By Charles Igbo

Who exactly gave the order for an every Monday Sit-at-home in Igboland? The immediate answer will be Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the Leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB. However, there is a new song now. It is that the no movement restriction order imposed on the South-east Zone, by IPOB, did not emanate from Kanu.

This came as the full extent of the damage done to Igbo people and the South-east Zone by the Sit-at-home policy imposed by IPOB, began to dawn on everybody.  Controversy has arisen over who exactly initiated it.

Many months ago, IPOB had suddenly imposed the order to protest the rearrest, detention and prosecution of its leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu by the Federal Government. They said it was to pressurize the FG into releasing Kanu.

When it imposed the policy, IPOB said it must be observed every Monday of every week. It was enforced ferociously, and to the letter, in a most brutish manner.

Every Monday, Igboland was reduced to a ghost land, a dead zone. No movement. Nothing. It was so enforced that students of the Zone, missed National and West African Regional examinations. They were chased out of examination halls, and their teachers beaten up.

In Imo State, for example, an Anglican Priest, who was a Principal of a school, was butchered to death for daring to protect his students to take their West African Examination Council  Examination.

In the South-east, properties worth hundreds of millions of Naira were destroyed. Businesses worth billions of Naira were destroyed. Innocent lives, including those of children were  cut down in a most brutish manner. The once ever-booming economy of the zone nose-dived.

Onitsha and Aba, regarded as the economic hub centers in West Africa, in terms of trading; lost that status. Hundreds of people from West African countries who usually converged on the two towns every Monday, especially, to trade, stopped and looked for some other States. People began to relocate their businesses out of Igboland.

As these went on, a number of the Igbo elite who should have intervened, preferred cheap popularity to speaking up to save the Zone, to save the people. They played to the gallery so  they would be clapped for, and called courageous. They decided to be making a political capital out of it. Now, thinking they have really become popular on that basis, they want to be Governors and National Assembly Members, hoping that based on the deliberate ill-advised support they were giving to the youths, they have become the leaders, the spokespersons of the Zone. The only courageous ones

Those who spoke up were dubbed saboteurs. They were called cowards, and their lives and businesses threatened and/or destroyed. Others kept quiet to save their heads. The Governors were helpless.

As this went on, other Zones laughed at the Igbo. When they dared invite the South-West and the North to join them in the Sit-at-home policy to protest bad governance, the North wished the Igbo “10 more years of sitting at home.”

The Yoruba asked them to forget it. They will not destroy their Zone, was the reply.

However, at some point, sanity set in a little. IPOB restricted the policy to only the days Kanu would appear in Court. Yet, it didn’t quite remedy the situation. Some rogue elements continued as usual. To destroy. To maim and kill  people for daring to disobey the Sit-at-home order on Mondays.

It was always taken for granted that the order for Sit-at-home came from the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu.

Bu there is, now, a twist.

Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, who has declared interest in the Governorship seat of Abia State in 2023, has revealed something he never revealed before now.

Speaking in Enugu on  Saturday,  at the Investiture ceremony of the 16th President of the Enugu Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, (ECCIMA), Abaribe said Kanu did not issue the every Monday Sit-at-home order. And, Abaribe was quoting Kanu.

He said on a visit to Kanu at his detention center, in the company of Senator Ike Ekweremadu and a couple of other, Kanu said he was not the one who issued the Sit-at-home order.

Abaribe said this while recounting the damage done to Igbo land by the order.

His words: “What  is happening in the South-east is a tragedy. Every Monday, people sit at home in what they call ‘holy Monday.’ What is holy in making people suffer like this?

“IPOB has said countless times that they are not the ones enforcing it, neither does it seem like we have a way to solve it.

“I went with Ike Ekweremadu and two Bishops to the DSS to see Nnamdi Kanu and he told us he did not issue the order.”

Abaribe bemoaned the State of the  South-east economy, no thanks to the order, and said people were relocating their businesses out of the South-east.

But that is where the controversy starts.

The questions people are asking now are:

If Kanu did not issue the order, then who did? Is there a higher authority in IPOB than Kanu? If he did not issue the order, why did IPOB not deny it as soon as it was issued in IPOB’s name? Why did Kanu not condemn it immediately it was issued, knowing fully well he would have been obeyed.

Records show that the order was given by IPOB, in a number of statements issued by its Spokesman, Emma Powerful. When it was reduced to only the days Kanu would appear in Court, it was Powerful who also informed the public as such. When IPOB threatened to shutdown Igboland for a month if Kanu was not produced in Court, the announcement also came from Powerful.

However, opinion is that rogue elements have infiltrated IPOB. And, it is these rogue elements who have continued to insist on the every Monday Sit-at-home order, even when IPOB has restricted it to only the days Kanu would appear in Court.

Opinion, however, is that IPOB has lost control of the implementation of the policy it started to rogue elements.