The leadership of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has rejected the withdrawal of the October 1st quit notice the coalition of Northern Youths issued to Igbos residing in the North.
The Northern youth group issued the quit notice in June this year, asking Igbos who are interested in the creation of Biafra to leave the region on or before October 1st 2017 or face physical attack.
After widespread condemnation and consultations with some elders in the North, the youths had a press conference in Abuja yesterday which had in attendance the Borno state governor, Kashim Shettima They announced the withdrawal of the quit notice but added that they would still continue to push for the arrest of IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
Reacting to the withdrawal, IPOB Media and Publicity Secretary, Comrade Emma Powerful, said in a statement released today that Arewa youths should stick to the quit notice’if they have any ‘honour’. The group urged all Igbos and other Southerners resident in the core Northern regions, to ignore the withdrawal of the notice and return home.
The IPOB spokesperson said the withdrawal does not erase the fact that the life of Igbos and other southerners residing in the region is not safe. “It is inconsequential to IPOB whether the ‘quit notice’ was rescinded or not because it will in no way impact the pace and direction of our effort to restore Biafra.
Threats don’t have any effect on us, so our advice to the Arewa North is to please stick to the October 1 deadline or else they have no honor. We urge all southerners in the core North to return home before October 1 as history will most definitely repeat itself. Southerners were massacred in the pogroms of 1966 and 1967 after similar assurances were issued then that people should remain in the North.
The presence of a serving governor and senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria during the supposed press briefing confirms what we have always known that the incitement to genocide, which is what the ‘quit notice’ is all about, has the blessing of the Arewa political class,” Powerful said. The IPOB spokesman called on the Federal government to arrest the leaders of the Northern group just as they have also called for the arrest of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
“If President Muhammadu Buhari is at all serious about clamping down on hate speech, he should arrest those behind the ‘quit notice’ along with their sponsors. Trying to drag the name of our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, into their unintelligent blood fest will be resisted. If the idea is to cow our leader with calls for his arrest, then those behind the genocidal edict of ‘Igbos must leave the North’ are even dumber than we thought. Nigeria is crumbling today before our eyes due to the arrest of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu; those wishing for him to be arrested again are basically signing the death warrant of Nigeria”.
