recalled that Ifeanyi Ejiofor, a lawyer for the detained IPOB leader, sued Ekpa within the week for crimes against humanity in the southeastern part of Nigeria.
Defendants in the lawsuit include: Simon Ekpa, Anibueze Juliet, Obinna Uzoaganaobi, Chukwuemeka Livingstone, and Raphael Ajaere.
The application marked: CU/788/2022 was filed in the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, on December 12, 2022.
Meanwhile, an emergency general assembly of Igbo residents in Finland is scheduled for tomorrow (Sunday). This is to allow them, as a community, to agree on a plan of action regarding the havoc being wreaked in their home countries by the deadly gang allegedly directed from Finland. .
A statement from Igbo Union Finland Chairman Kingsley Orji said saturday sun that the meeting scheduled for Kilpakuja 1 was badly needed in view of the ongoing carnage in Igbo land.
“We must all have read or been informed of the extent of the bloodshed orchestrated by a singular command announcement from Finland. Documentary evidence and/or action orders alluding to this indiscriminate bloodbath and destruction of property is our main focus of discussion.
“The essence of the meeting is that we as a community agree on a plan of action,” Orji said.