Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, yesterday gave security operatives the close of business today to release all the Imo State women allegedly arrested, during their peaceful protest, threatening to cause civil uprising if its demand was not met.

IPOB’s media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful, in a statement, described as sacrilegious the arrest, detention and torture of the women under what it called the most appalling condition.

According to IPOB, the women were being detained at Okehi Police Station in Etche, Rivers State.

The statement read” It is unheard of anywhere in the world that old women, some of them grandmothers, would be arrested by army or police, tear gassed, locked-up and tortured for exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to peaceful assembly. That Imo State government gave the go-ahead to abduct and torture our mothers, is a clear confirmation that Rochas Okorocha and his government have no regard for us as a people.

“The intention of the All Progressives Congress, APC, government is to intimidate and humiliate our people, women and the elderly. The abduction of grandmothers, some of them in their late 70s, is the worst kind of abomination. It is an invitation to anarchy and if by the close of business on Monday, August 20, 2018, (today), they are not released, IPOB will call for a civil uprising against the oppressors and their agents in Ohaneze Ndigbo and government houses across Biafraland.

“This level of desecration and sacrilege will not happen in the North; neither will it be condoned in Yorubaland. When Fulani herdsmen rape our mothers in the farms, destroy our crops and means of livelihood, you don’t see any army or police rushing to protect the women.

“No herdsman has ever been arrested by the Nigerian army or police. But the same long-suffering mothers, with nobody to protect them, are the ones being arrested, detained and tortured for exercising a constitutionally guaranteed right.

“It is a pity that Nigerian security operatives, who cannot afford to stop Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram terrorists rampaging and killing people in every part of the country, only demonstrate their might against elderly women, who only came out to demand for their right.”

•Sourced from a Vanguard report

•Some of the Pro-Biafra women running for their life along Orlu road in Owerri. Photo by Chinonso Alozie