Imo Attack: “Friday Will Forever Live In Infamy; My people And I Are Very Upset – Nnamdi Kanu’s Lawyer, Ejimakor

By Charles Igbo

Alloy Ejimakor, Special Counsel to the Leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, is a very angry man.

Ejimakor’s current anger does not stem from the continued detention and prosecution of his Client by a Federal High Court, even after the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, had discharged and acquitted him. No.

His anger stems from an attack on his Community, Urualla, Ideato Local Government Area, Imo State, by gunmen.

The gunmen had, on  Friday, invaded the Afor Urualla market, and wreaked havoc.

Mindlessly shooting, they set ablaze market stalls, shops and vehicles. People screamed to high heavens and ran for their lives. There was no challenge, no help.

Reacting to the tragedy, Ejimakor lamented the evil that befell his Community, and declared his anger and that of his people. His house, he said, is five minutes away from the center of attack.

Said Ejimakor: “Today, (Friday), 9th December, 2022,  several armed men invaded my hometown, attacked my relatives, vandalised their properties and set fire to our main market, five minutes away from my house.

“It is a day that will forever live in infamy. I am very upset, my people are very upset.”

Ejimakor said he had no clue the group responsible for the attack, but the strong suspicion is that it came from those loyal to Simon Ekpa.

Ekpa, Finland-based, a former IPOB member, and self-proclaimed disciple of Kanu, now estranged from even Kanu, had, in a video, declared a five-day sit-at-home order in South-east States, beginning from 9th December 2022.

IPOB had countered him, and declared  there would be no sit-at-home. In a statement, Emma Powerful, its Spokesperson, asked people to go about their normal businesses, including the collection of their Permanent Voters Card, PVC’s, the reason it is suspected, for which Ekpa ordered sit-at-home, having said there would be no election in the Zone. IPOB promised to provide Security even in markets.

But with the number of attacks and killings in Imo State on Friday, Ekpa seems to have had his way on the first day. The gunmen who ran riot in the State were heard shouting: “Go home, there is sit-at-home.”

Sit-at-home, a baby of IPOB, was introduced by the Organization, to protest the detention and prosecution of Kanu, and pressurize the Federal Government to release him. IPOB, at the time, ordered that everybody must obey sit-at-home  every Monday and anyday Kanu was to appear in Court.

Seeing that it didn’t work, and that the FG couldn’t care, and that it was an added punishment to the Igbo, worsened by the violence and loss of lives which accompanied its implementation, IPOB canceled the exercise, unless when absolutely necessary.

But IPOB seems to have lost control of it, as Ekpa has continued to ignore IPOB’s cancellation and carries on with the sit-at-home order.

His recent five-day  sit-at-home order has been greeted with outrage.