As Counsel Debunks Alleged IPOB Violence Threat To Southeast Elected Officials Abroad
Few days after members of his group gave former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu the beating of his life in faraway Germany, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has asked his members to disgrace and arrest President Muhammadu Buhari in Japan today.
Few days after members of his group gave former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu the beating of his life in faraway Germany, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has asked his members to disgrace and arrest President Muhammadu Buhari in Japan today.
The threat followed an announcement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina that the President would travel to Japan today to participate in the 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development.
Kanu, in a statement circulated yesterday, ordered IPOB members to arrest Buhari and hand him over to Japanese authorities to answer for the crimes he allegedly committed between 2015 and 2019.The statement signed by Emma Powerful, Media and Publicity Secretary of the IPOB said: “The formidable IPOB family in Japan is hereby placed on direct order to ensure the impostor, Jubril Al-Sudani, masquerading as the late dictator, Mubammadu Buhari, is arrested and handed over to the authorities, when he sets foot on Japanese soil. He is not only a fake president, but is also wanted for mass murder and crimes against humanity for his role in previous and ongoing genocide in Biafraland.
“Under Japanese law, an impostor is a common criminal and subject to citizen’s arrest. International diplomatic protocol as it relates to visiting heads of state is not applicable in this instance because whoever Abba Kyari is sending to Japan is not the real Buhari…
“Any legal fall-out emanating from any confrontation will end up in a Japanese court, where we will be able to establish before the world that Jubril is indeed a fake Buhari.”
Meanwhile, the Special Counsel to IPOB and Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, Chief Aloy Ejimakor has said his clients, particularly Nnamdi Kanu never made any threat of violence or to “physically attack” Southeast Governors or Igbo elected officials when sighted overseas.
In a statement Ejimakor sent to The Guardian, yesterday, titled: “Putting The Record Straight On Ekweremadu, SE Governors and IPOB,” he said what Kanu meant “is that Nigerian elected officials, especially those from Southeast, including governors, who neglected and still derelict their duties to the people and prefer to junket and gallivant abroad should be ‘prepared to answer tough questions from the Nigerian/SE in diaspora.’
“And such engagements will be upfront and personal, or as Americans say: in your face… In plain terms, the so-called threat is not of violence or battery, but of gutsy demonstrations or protests, of tough questions or heckling, of getting really close to the target…
“Kanu never threatened or sanctioned any threat of actual physical violence, assault or battery, or anything that is illegal or criminal. And he had also stated that you don’t have to be afraid, if you have done nothing wrong.”
According to Ejimakor, what is fueling the misinterpretation of what Kanu said is that Nigerians at home hardly carry their protests to the face of elected officials.
“Yes, they complain, but they do so quietly and seem to be cowed in the immediate vicinity or presence of these officials…” he said.
