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Nigeria has expressed satisfaction with the United Kingdom’s decision to proscribe the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, as a terrorist group.
A State House statement notes that Nigeria’s allies in the U.K. could not immediately proscribe IPOB after Nigeria did due to the deep pockets of IPOB’s international network of funders that allow for lawyers and influence peddlers to aggressively lobby for and whitewash the activities of their client in Western courts.
The statement, signed by the Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, suggests that IPOB’s influential communication network of TV and radio stations, including the London-based Radio Biafra, employed with great effect to spread misinformation abroad and incite violence at home.
It says now that IPOB has rightly been designated a terrorist group, the Federal Government urges UK authorities to follow up with confiscation of their assets, shut down their communication channels, and sanction the issuance of visas to IPOB’s funders in Nigeria.
The statement stresses that such sanctions have played a critical role in combatting other terror groups.
It laments that Africa has become a breeding ground for terror, with local and international groups gaining strength across the continent, thriving on the economic devastation of the pandemic.
The statement explains that IPOB’s terror has seen villagers butchered, school buses set ablaze, and politicians’ homes bombed.
It says through their international network of radio and TV stations, they threaten further violence if their demands are not met, while inciting violence and religious and ethnic tension between Nigeria’s Christian and Muslim populations.
Abdullah Bello
