The clampdown on members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) a fortnight ago has no doubt generated a controversy in the country. Tension in the country resulting from the activities of the group had reached an alarming rate.
Members of the group were reported to have started violent attacks on northerners residing in the Southeast.
They were reported to have been stopping vehicles in the Southeast and specifically searching for northerners, among other accusations.
Their actions resulted in reprisal attacks in Plateau State while it took great efforts to stop such reprisal attacks in other parts of the country.
Apart from the military operation codenamed ‘Python Dance II’ and other security forces drafted to the Southeast to maintain law and order, the government wasted no time to declare IPOB a terrorist group. Drafting the military to the Southeast also triggered various interpretations and debate.
While some Nigerians felt that the government was too harsh on the group led by Nnamdi Kanu, others felt that the group shouldn’t have been allowed to spread its tentacles and operate at the level it did two weeks ago.
Still, other Nigerians felt that the government should have ignored Kanu and his group from the outset, while some of them at the same time believed that the government made a mistake by allowing Kanu to be released on bail in the first instance.
Some of those against the move by the Federal Government believed that the Python shouldn’t have been allowed to dance in the Southeast.
Among those who did not support deployment of soldiers in quelling internal crises included former President Goodluck Jonathan.
He said, “However, we want to advise the Buhari administration, which has announced plans to extend the military show of force to the South-South and the South-West through Operation Crocodile Smile, to tread with caution.
“Nigeria is no longer under military rule. In a democracy, you separate the military from the police. The military is not meant to fight criminality within a nation because they are trained to fight a nation’s external enemies.
“It is the police that are trained to fight crime internally. When the military starts doing the job of the police and starts fighting or doing what they call a ‘show of force’, the effect will not be to reduce crime. The effect will be to intimidate people.”
Specifically on IPOB, he said, “The insinuations in the press conference given by Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Sunday, accusing the opposition of sponsoring the IPOB and the fact that he mentioned that Nnamdi Kanu preached Nigerian unity during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan is another clear indication that the present administration has not left propaganda mode for proper agenda mode two and a half year into their tenure.
“If the government, in which Lai Mohammed serves, knows which opposition members are sponsoring IPOB, then they should identify them, arrest them and then prosecute them.” he said
He added, “It is our suspicion that Lai Mohammed is talking from history seeing as he criticized the Jonathan government for banning Boko Haram in a statement he released on June 10, 2013, even though the Jonathan government had gone through due process before proscribing that murderous sect.
The Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, had also faulted the military and said it was illegal for it to declare IPOB a terrorists group.
But IPOB, to many Nigerians, had however played the grooves that necessitated the Python dance in the South East.
Speaking on the issues last Wednesday, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed said: “I think anybody who has watched Nnamdi Kanu’s videos anywhere he goes to he openly solicits for arms and for funds, I have a lot of quotations from him as to the violence intention of IPOB, in one of his videos he said if he is arrested his boys should burn down the country, the same Kanu went on television a few days ago saying he was sleeping at about 4:30pm in his house in Umuahia and then some solders were making noises they were disturbing his sleep and his boys stopped them.
“I ask him which country in the world would tolerate this. Unfortunately Nigerians, we have short memories at times, or we tend to be very mischievous because this thing is being turned into oh the North is persecuting the south east or muslims persecuting christians we have forgotten that in 1983 there was a group called Maitasini in Kano, they were crushed by Shagari government, they were muslims and northerners.
“When they relocated to Burukutu they were again crushed by Shagari,l. When Buhari became Head of State, the same Maitasini raised their head, he chased them far into the Chad Republic as then the Head of State, I remember that time he was accused by America of trying to expand Ghadafi’s agenda.
“Abacha in his own time dealt also with Maitasini and he was a muslim, President Yar Adua in 2010 was on his way to the airport when he got a report about Boko Haram, he sent army to go and destroy them, these were muslims from the north dealing with essentially islamic muslim insurgencies.
“Anything about insurgence or terrorists act, you don’t think about religion, you don’t think about ethnicity, you think about the unity of the country.
“Honestly Nigeria has been very very lucky, last week there would have been massive bloodshed if reprisals had taken place outside the south east and it didn’t take place because our traditional rulers, our governors and other leaders went out to pacify people and the kind of stories that has been trending on the social media has not helped things, as a matter of fact there was one stating that a major general had been killed, not knowing that it was a retired major that was killed in Benue state over land matters, that would have set the entire country ablaze.” He said
He went on “And they think its a joke, you can imagine what would have happened if the people of Kano or Kaduna started retaliation, so we are in a very dangerous situation and actually we are sitting on a keg of gun powder. The peace that you are seeing is deceptive we must continue to work on it and we must continue to counter this very untrue narrative.
“On the basis of that we have heard some funny bones saying that Nigeria should be expelled from the United Nations because they are perpetuating genocide, this government will not stifle anybody’s freedom of expression, but when you cross the line for the sake of national unity we won’t allow you.”
“We have the records, we know IPOB collects money from many people from diaspora, they collect money from many people in Nigeria they collect money from some foreign countries, this is clear.
Stressing that it was the rights of individuals or groups to seek self-determination, he had maintained that it should be pursued in a non-violent manner.
“Where any group crosses the line by engaging in violence, it risks being cut to size and that’s exactly what has happened to IPOB.
“I am not interested in the semantics or legality of troops deployment or the proscription of IPOB. All I know is that IPOB has engaged in terrorist activities, viz: Setting up parallel military and paramilitary organizations, clashing with the national army and attempting to seize rifles from soldiers, using weapons such as machetes, molotov cocktails and sticks and mounting roadblocks to extort money from people, among others.
“To those who have engaged in semantics or legality, I ask: Which country in the world will tolerate those activities I have listed above? Which national army will look the other way when it is being attacked by a band of thugs?” he queried.
While dialogue should be explored fully to resolve all agitations in the country, it will definitely not augur well for peace and unity of the nation to be slaughtered on the altar of religion and ethnic sentiments.
