Asaba residents fearful that Biafran agitation could spur armed robbery and kidnapping

DELTA State citizens have expressed fears that the rise of Biafran agitation may result in a breakdown of law and order that may give rise to an explosion of criminal activity including armed robbery and kidnapping.

 

Earlier this week, separatists led by the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (Massob), staged a demonstration in Asaba, the Delta State capital. Security agents arrested 135 people and are due to charge them with a varying range of public order offences.

 

However, local people now fear that the agitation may compound kidnapping, armed robbery and other anti-social activities that have bedevilled the region over the years. Asaba residents are fearful that the Biafran agitation may metamorphose into acts of terrorism if it is not nipped in the bud quickly.

 

One local resident said: “In the past one week that the agitators started the protests, we have been living with the fear that the region may come under a new regime of insecurity. If care is not taken, this may transform into another form of terrorism that would compound the challenges of kidnapping and armed robbery in our area.

 

In some areas of Asaba, the pro-Biafran groups have started disregarding existing Igbo leadership and have begun to project themselves as the new leaders of the southeast. Elders groups have conceded that they appear to have lost control of the situation, as these new youth groups appear to be calling the shots.

 

One Asaba Igbo leader said: “It is risky to openly speak about the group because if you say anything that is against their agitation, they will take you as an enemy and the truth is that there is nothing positive about what they are doing. They are opportunists and relevance- seeking people who are misleading unsuspecting youths to take to an unworthy cause.

 

“If there is a need for such agitation, it would not be championed by rudderless and misguided set of human beings, it should be the collective decision of the entire zone but as we speak, there is no need for such agitation. They are very unruly and power drunk and it is disturbing that some of them have no regard for existing leadership in the land and have started seeing themselves as the leaders that the people should reckon with."

 

Ikedigwe Raphael, an Ipob coordinator in Lagos State, added: “Ipob is divided into groups A and B. Group A comprises Bayelsa, Rivers, Abia, Imo, Akwa-Ibom and Cross River, while group B comprises Anambra, Enugu, Delta and Ebonyi and we regard any other state, region or zone not captured in the aforementioned groups in the country as a zoo.

 

Mr Raphael said the protests will continue until the Radio Biafra director Nnamdi Kanu, is released and the likes of Benjamin Onwuka of the Biafran Zion Movement are set free too. He berated the Massob leader Chief Ralph Uwazurulike, for allegedly misleading and selling out Ndigbo, describing him as a businessman.