In another condemnation of the activities of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the federal government has alleged that the separatist group was being sponsored by those who had looted the treasury in order to destabilise the nation.
Making the charge during a press briefing in Lagos yesterday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed however did not substantiate it.
According to him, IPOB was not set up to further the rights of Nigerians of South-eastern origin or any other group.
He said: “Nigerians must understand that IPOB was not set up to fight for the rights of anyone or group, but as a tool to destabilise the nation, divert attention from the efforts of the Muhammadu Buhari administration and obliterate the laudable achievements of the administration.
“IPOB is being sponsored by those I will call the coalition of the politically disgruntled and the treasury looters. They believe that by sponsoring this group to destabilise the country and trigger chaos, they will realise their ambition of escaping justice and then be free to dip their hands into the nation’s treasury again,” Mohammed alleged.
Mohammed noted that IPOB’s activities became heightened with the advent of the Buhari administration and has been unrelenting since then.
He said the fact that the activities of IPOB picked up since Buhari became the president could not have been coincidental.
“Remember that Nnamdi Kanu, who led a protest at the Nigeria House in London against the Boko Haram insurgency and in support of Nigeria’s unity under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, has suddenly metamorphosed into an IPOB monster who would rather set the nation ablaze,” he said.
Mohammed pointed out that IPOB was nothing more than a contraption by those who believe they had lost political power as well as those who had looted Nigeria’s treasury.
“It is a tool in the hands of the corrupt and disgruntled elements to sabotage the Buhari administration. It fights for no one but the corrupt and the disgruntled.
“It seeks to set us apart as a people, exploiting our fault lines. Its modus operandi is to trigger conflagration nationwide through attacks and reprisals,” he stated.
The minister also wondered why IPOB decided to up the ante in its violent campaign immediately it was announced that Nigeria had exited the recession.
He said: “Now, instead of the government being given the chance to consolidate on that achievement, it is being distracted and the airwaves have been polluted with the activities of IPOB.
“The good news of the end of the recession and its fallout are being replaced in the headlines with the IPOB show of shame.”
He disclosed that the government had seen the trend in the past and warned the public about it.
“The starting point was the rise of hate speech, fake news and disinformation. These were used in an attempt to downgrade the achievements of the administration and to hoodwink an unsuspecting public into believing that the administration has not moved the nation forward an inch since assuming office.
“Since 2016, we have been calling attention to the dangers posed by hate speech, fake news and disinformation. Our calls did not gain traction until those behind the campaign sought to overwhelm the nation,” he added.
He described the IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu as the master of hate speech, adding: “No one, including the same people whose rights he claimed to be championing, escaped his vitriolic and primitive attacks.”
He challenged all his sympathisers to scrutinise what he termed Kanu’s incendiary, divisive and inciting speeches, the “name calling and the derogatory remarks about the nation’s leaders”, and demand to know if such did not constitute hate speech.
“Leaders of thought and commentators who have shown the inclination to accommodate Kanu and his excesses should say if this is what they expect from someone who wants to lead,” he added.
Mohammed observed that the wounds inflicted on the nation’s psyche by the activities of IPOB would take some time to heal, noting that the past few days had been a trying one for Nigeria as IPOB’s activities reached a crescendo and threatened the unity of the nation.
“A ragtag mob that calls itself IPOB and its gullible supporters felt they could seize a large swathe of the Nigerian territory, set up parallel military and para-military organisations, mount roadblocks and even confront the Nigerian military.
“Their leader openly solicits for weapons and incites hatred and violence,” he added.
Mohammed blamed IPOB for the incident that happened in Abia State last week, saying no nation in the world would fold its arms and allow people like Kanu to go on the rampage as he had been doing.
He listed some of the atrocities committed by the group to include the formation of the Biafra Secret Service, formation of the Biafra National Guard, unauthorised blockades of public access roads, extortion of money from innocent civilians at illegal road blocks, and possession and use of weapons such as stones, Molotov cocktails, machetes and broken bottles, among others, which he alleged were used on a military patrol vehicle on September 10.
According to him, IPOB engaged in a physical confrontation with troops at a checkpoint on September 11, during which they attempted to snatch soldiers’ rifles and carried out an attack on a military checkpoint on September 12.
“No nation, not Nigeria, will allow that to happen unchallenged. The fact that Boko Haram festered because it was not decisively tackled by the immediate past administration meant we should never again give room for any organisation to threaten the corporate existence of our country,” he said.
While welcoming the decision of the South-east governors to proscribed IPOB, Mohammed said the decision should have come earlier.
He also said IPOB had been writing to other countries in its effort to externalise its lies and propaganda.
He assured the international community that the Buhari administration has no agenda to suppress its citizens for whatever reasons.
He added: “Not even the excesses of some people on the social media has forced the government to do anything that will stifle press freedom or freedom of expression.
“The truth is that IPOB is being sponsored to destabilise our nation. It serves no other purpose beyond that,” he said.
The minister further accused IPOB of engaging in a massive harvest of gory videos from the distant past and from other lands to hoodwink the public, and in particular the international community into believing that its members were the victims of state-sponsored violence.
He urged Nigerians and the international community not to jump to any conclusions on the basis of the videos but scrutinise them.
He also appealed to the media to show greater restraint, accusing a section of the media of sensationalising reporting on IPOB issues, especially since the military was deployed in the South-east for its exercise, tagged Operation Python Dance II.
He also expressed gratitude that the crisis had de-escalated, saying since the military has labelled IPOB a terrorist organisation and the South-east governors have proscribed it, it was time to let IPOB go to where it belongs – the dustbin of history.
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