The Minister of Information and
Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Sunday accused “politically disgruntled
treasury looters” out to sabotage the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government
of sponsoring the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
Mohammed said the disgruntled
looters are using IPOB to sabotage the current government under the guise of
fighting for the rights of the people of the South-east.
This is contained in a statement
signed by his media aide, Segun Adeyemi.
Mohammed said IPOB sponsors were
trying to “destabilize the country and trigger chaos to realize their ambition
of escaping justice and then be free to dip their hands into the nation’s
treasury again.”
“Nigerians must understand that
IPOB was not set up to fight for the right of anyone or group, but as a tool to
destabilize the nation, divert attention from the efforts of the Buhari
Administration and obliterate the laudable achievements of the Government.
”IPOB is being sponsored by those
I will call the Coalition of the Politically Disgruntled and the Treasury
Looters. They believe that by sponsoring this group to destabilize the country
and trigger chaos, they will realize their ambition of escaping justice and
then be free to dip their hands into the nation’s treasury again.”
Wondering why IPOB activities
became heightened under Buhari’s government, Mohammed said, ”If this is
coincidental, then that coincidence is uncanny, at the least. Remember that
Nnamdi Kanu, who led a protest at the Nigeria House in London against Boko
Haram insurgency and in support of Nigeria’s unity, under the Jonathan
Administration, has suddenly metamorphosed into an IPOB monster who will rather
set the nation ablaze.”
Mohammed said IPOB thrived on
exploiting the nation’s fault lines, and that its modus operandi ”is to trigger
conflagration nationwide through attacks and reprisals”.
”Thankfully, IPOB has failed in
its evil machinations. The good people of Nigeria have seen beyond those cheap
tactics and have avoided being incited against one another. We must remain
vigilant and resolute. We must all say no to the incendiary and divisive
tendencies of IPOB and its cohorts.”
Mohammed also commended the
Nigerian military for labelling IPOB a terrorist organization and for
checkmating the group, and the South-east Governors for proscribing the
organization.
”But for the military’s quick and
decisive intervention, IPOB could have set the nation on fire. Thanks to the
decisiveness of the military, the Governors of the states in the South-east
have wisely proscribed IPOB,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed accused IPOB of
harvesting gory videos from the distant past and from other lands to deceive
the international community that the people of the South-east are victims of
state-sponsored ethno-sectarian violence, describing such tactics as ”lies and
propaganda”.
”Such videos, which have very
high emotive quotient, are circulating on the Social Media. We call on all to
subject such videos to the greatest scrutiny so as not to be misled. In
particular, we urge the international community not to jump to any conclusion
on the basis of such videos,” he said.
The Minister also appealed to the
media to show greater restraint and avoid sensationalism in their reporting of
the military exercise, Operation Python Dance II, in the South-east.
Mohammed added that the Nigerian
media cannot afford to sit on the fence or engage in irresponsible journalism
when the issue at stake is the very survival of the nation.
”The divisive and jaundiced
opinions of some anarchists have been given a big play by a section of the
media. This is wrong. Let me remind all of us of the role of the media,
especially the radio, in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that left about 800,000
people dead,” he added.
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