By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
Forty-eight months after the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) introduced a sit-at-home order every Monday across the states in the South-east to pressure the Nigerian government to release its leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, economic activities in the zone are still at its lowest ebb on Mondays as people are afraid of getting on the streets.
Prompt News reports that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, is standing trial for an alleged terrorism at the Federal High Court, Abuja.
This is even as the past and present governors of Enugu, Imo, Anambra, Abia, and Ebonyi states have used different persuasive and coercive methods to make the people defy the IPOB sit-at-home order to no avail.
Prompt News reports that despite the assurances of their safety at work places and business premises on Mondays, most government and public offices have either remained under lock and keys or offered skeletal services on Mondays in the South-east states.
Investigations revealed that aside from civil servants who, out of sanctions, go to state government offices on Mondays, folks in the villages and hermlets strictly observe the sit-at-home order as they do not venture out of their compounds for fear of the Unknown Gunmen (UGM) who strike without notice.
Although the embattled Kanu has denounced the sit-at-home order due to its crippling effects on the economic activities in the South-east and the senseless bloodletting that has characterised the exercise linked to the renegade IPOB self-appointed Prime Minister Simon Ekpa, the people of the zone have continued to stay at home on Mondays despite its suspension as announced by Kanu.
However, many residents of the five South-east states of Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, Abia, and Anambra, have been observing the Monday sit-at-home order, mostly out of fear.
Also, social activities in the South-east states are disrupted on Mondays as inter and intra-city public transportation are not readily available for commuters who are willing to travel from one point to the other.
Background:
IPOB, in August 2021, introduced a sit-at-home order every Monday across the South-east to pressure the Nigerian government to release Mr Kanu, who is standing trial for alleged terrorism at the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The group later suspended the order, in preference for it to be implemented only on days Mr Kanu appears in court.
But a pro-Biafran agitator, Simon Ekpa, who leads Autopilot, a faction of IPOB, has continued to declare the sit-at-home in the region despite being suspended by the IPOB faction led by Kanu.
Following public outcry, the IPOB leader in late July, 2023 via a handwritten letter given to Aloy Ejimakor, his Special Counsel, ordered Ekpa to stop issuing sit-at-home orders in the region.
But Ekpa described the letter as “fake,” and maintained that the civil action would go on until Kanu speaks to him directly in Finland, a North European country, where he (Ekpa) resides. He has since been detained by the authorities in Finland, yet sit-at-home order is still effective in the South-east.
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