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Chief of the outlawed Indigenous Individuals of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has accused the Nigerian authorities of sponsoring Simon Ekpa to trigger unrest in Nigeria’s south-east
Mr Ekpa is a Nigerian-Finnish citizen who has been linked to the rising insecurity within the area.
Ifeanyi Ejiofor, counsel to the IPOB chief, disclosed this in an announcement on Monday, which was despatched to PREMIUM TIMES.
Mr Ejiofor mentioned Mr Kanu made the comment when the IPOB chief’s authorized group visited him on the facility of the State Safety Service (SSS), Abuja, on Monday, the place he’s being held.
Mr Kanu’s allegation got here days after the IPOB chief, via Aloy Ejimakor, his particular counsel, ordered Mr Ekpa to cease issuing sit-at-home orders within the area.
“Right this moment’s (Monday) go to was to temporary Onyendu (Kanu) on pertinent developments with respect to his particular written order calling off mindless sit-at-home, hitherto being enforced by enemies of our individuals,” Mr Ejiofor mentioned within the assertion.
The lawyer mentioned Mr Kanu has requested residents of the South-east to notice that whoever continues to watch the cancelled sit-at-home order was working for the Nigerian authorities to destroy the area.
“Onyendu was very emphatic that Simon Ekpa is procured and absolutely bankrolled by the Nigerian authorities for the aim of inflicting unrest in our area,” he mentioned.
The IPOB chief, Mr Ejiofor mentioned, pressured that no freedom fighter wherever on the planet would impose “financial hardship and unimaginable terror” on his individuals as a “model” of liberating them.
Mr Kanu added that the “evil actions” of those that declare to be freedom fighters additionally lengthen “to perpetration of all types of violent crimes in our area, which embody however are usually not restricted to kidnapping and killings.”
Background
IPOB, in August 2021, launched a sit-at-home order each Monday throughout the South-east to stress the Nigerian authorities to launch its detained chief, Mr Kanu, who’s standing trial for alleged terrorism on the Federal Excessive Court docket, Abuja.
The separatist group later suspended the order, in choice for it to be carried out solely on days Mr Kanu seems in courtroom.
However regardless of its suspension, residents of the 5 South-east states – Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, Abia and Anambra — have been observing the Monday sit-at-home order, primarily out of worry.
Except for tens of millions of naira reportedly misplaced due to the sit-at-home within the South-east, a whole lot of individuals have been killed and others injured by gunmen who usually implement the order within the area.
IPOB had repeatedly disowned the Monday sit-at-home throughout the area, saying those that nonetheless implement it had been criminals trying to blackmail the separatist group.
A pacesetter of Autopilot, a faction of the IPOB, Mr Ekpa, has continued to declare the sit-at-home within the area, regardless of being suspended by the IPOB faction led by Mr Kanu.
A number of Igbo leaders, together with governors from the South-east, have repeatedly referred to as for an finish to the civil order within the area.
After Mr Ejimakor made a letter from Mr Kanu public which contained the order to cease the civil motion, Mr Ekpa described it as “pretend,” claiming the SSS authorities wrote it and never the IPOB chief.
He mentioned attributing the letter to Mr Kanu was a “joke” and an “insult” and maintained that the sit-at-home would go on till Mr Kanu speaks to him immediately in Finland, a North European nation, the place he (Ekpa) resides.
IPOB is main the agitation for an unbiased state of Biafra, which it desires carved out from the South-east and a few elements of South-south Nigeria.
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