IPOB escalates tension, shuns suspension of Arewa quit notice, urges Ndigbo to return home

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has rejected the suspension of the quit notice issued to Ndigbo living in the north by the Coalition of Northern groups.

The new move escalates the tension which the quit notice had generated, and which was thought would have been reduced as the Arewa youths on Thursday suspended the October 1 ultimatum.

The Nnamdi Kanu-led pro Biafra group on Friday asked the northern youths to keep their honor, by sticking to the quit notice that Igbos living in the North should vacate the North on or before October 1.

The Arewa youths had on Thursday at a press conference attended by the chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State in Abuja suspended the quit notice.

But in its response, IPOB in a statement by its media and publicity secretary, Comrade Emma Powerful, said the withdrawal of the quit notice order will not deter its resolution to restore the Republic of Biafra.

It therefore called on all Igbos as well as other southerners resident in the core North to return home .

The statement read, “It is inconsequential to IPOB whether the ‘quit notice’ was rescinded or not because it will in no way impact the pace and direction of our effort to restore Biafra .

“Threats don’t have any effect on us, so our advice to the Arewa North is to please stick to the October 1 deadline or else they have no honour.

“We urge all southerners in the core North to return home before October 1 as history will most definitely repeat itself.
“ Southerners were massacred in the pogroms of 1966 and 1967 after similar assurances were issued then that people should remain in the North,” the IPOB spokesman said .

The pro – Biafra group alleged that the ‘quit notice’, which it described as an incitement to genocide , was endorsed by Northern political leaders.

“The presence of a serving governor and senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria during the supposed press briefing confirms what we have always known that the incitement to genocide, which is what the ‘quit notice’ is all about, has the blessing of the Arewa political class.”

IPOB further called on the Federal Government to arrest leaders of the Arewa Youths over hate speech if they are serious with moves to clampdown on the menace of hate speeches.

“If President Muhammadu Buhari is at all serious about clamping down on hate speech, he should arrest those behind the ‘quit notice’ along with their sponsors.”

Read also : Arewa youths withdraw Oct 1 quit notice to Ndigbo

“Trying to drag the name of our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, into their unintelligent blood fest will be resisted.

“If the idea is to cow our leader with calls for his arrest, then those behind the genocidal edict of ‘Igbos must leave the North’ are even dumber than we thought.

“Nigeria is crumbling today before our eyes due to the arrest of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu; those wishing for him to be arrested again are basically signing the death warrant of Nigeria,” the secessionist group added.

There have been hightened demands for the restructuring of Nigeria following IPOB’s call for the restoration of Biafra.

A renowned constitutional lawyer, Professor Ben Nwabueze, had on Thursday said that leader of IPOB has accepted to renounce Biafra agitation should Nigeria be restructured to a manner in which each region will be allowed to run its own affairs.

 

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