By Charles Igbo
From Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, comes a statement that is likely to worsen the tension in the State.
Appearing on a Channel’s Television Programme on Wednesday, Umahi described members of the Eastern Security Network, an outfit set up by the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous Peoples Of Biafra, IPOB, as bandits. He also called them evil and criminals. He also called IPOB a criminal organisation.
Umahi’s categorization of the group comes when tension is very high in the South-east zone, especially in Ebonyi State, where whole communities had been sacked and dozens killed in raids, allegedly, carried out by suspected herdsmen.
But in the most recent attack on Ngbo Community, the Ebonyi State Government exonerated rogue Fulani herdsmen from the attack, saying it was a product of clashes over boundaries between communities.
However, on Wednesday, as if putting a lie to the claim of the Ebonyi Government which exonerated the herdsmen, IPOB/ESN released a photograph of a dead body, claiming it is the body of one of the herdsmen killed during the attack on Ngbo.
But speaking on Channel TV’s Sunrise Daily, Umahi accused IPOB and ESN operatives of hiding in forests, perpetrating evil against the people from there, and turning round to deny it had any hand in such evils.
The Governor said such illegality will no longer be tolerated in the South East by Governors. They would not be allowed to take laws into their hands, Umahi emphasised.
Umahi: “We won’t allow people to take laws into their hands by killing cows and killing people. I have to tell you that herders/farmers conflicts are not the only security challenges we have in South-east. We have the issue of kidnapping.
“And of late, we have bandits that are now doing a lot of crime and say they are IPOB, and later, IPOB will come out and say we had no hand in that.”
Kanu had, in December, 2020, founded the ESN to, according to him, deal with killer herdsmen and group general insecurity in the South-east, recruiting hundreds of youths, especially, the unemployed, as members.
On Sunday, April 11, the South-east Governors who had all along dilly-dallied over the establishment of a unitary security outfit for the Zone, just like their South-west counterparts who established Amotekun met in Owerri, and established Ebube Agu
The outfit has not yet been backed by law, but it already has a credibility deficit from a cross section of the Igbo who see its establishment as late, untidy, and meant to work against the ESN.
IPOB has already warned that it will not allow any other security outfit to operate in the Zone, except ESN. And for the avoidance of doubt, it has warned that any youth who registers with Ebube Agu, which Headquarters is in Enugu, should be prepared to meet his ancestors.
The Federal Government had since proscribed IPOB, labelling it a Terrorist organisation, an action which had the support of the SE Governors.
IPOB vehemently denies the categorization, saying it is a non-violent movement, yearning for the freedom and actualization of the Republic of Biafra.
Umahi is the Chairman of the South-east Governors’ Forum which established Ebube Agu
