While absolving IPOB, Umahi claims plans afoot to provoke South-East into war

The Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, has stated that there is a grand plot to provoke the South-East into a war.

He therefore urged citizens of the region not to fall for such schemes.

The Governor spoke on Wednesday, during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.

“The problem of this country is that people will leave their problems and make your problem their problem,” he added. “But what some of these people are doing is to incite the South-East into war and step aside, and we are not going to buy into that; we’re not going to be deceived again”, he said.

This was even as he absolved the proscribed Eastern Security Network (ESN) set up by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group from attacks in the region.

According to him, bandits are committing crimes in the South-East of the country under the guise of the Eastern Security Network (ESN).

Umahi vowed that the region’s governors would not allow what he called illegality to reign in the city.

“Of late, we have bandits that are now doing a lot of evil and saying that they are Eastern Security Network (ESN),” Umahi said.

“They commit a lot of crimes and say they are IPOB and most of the time, IPOB will come and say, ‘We have no hands in this, we have no hands in that.”

READ ALSO: EASTER: Nigeria will triumph over insecurity, agents of disunity – Gov Umahi

Umahi further revealed that this development was what led to the establishment of the South-East security outfit codenamed Ebube Agu, with the aim of redressing the security challenges.

Ripples Nigeria had reported that the governors of Nigeria’s South-East formed the region’s security outfit on Sunday.

“We have the command of the law to protect the lives of our people and we would not allow illegality to thrive in our land,” he assured. “Conflict will not resolve conflict.”

The governor clarified that conflicts between herders and farmers are not the only danger facing the area, noting that the new security force was established to combat all forms of crime in the region.

“That the political leadership in the South East has vowed to put together all of the arsenals under their command, as one unified zone, to combat and root out criminals and terrorists from the zone,” Umahi said in a statement announcing the establishment of Ebube Agu.

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