The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), weekend, described the Eastern Security Network as living up to expectations in safeguarding the territorial integrity of Igboland.
According to IPOB, the operatives of ESN “are on top of the job in the defence of the length and breadth of Biafraland from the ravages of killer herdsmen from the Sahel.”
The Head, Media and Publicity of IPOB, Comrade Emmanuel Powerful, in a release, warned elements using the umbrella of ESN to mislead the public to desist from such acts.
He stated “It has come to our notice that some faceless individuals, perhaps propelled by hunger and deprivation and under the pay of some inconsequential political entities in Nigeria, appear to be busy on social media trying to mislead the public into blaming ESN for the sponsored insecurity bedevilling South East.
“Their pathetic attempt to change the narrative about the nobility of our movement and the vision of our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in establishing ESN is bound to fail as other previous attempts did.”
Powerful said those painting the image of ESN black operate fake social media accounts, adding that “they were nowhere to be found when killer Fulani herdsmen from all over the Sahel region were marauding through our farmlands, forests and villages in Biafraland, pillaging, looting, raping and slaughtering our men, women and children.”
He alleged that “The situation became so deplorable that some Igbo governors summoned the courage to call 82 Division of the Nigerian Army at Enugu and later the Presidency found to their shock that their calls were ignored.”
He said the Igbo leaders were forced to resort to begging the federal government of Nigeria, through newspaper publications, to intervene.
Powerful said the situation got to the extent that “our mothers stopped going to the farm. Fear and terror gripped our land. None of these quislings ranting online raised a voice of condemnation at the despicable cowardice of the so-called political class in the East, in the face of this mass slaughter of their people.”
He mentioned some places that experienced massacres which informed the formation of ESN to include Enugu, Ebonyi, Anambra, Abia, Imo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Benue and Imo, adding, “How can any sane Igbo person forget Nimbo and Uzo-Uwani? Or have we all forgotten that the sustained slaughter of the innocent by Fulani herdsmen was the sole reason why our leader formed the formidable Eastern Security Network (ESN)?”
He explained that the purpose for the existence of ESN was to checkmate the excesses of killer herdsmen from the Sahel and to ensure that no inch of the land of the Ancients (Igboland) was forcibly taken over and occupied by killers disguised as herdsmen.
He said, “IPOB will never condone the mistakes made by other ethnic groups that allowed their ancestral lands to be forcibly seized and converted to a mini caliphate, to be visited on Igbo people or replicated anywhere in Igboland or across the entirety of Biafraland for that matter.
“Not many people in Nigeria today know that a sizable chunk of Yorubaland, Oyo State in particular, is under forcible occupation by these killer herdsmen. This was what some Yoruba agitators were fighting against or have we all forgotten?
“Today no Yorubaman would dare enter a forest renamed Gambari in Oyo State that is the heart of the Yoruba race. Is Gambari a Yoruba name? Tiv people of Benue today have forfeited their ancestral land, which has long been renamed Katsina-Ala.”
He urged well-meaning easterners to be grateful to ESN for checking the excesses of herders in Igboland.
He continued, “Like the Yoruba Amotekun formed to give legitimacy to the quest to eradicate killer herdsmen from Yoruba farms and forests, ESN is here to protect the people. If other Nigerians are comfortable with killer herdsmen taking over their forests and farmlands and slaughtering their people at will, that is their prerogative. Such a state of affairs will never be replicated in Biafraland. As long as IPOB exists, Fulani herdsmen will never take over any inch of territory in Biafraland.”
He said those who want ESN to be disbanded should pressure the federal government to first disband hordes of killer herdsmen invading forests.
Powerful said, “Miyetti Allah must be banned and open grazing abolished. So long as these entities are in existence, ESN shall continue in their duty to defend Biafraland.
“Those mischievously linking ESN and extension IPOB to ongoing insecurity in Igboland are not only misguided but are jokers. These attention seekers know the politicians sponsoring the destruction of Igboland in exchange for an enlarged security budget with which they hope to contest for the vice presidential slot come the next election in 2027 if President Tinubu decides not to run.”
He urged the public to be grateful to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB for saving the entire Middle Belt, Oduduwa and Biafraland from the devastating effect of RUGA, adding that, “If not for IPOB, everybody would be living under RUGA today.”
NewsNGR reports that ESN was founded by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as a vigilante arm of IPOB. Kanu is being detained in the custody of DSS in Abuja over alleged terrorism.