By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has described as fallacious claims and sponsored protest staged in the Northern city of Jos, Plateau State, claiming that IPOB attacked truck drivers in the South East.

It also dismissed story making the rounds that IPOB killed truck drivers from the North who were transporting goods to the South East Region.

This was contained in a statement made available to journalists by the Media and Publicity Secretary of IPOB, Emma Powerful.

It insisted that IPOB and ESN members are not violent and that it does not engage in attacking or killing people, noting that it has not confirmed any attack and killing of truck drivers in the South East Region.

The statement partly reads: “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.

“As God lives in his thrown, 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 notl violent and do not engage in attacking or killing people. We cannot confirm any attack and killing of truck drivers in the South East Region.”

While staring that such a claim by the protesting drivers in Plateau State is unfounded, IPOB wondered why its members or the Eastern Security Network operatives (ESN) would attack truck drivers.”

IPOB adds: “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.

“The protesting truck drivers claimed that the dangerous routes that their members were normally attacked are Enugu to Lokpanta, Lokpanta to Okigwe, and Okigwe to Umuahia town. The public should recall that these named routes were the same routes that IPOB has raised alarm in the past about.

“There are hiding places for the Fulani terrorists who were colluding with the Northern soldiers at the military checkpoints to kidnap our people for ransom on those routes. Many road users have fallen victim to the Fulani kidnappers on those routes. Therefore, if they said that there were attacks on truck drivers and if that is the case, it must be from the Fulani terrorists and bandits operating in that axis.

“Nigerians know that there are many confirmed cases of Fulani kidnapping on the said routes, including the kidnap of a Methodist Church Bishop. Moreso, Abia State Governor Dr Alex Otti discovered a mass grave very close to the Hausa-Fulani cattle market at Lokpanta. Instead of the rented Northern Truck drivers to say the truth, that they were being attacked by their fellow Northern terrorists and bandits along the dangerous routes, they falsely accuse IPOB as responsible.”

The group maintained that it is not violent and will never be stupid to attack trucks supplying food items to and from the South East Region.

“We are not bandits. IPOB is peaceful and a people oriented freedom movement for Biafra restoration. We are too disciplined to venture into such criminality when we are fighting criminality in our region. The rented touts that call themselves Truck drivers should tell their sponsors that their agenda is dead on arrival

“There are regular terrorist attacks in Northern Nigeria by the Fulani terrorists and bandits without media attention. But in desperation to blackmail IPOB and Ndigbo, the Nigerian government contracted different groups to accuse IPOB of one form of violence or another..

“No amount of blackmail, military onslaughts, forceful disappearances, and extrajudicial executions will make IPOB retreat from demanding for Biafra’s self-determination and a UN supervised referendum. IPOB members are not violent terrorists. We are innocent of all the State sponsored accusations of violence in the South East Region”, IPOB stated.