ESN: Northern truck drivers sponsored to blackmail us – IPOB reveals

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On Monday, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) responded to claims that Northern truck drivers were being attacked in the South-East, stating that the protest staged in Jos, Plateau State, was orchestrated.

Emma Powerful, the IPOB spokesman, dismissed the allegations, calling them false and claiming that IPOB’s armed wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), does not engage in violence.

Parts of a statement by Powerful reads: “The attention of the global family and movement of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has been drawn to the fallacious, and sponsored protest staged in the Northern city of Jos, a city in Plateau State claiming that IPOB attacked truck drivers in the South-East.

“The Nigerian government accused IPOB of killing truck drivers from the North who were transporting goods to the South-East Region.

“The false accusations by the so-called NURTW truck drivers at Jos, Plateau State is another calculated blackmail and fallacious propaganda against IPOB. For a decade since IPOB started, we have been confronted with various state sponsored blackmail and media propaganda aimed at portraying IPOB as a violent movement.

“IPOB has surmounted all the accusations and lies against us by the government and blackmail including kidnappings, extrajudicial murders, and political assassinations that were tagged on IPOB. What exactly is the crime of IPOB against the Nigerian government and the other state actors in Nigeria?

“IPOB’s only crime against the Nigerian State is our demand for self-determination via a referendum. Instead of dialoguing with IPOB and our leader Mazi Nnamdi Okwu Kanu, the Nigerian State deployed various covert measures, including sponsoring insecurity and violent crimes in the South-East to blackmail and demonize IPOB

“IPOB and ESN members are not violent and do not engage in attacking or killing people. We can not confirm any attack and killing of truck drivers in the South-East Region.

“We assume that such a claim by the sponsored protesting drivers in Plateau State is unfounded. Let’s assume that such an incident happened, why will IPOB members or ESN operatives attack innocent truck drivers conveying goods to our region?

“Do the so-called attacked truck drivers pose any threat to the IPOB’s movement? IPOB members have not attacked those who pose threats to the Biafra struggle in the South-East Region.

“Why will they attack innocent truck drivers supplying goods to our region? Those that sponsored the touts that they called truck drivers in Plateau State to falsely accuse IPOB of attacking and killing their members in the South-East should know that they are also the same people that sponsored insecurity in the South-East.

“All the sponsored blackmail and propaganda do not move us a bit. But if such a thing happened, we condemn it.”

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