2 months ago
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The Indigenous People of Biafra have debunked the claims by the Nigerian army that IPOB members abducted and assaulted a soldier sent to the South-East to spy on the Biafra movement.
Recall that the Director of Army Public Relations, Major General Onyema Nwachukwu, had in a press statement on Sunday, accused Simon Ekpa, the self-proclaimed leader of the group of circulating the video showing the retired soldier, Corporal Toriola Adewale, being tortured.
The Nigerian Army strongly condemned the assault on a retired soldier, reportedly carried out by members of the IPOB.
But reacting to the development in a statement on Wednesday, the IPOB’s spokesman, Emma Powerful, described the claims by the army spokesman as mere “propaganda” and “self-staged crime” by the Nigerian Army’s leadership.
Powerful said the video of an abducted “spying soldier” captured and forced to call for the resignation of Biafran soldiers from the Nigerian Army is another “false flag operation” by the army, insisting that the “purported video” did not emanate from IPOB.
He said its Directorate of State had long distanced IPOB from the Finland-based Simon Ekpa, but the Nigerian Army always linked IPOB to Ekpa in order to demonise the group.
The statement read in part, “The Directorate of State of IPOB wishes to debunk the Nigerian Army’s concocted propaganda that the peaceful and unarmed IPOB activists abducted a Nigeria soldier sent to Biafra land to spy on the Biafra movement and forced him to call for the resignation of Biafran soldiers in the Nigerian Army.
“The propaganda from the Nigerian Army spokesperson claiming that IPOB captured a spying Nigerian soldier and forced him to deliver a message to the Biafran soldiers serving in the Nigerian Army to resign is a self-staged crime by the Nigerian Army’s leadership.
“Though IPOB has called for Biafrans serving in the Nigerian security agencies to resign, IPOB has never forced and will never force our brothers and sisters in the Nigerian security agencies to resign their positions.”
It added, “The so-called video of an abducted spying soldier captured and forced to call for the resignation of Biafran soldiers from the Nigerian Army is another false flag operation by the Nigerian Army and their agent provocateurs to continue their murderous onslaught against Ndigbo. The Nigerian Army has reduced itself to a mare social media gossip.
“IPOB did not abduct any Nigerian soldier. The army spokesman should stop linking IPOB to their criminal agents in their efforts to destabilise the South-East. IPOB and Mazi Nnamdi Kanu have no relationship with the so-called Biafra Liberation Army.”
According to him, IPOB does not have any army and will never have one until Biafra is restored.
