By Adadainfo
The Eastern Union, weekend, expressed worries over possible negative impacts of IPOB in the 2023 elections.
The Indigenous People of Biafra is a pro-Biafra group founded by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Since Kanu’s arrest, Simon Ekpa who took over from him insists that there won’t be elections in the Southeast. His faction of the group declared five-days’ sit-at-home which was complied with in the Southeast region of the country.
The sit-at-home was to sensitise the residents on the stand of the faction that there won’t be elections in the region during the forthcoming polls.
Against this background, EU’s national president, Hon Charles Anike, in an interview with newsmen in Awka, said ‘the biggest challenge to any Igboman is a fellow Igboman’.
In his words, “The IPOB as it stands today cannot coordinate its members. This is confirmed by the fact that nobody can clearly say who and who is issuing the right order for the group.
“There’s Emma Powerful, there’re Simon Ekpa and others. The question is: who is really dishing out the right order to the public on behalf of Nnamdi Kalu and the group?
“It’s believed in many quarters that things have fallen apart among the leadership, and this is also why other people believe that the group has been hijacked by the enemies who now do the opposite of what the group stood for.
“And this is why Southeast has been bleeding and thrown into mourning, and nobody seems to care or want to seriously want to address the menace. No need to talk about the economic losses and psychological trauma on the people.”
He regretted that leaders of the region are not doing enough to salvage the situation, adding that, “The Southeast leaders seem comfortable hiding in Lagos, Abuja and other cities across the country, abandoning the people to their fate.”
Anike regretted that many lives and property are being destroyed in Igbo land by the same group seeking to create Biafra.
In his words, “Most people are confused on how a group claiming to be fighting for the freedom and emancipation of its own people now turn against them.
“Who are the ‘unknown gunmen’? What efforts are being made to end the killings and destructions currently going on by the said unknown gunmen?
“The bible says that if salt losses its saltiness, it should be trampled under feet. There’s also the likelihood that the detention of the IPOB leader created a serious vacuum; otherwise there should have been a second in command, who would ordinarily carry out exactly the set agenda of Kanu instead of allowing criminal elements from inside and outside to connive with both external and enemies within the Southeast to misrepresent them, taking undue advantage to cause mayhem on the innocent people of the Southeast.
“The Simon Ekpa sit-at-home order will surely have negative effects in the coming elections. The obvious is that enemies of the Southeast and opponents of Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who are seriously threatened by Obi’s swelling popularity, are behind insecurities in the Southeast.
“Obi has become an enigma in the present Nigeria political space and has influenced and attracted large followership of the youths across the country, a situation which also doesn’t go down well with the detested candidates of PDP and APC that can dare anything.”
EU is a body of progressive Nigerians, both at home and in the diaspora, seeking the practice of true democracy in Nigeria.
