By Ikenna Obianeri
The Indigenous People of Biafra has alleged that the Nigerian Army had received a secret instruction to move all Obigbo youths held in the military cell in Kaduna to unknown locations in Northern Nigeria for possible execution.
The group said the over 500 Obigbo youths had been held in different detention facilities under inhuman conditions since two years when they were unlawfully arrested during the infamous Obigbo massacre in 2020.
In a statement on Saturday, the group’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, said IPOB Intelligence unit intercepted secret instruction by the Nigeria Army high command to move the detainees to unknown locations for possible execution and extra-judicial killing.
The group, therefore, cautioned the Army and other federal agencies against secretly executing the innocent youths.
Powerful added that If anything untoward happened to those people arrested illegally, the Army should be held responsible.
The statement reads in part, “We are aware that over 500 innocent Biafrans were unlawfully arrested and abducted by the military and evacuated to different secret cells in Abuja and Kaduna Army cells where they are daily tortured, raped and maltreated as animals because they are Igbos.
“These youths were arrested in Rivers State by the Federal Government and Governor Nyesom Wike, at the heat of the #EndSARS protest because of their hatred against the Igbo Nation in Nigeria.
“With great efforts by our legal teams, some of them were released last year but many are still in custody for two years for committing no crime but being Igbo.
“We, therefore, want to place the world on notice over this wicked plot by the Nigeria Army and its plots to silence these innocent Biafrans without trace. These victims have been detained incommunicado in their custody for two years and they have been ordered to be taken to secret locations in Kaduna.
“It is only the authorities of the Nigeria Army that knows what that order and instruction meant, but any attempt to execute or extra-judicially kill them, they will regret their actions. Such barbarity will be costly and a blunder Nigeria will ever live to regret.
“We also want to remind the army and the Federal Government that we are monitoring them. Should anything untoward happen to these innocent Biafrans, those behind their fate will not escape judgement!
“We demand unconditional release of these youths because they committed no crime and must therefore be released, they have unjustly suffered enough and deserve to be released unconditionally.
“The Obigbo genocide must be remembered in history against Nyesom Wike and Nigeria security agents including the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“The world should not maintain criminal silence when the same federal government that has been freeing Fulani bandits and mass murderers including terrorists rampaging and ravaging Nigeria for the past ten years contine to keep innocent Biafrans in detention under inhuman condition.”
Credit | Punch