IPOB reacts to rights group’s report on S’East’s security crisis, urges probe of allegations of ‘massive’ extra-judicial killings, others

December 28, 2024
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The  Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has commended ihe International Society For Civil Liberty and Rule of Law (Intersociety) for what the self-determination group described as Intersociety’s “in-depth research and documentation of all the crimes committed against innocent people of Biafra (South Easterners) in ‘Biafraland’ by the Nigerian State actors from 2015 to 2024”.

In a statement issued yesterday – Friday, December 27 – by its Media and Publicity Secretary, IPOB said the report came as “evidence of the silent genocide and annihilation process going on in the South East by the Nigerian government and her murderous security forces.”

A human reputable rights organization in Nigeria,  Intersociety recently published a report in which it alleged that “about 32,000 unarmed civilians in the South Eastern region of Nigeria were murdered by the Nigerian Security Forces between August 2015 and December 2024.”

“The executive summary of the report entitled ‘Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing in The Eastern Region’ and just published, is a catalogue of how officers and other personnel of the Armed Forces (Army, Air Force And Navy), including other security agencies are using IPOB/ESN/BIAFRA to terrorize Ndigbo and as a pretext to secretly kill 22,500 unarmed civilians inIgboland, and openly killed 9,800 others (totaling over 32,300) in the past nine years and four months (august 2015 – Dec 2024),” IPOB stated in the statement by Powerful.

The pro-Biafra group accused the government of mounting a military siege and instigating terror in the S’East within the period under review, alleging that since then,”tens of thousands were unlawfully detained and tortured, over 6,000 blindfolded or face-bagged and bundled up late in the night from the East and dumped uninvestigated und untried in secret military locations and prisons in seven northern states of Niger, Kogi, Nasarawa, Benue, Kaduna, Zamfara and FCT Abuja.”

“Included are thousands of dumped-to-die or subjected to “kangaroo trials” inside WAWA Army Cantonment in Niger State,” IPOB further quoted from the content of the Intersociety report. “There were dozens of deaths weekly in these various custodies holding Igbo youths. Over 300 Igbo communities were reported to have been raided, 6,000 civilians’ houses were razed, 180,000 people were displaced, 1 million people  were frightened, and they were forced to abandon their homes and flee.  N450 billion defenseless civilians’ properties were lost to military burnings and destructions, N3 trillion (presently about $2 billion or previously about $5 billion) illegally seized, and illegally extorted at roadblocks and other illegal checkpoints atgun-points.”

According to IPOB, the South East is the most peaceful region in Nigeria, even though the government and “her murderous” security forces with other government contracted non-state actors collaborating, “have sponsored criminals doing everything to make the Eastern region unsafe and insecure,” with “IPOB and its members and sympathizers being always the target of the state actors and other state sponsored non-state actors and criminals.”

“In their desperate efforts to destroy the legal demands for self-determination championed by IPOB, the Nigerian government has killed thousands and displaced many innocent people in the South East. All the State sponsored violence pinned on IPOB and ESN by the Nigerian government is intended to blackmail IPOB locally and internationally,” the statement by Powerful further alleged.

“The Nigerian government’s provocative actions are intended to provoke IPOB into picking up arms against their government. (But), we have resisted all their provocative actions as we remain focused on the Biafra Referendum that will be supervised by the international community any time soon.”

The self-determination group urged all men and women of conscience in Nigeria and in the international community, even those within the government, “not to overlook the Intersociety’s latest report on the orchestrated security crisis in the S’East but should work to make those under whose watch such reported atrocities have been committed in peacetime Nigeria in an otherwise most peaceful part of the country.”

“IPOB calls on the international community to hold the Nigerian Government and her murderous security forces accountable for the extrajudicial killings, forceful disappearances, illegal abductions and tortures, and destruction of properties of ‘Biafrans’ in the South East Region. The  Nigerian government should be held accountable for terrorism and genocidal actions they carried out against innocent Biafrans. Biafran’s lives matter. We deserve justice,” the self-determination group surmised.

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