The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has said that over 20,000 Igbo people have been killed or declared missing after being abducted by the Nigerian security forces, since 2013.
The group accused the federal government of pursuing ethnic hatred against the Igbo through arbitrary arrest, detention and extrajudicial murder by the Police, military, and Department of State Services.
It also stated that before and after the Nigeria – Biafra war, the federal government of Nigeria has been pursuing ethnic hatred against Biafrans as a state policy.
IPOB explained that the ethnic hatred employed by the federal government against the Igbo was why its leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, embarked on the Biafra self- determination quest to separate Igbo from ethnic profiling and hatred. The pro Biafra group called President Bola Tinubu’s attention on how Igbo people are being humiliated and victimized by the DSS and other security agencies.
It alleged that Igbo land, especially the South East zone, has been militarized with ethnic biased security agents who abduct Igbo youths for execution.
Media and Publicity Secretary of IPOB, Comrade Emma Powerful, alleged that the Boko Haram insurgents in military detention facilities in the North have been released without trial while innocent Biafrans, particularly the Igbo, have been abducted and languishing in jails.
“These innocent people picked up by security forces along the streets are made to pay huge amounts of money or be branded IPOB or ESN and be executed. Some of the victims of illegal abductions are held incommunicado, and their family members do not know of their whereabouts.
“This genocide is going on a daily basis in a supposed democratic country called Nigeria. Daily, a lot of Igbo youths are extra judicially killed or abducted and hauled into detention facilities without being charged with any crime all over Nigeria. There is no region in Nigeria that is militarized like the South East Region. Most of the time, the Nigeria government sponsors violent criminals in the South East so that they can justify their military siege on the region.
“The Nigeria government, through a back door court pronouncement, proscribed the peaceful movement of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in 2017. The federal government proscribed IPOB without IPOB having a legal representation
“Which court gives judgment without hearing from the two parties except the Nigeria judiciary in their own court of law? This can only happen in Nigeria, where injustice reigns supreme. Nigeria judiciary is the only judicial system that took a fourth position candidate and put him in the first position. The IPOB legal team challenged this black market under the table proscription. IPOB has been at the Court of Appeal of Nigeria since 2018, but the Nigeria government suppressed the hearing of such appeal even when IPOB lawyers have fulfilled all the processes requirements.
“The Nigeria government, through her security forces capitalizing on the death of the justice system in Nigeria, anchors on the illegal proscription of IPOB to indiscriminately abduct and indefinitely detain many Biafrans particularly Ndigbo. In all detention facilities across Nigeria, 95% percent of the inmates are innocent Biafrans. Today, almost all the people detained in the Department of State Services, DSS, are innocent IPOB Biafran citizens. Even if you release all Boko Haram terrorists and bandits with the DSS, the facility will remain full of innocent Biafran civilians.
“IPOB is not violent and has never been involved in any terrorism act, yet the Nigeria government clamped down on us while romancing with the terrorists in the North. This is pure ethnic profiling, hatred, and dehumanization.”
