2023: IPOB Speaks On Alleged Plan To Disrupt Election In Southeast

The proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) says it has no plan to disrupt the 2023 general elections in Nigeria.

Newsbreak.ng reports that IPOB is agitating for the secession of a swath of the southeast that is home to the Igbo ethnic group. Although it has been linked to violence, by the government and the media, the group has denied any involvement in the mayhem currently experienced in the southeast.

The Media and Publicity Secretary of IPOB who deploys the pseudonym, Emma Powerful, in a press statement obtained by this news medium, said there is no truth in any information circulating on alleged plans to disrupt the election in 2023 in the southeast.

The group rather accused the Nigerian Federal Government of masterminding insecurity in the South-East, with the hope of creating fear and accusing IPOB of their deeds.

A recent video of a breakaway member of IPOB, Simon Ekpa, recently went viral, where he said the group would not let any election to hold in the southeast. Diaspora-based Ekpa had repeatedly issued the threat.

But in a press release on behalf of IPOB, Powerful said: “The IPOB leadership has for umpteenth time stated unequivocally that part of our modus operandi in our agitation for freedom has never been, is not and will not be violent agitation.

“This explains our consistent demand for the UN to organise a Referendum in the Biafran territory for the Biafran people to determine their destiny. To this effect, IPOB is neither contemplating nor will it encouraged or sponsor anyone or group to disrupt the Nigeria shambolic selection process called election.

“IPOB has constantly made it public that we have no interest in and cannot legitimise the aberration they call election in Nigeria. We are a focused, determined and disciplined freedom fighting movement not political thugs and IPOB is devoted to the cause of liberating our people from subjugation and from modern day slavery and Neo-colonialism and will not allow ourselves to be distracted from this very objective.”

The group continued that: “IPOB is not interested and will never involve ourselves in any Nigeria fraudulent pre-election or post-election issues. Our job is to open the eyes of the blinds by the gospel of truth which our leader has delivered already.

“Whoever that is sponsoring any group or gang tagging them IPOB is on his/her own. For those who are hard of hearing, IPOB is one indivisible family under one central command and leadership.

“If in the future IPOB leadership decides to make further statement on the upcoming Nigeria selection process called election, we shall make such statement through our official channels.”