(VIDEO) #SIT-AT-HOME: A BANE OR BOON TO THE TENETS OF IPOB? WEEKLY SECURITY DASHBOARD FOR THE PERIOD SEPTEMBER 12 – 17, 2021
On July 29, 2021, when the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) threatened a total lockdown of the South Eastern States every Monday with effect from August 9 if its leader Nnamdi Kanu were not immediately released from detention hale and healthy, several people were sceptical of the ability of the cause to actualize any meaningful positive benefits. Even the pro-Biafra agitator who now aligns with the Asari-Dokubo-led Biafra Customary Government, Uche Mefor, the estranged Deputy-Leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) said “although he supports #Sit-At-Home idea, it should not be made compulsory for anyone to comply”.
According to Mefor, "Any violent enforcement of the #Sit-At-Home codenamed operation ghost town in Biafraland borrowed by the IPOB from the Ambazionian militants is another disaster and calamity waiting to happen.
"#SIT-AT-HOME is a voluntary exercise and never a mandatory one and borne out of skillful art of persuasion by appealing to the consciences of the people of the population. We shall always support this initiative to achieve a legitimate purpose but must also frown at it if it is violently or if threats are applied to the contrary", Mefor reiterated.
Giving the underlying belief of the threat been incapable of succeeding, the press statement issued and signed by the Head of Directorate of IPOB, Chika Edoziem that “the lockdown slated to hold every Monday until Kanu was released hale and hearty” was treated by the FG as unable to hold water.
According to Edoziem, “it is completely unacceptable to IPOB to allow our leader remain in the hands of the enemy up to October 2021”, he emphasized. The normal cold-shoulder treatment given to every “threat and protest” until it degenerates to anarchy and chaos was also meted to the “14-days Ghost-Monday” notice by IPOB, as only a handful of people like the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr Osita Okechukwu reached out to the group with a plea to desist from the lockdown threat.
Therefore, it was not surprising that in the heat of the tension, the FG in its normal “Gestapo style” of handling issues had Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed stating that the President Buhari-led administration would deal with all those collaborating with Nnamdi Kanu, founder and leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). According to the Minister, who spoke in Abuja during a press conference, “he warned that Nnamdi Kanu’s accomplices would not be spared, adding that they would be made to face the full wrath of the law”. This was further demonstrated when several IPOB members who went on a solidarity visit during Nnamdi Kanu’s trial were arrested.
You cannot beat a child and ask him not to cry. Hence, the 'Ghost Days" were not only enforced, but all non-compliance to the order in line with predictions met with indescribable violence, losses, and other severe consequences. Telltales of immolation and bloodbath, razing down of structural edifices, ghost town, traumatic experiences of horror and fear of death has become the order of the day every Monday, since the announcement of the enforcement, through its suspension to date.
Students had to miss their external examinations, lives of the low, high and mighty wasted in like vein, as both the government and people of the region count their economic losses running into several billions of naira lost.
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However, barely a month later, IPOB now dissociates itself from the enforcement of the allegedly suspended #Sit-At-Home; threatening fire and brimstone on anyone caught enforcing the #Sit-At-Home order. Recall that Eons Intelligence had reported that IPOB had cancelled its #Sit-At-Home order on August 13, four days after its enforcement. However, the massive deaths and destruction that still trail the order leave everyone in a vacuum as to who is in charge of enforcing orders at IPOB and to what extent these orders' enforcement aligns with the tenets of IPOB.
Is IPOB leadership polarized?
Who is behind the enforcement of the IPOB #Sit-At-Home order?
Why did IPOB leadership not protect the citizens against the faceless impostors who enforced and criminalized the cause?
A cursory view of some of the major reported physical consequences, not counting the economic implications of the #Sit-At-Home order by IPOB, are as follows:
August 9: A live video emerged showing two commercial buses and their occupants allegedly burnt alive, while the occupants of the third bus were abandoned for dead in Mbaise, Imo State, ostensibly to enforce the IPOB #Sit-At-Home order for Monday, August 9, 2021.
September 6: IPOB militants intercept and set ablaze a trailer loaded with motorbikes spare parts worth about N12million for not observing #Sit-At-Home order in Obukpa, Nsukka, Enugu State.
September 13: Suspected IPOB militants storm Comprehensive Secondary School, Nkwume in Njaba LGA of Imo State, chase out students from exam hall and set staff all motorcycles ablaze
September 14: Suspected IPOB militants set the vehicle ablaze for allegedly violating the #Sit-At-Home order in Anambra State
September 7: Hundreds of customers were left stranded as Imo State Government shut all banks in Owerri.
With the #Sit-At-Home order ostensibly hijacked by hoodlums who capitalize on the sensitive situation to wreak havoc on both humans and properties alike, the residents are now desirous to know who should protect the people against those “criminalizing the IPOB cause given that is seemingly helpless in successfully offering protection”. The need for urgent answers of who exactly is in charge comes on the heels of the subsistence of the enforcement of the IPOB order despite different Eastern Governors threatening to sanction people, banks, and businesses still observing the order to no avail.
What efforts are in place, beyond mere threats by the IPOB group in ensuring normalcy and "Ghost Mondays" revision successfully implemented?
How can the victims, who though seemingly alive, but have their psychological and emotional health on the edge be compensated or restored?
What assurance is in place for the South Easterners and indeed, the global audience that the proscribed group has not successfully pursued a failed cause because their leader for whom the #Sit-At-Home materialized remains in custody even after the suspension of the order?
To what extent has the ##SIT-AT-HOME order and its attendant destruction fulfilled the tenets of IPOB, if not to create mayhem, tension, wreckages and anarchy within the region?
Say No today to wanton destruction of lives and properties.
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