Quit ultimatum: IPOB urges Igbos to leave North, calls for referendum

•Opposes call for arrest of Arewa youths

From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha 

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) yesterday kicked against the call for the arrest of Arewa Youths and Elders for giving three months notice of quit to Igbos residing in the north to relocate to their homeland.
The group commended Arewa youths and elders for the prior notice and advised Biafrans and other southerners to pack their propertyand come down to the South before it is too late, saying ‘a word is enough for the wise’.
The Media and Publicity Secretary of IPOB Mr. Emma Powerful in a statement yesterday thanked the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Arewa Youths and Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) for seeing sense in what IPOB has been saying about the need for a referendum to be conducted in Nigeria to decide the fate of the component ethnic nationalities criminally lumped together by the British in 1914.
“Biafrans in general also wish to thank these vocal Northerners for at least having the courtesy to issue advance warning this time before embarking on their routine massacre of Igbos and other Biafrans living in Northern Nigeria; unlike what their fathers did in 1966 when death, destruction and mayhem were unleashed upon unsuspecting innocent civilian population from the South comprising mostly Igbo men, women and children”.
“Igbo massacres in Northern Nigeria have occurred so many times that it has almost become some sort of an annual sporting activity for blood thirsty Northern youths. That is why we are particularly grateful to Arewa youths and elders for having the decency to give us prior notice before the slaughter commences”.
“We promise to adhere to your warning to leave Northern Nigeria because a word is enough for the wise. Biafrans and other southerners should start packing their propertyto come down to the south. We also advise the northern youths and their elders to keep it on because all they have done is to exercise their right to free speech which is not a crime under any law known to man. We are therefore against those calling for the arrest of these Arewa youths and their elders”.
“It is abundantly evident from the genocidal statements coming from certain influential segments of Northern Nigeria that the British socio-political experimentation and economic fraud we know today as Nigeria should not have been created in the first place. IPOB is very much aware of the covert blackmail and implied threat inherent in the utterances emanating from Islamic Northern Nigeria.
“The assumption that economic investments of Biafrans in the northern part of the contraption called Nigeria is an impediment to Biafra restoration project is most definitely misplaced. This is cheap blackmail designed to trigger rancour among Biafran population because the north has always assumed and wrongly too, that Igbos will place economic well being over and above their lives. This assumption is based on a false premise and one we are determined to prove false as events unfold in the coming weeks and months.
“IPOB under the divine leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is the instrument God Almighty (Chukwu Okike Abiama) is using to restore Biafra, therefore we are not afraid of our enemies, neither will any threat or violence from any quarter deter us. We remain peaceful in our noble quest to restore Biafra but we must caution that we always retain the right as a people to defend ourselves should the need arise.
“The civilised world is aware that we, IPOB have been adopting peaceful means to restore Biafra since 2014. It is the Arewa Islamic Northern Nigeria dominated army, police, navy and civil defence that have brought torture, killings, massacres and mayhem to communities and populations in the south. Till date, nobody has been held to account despite the existence of a comprehensive Amnesty International report to this effect”.
“We are aware that these northern youths and their sponsors Britain, have perfected plans to begin another round of killing of innocent people as they did in 1966. We advise them not to make this mistake because Britain will no longer protect Islamic Northern Nigeria because in this digital age, the world is watching. Allow Biafrans time to relocate peacefully back to Biafra land, that is all we ask” Powerful warned.