IPOB shuts down Onitsha over Anambra poll protest

IPOB shuts down Onitsha over Anambra poll protest

— 11th November 2017

Members of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) yesterday took to major streets of Onitsha and its environs calling for boycott of next Saturday’s Anambra State governorship election.

The group marched along major roads including Awka road, Old Market road, New Market road to Main Market, Oguta road and Upper Iweka to Owerri road vowing that there would be no election in the state or ‘Biafra land’ unless a referendum was held for the exit of Igbo people from Nigeria.

They waved Biafra flags and distributed handbills with inscriptions such as, “IPOB’s calls for referendum is not call for war”, “Biafra Exit”; “Our Mumu Don Do”; “No election in Anambra, no election in Biafra land, sit-at-home”, etc.

A member of the group, who gave his name as Ogbonnaya, said the people of Biafra should not vote, because the Nigerian system was skewed in favour of the North, stressing that voting would not change anything.

His words: “whether you vote or not, it does not change anything, whoever gets there swears allegiance to the Fulani slave book called constitution and immediately becomes a demon against his people. We need to boycott the elections to avoid giving their government legitimacy. To tell them that we are not miscreants, touts, criminals, toothless bulldog as they branded Biafrans. To tell them that the genuine power belongs to the people and we are withholding it for the good and the sake of our freedom”.

The group warned anybody who comes out to vote on the election day to be ready to bear the consequences.

Meanwhile, in a press statement signed by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Comrade Emma Powerful, the organization urged every Biafran, both home and abroad, particularly indigenes and friends, brothers and sisters living in Biafravland to prepare for the total boycott and lock down of Anambra State.

The statement stresses: “It is also very critical to inform every Biafran, be you IPOB family member, businessman, farmer, artisan, driver, teacher, doctor, Okada/Tricycle union, civil servant, trader, market leader, LUBAN, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), NILODAS, fisherman, market men and women, including politicians who believe in freedom and liberty of a free independent State of Biafra, to boycott this Anambra State election”.

The statement noted that the successful boycott of the election would convey in unequivocal terms the determination and resolve to restore Biafra at all cost. This Anambra election boycott it stated would give that agitation unprecedented global momentum that would move world leaders to accept the inevitable democratic and peaceful break-up of Nigeria, and will be morally bound to consider a possible date for Biafra referendum for independence without delay.

“IPOB recognises the suffering of other ethnic groups all over Nigeria and would genuinely wish their humiliation and difficulties to be brought to an end. We want every ethnic group in Nigeria to be free from the bondage of colonial amalgamation imposed on everybody.

Therefore, it would be desirable for those championing true change to embrace this act of civil disobedience championed by IPOB to liberate all oppressed people in Nigeria,” it further said.

The secessionist group urged other ethnic groups in Nigeria to understand that IPOB under Mazi Kanu was not pushing for an independent Biafra state to spite any tribe or group of persons, but rather to provide a chance for decent living, under liberty and freedom, for Biafran generations unborn.

However, the Anambra State Police Command yesterday said the proscribed IPOB cannot stop Saturday’s governorship election in the state.

Reacting to the protest in Onitsha, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Nkeiruka Nwode (ASP), said the group’s action yesterday amounted to nothing as the state police command was on top of security situations in the state.

According to him, the police in the state had concluded arrangements for effective policing of the state during the election, stressing: “INEC has fixed the election and it must hold. Nobody or group can stop it”.

She assured the people of the state of adequate security during the poll, and asked them to go out en masse to exercise their franchise on the election day.

Also speaking on the security situation ahead of the November 18 governorship election, a red neck officer in the army told Saturday Sun that based on current intelligence, the military will most likely deploy men and equipment to the state to check IPOB members.

“The Army will continue to carry out its routine duties not just in Anambra but across the country. As you know, the army does not engage in election duties, that is why we don’t deploy soldiers to the poling booth. There are enough security agencies on ground in Anambra to monitor and ensure a smooth and crisis free election.

The soldiers will only be moved in if there is a crisis that is beyond the capability of the police to handle, that is where we come in. But for now the soldiers will continue to carry on with their routine duties and ensure the safety of all”, the source added.

Buhari’s 2nd term bid will make PDP win 2019–Adeyeye

Buhari’s 2nd term bid will make PDP win 2019–Adeyeye

-11th november 2017

•We’re ready to welcome Atiku, Saraki, Dogara, Oni, others back

Former Minister and National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Dayo Adeyeye, has said that the party is preparing to receive back into its fold prominent APC leaders such as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Senate President Bukola Saraki, House of Reps Speaker Yakubu Dogara among others. In this interview with VINCENT KALU, Adeyeye stated that the second term bid of President Buhari will make it easy for PDP to return to power in 2019.

The way All Progressives Congress (APC) is going, there is the fear of possible implosion, if that happens, would the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) be ready to embrace members from the ruling party?

Our doors are wide open, and PDP is a party for all Nigerians, irrespective of religion, ethnicity or anything. It is an umbrella that is big enough to accommodate everybody.

The plans of the founding fathers are for all Nigerians to be in the party. Any day, anytime, we are ready and our doors are wide open for anybody who is ready to leave APC. We know that the implosion would occur, and we hope to take advantage of it when it happens.

Is it not as they say, what goes around comes around? APC is facing the same challenge that PDP faced towards the build up to 2015 general elections that led to its members decamping to APC, and eventual defeat?

I agree with you that what goes round comes around, but APC was never a party and has never been a party and will never be a party. It is just an association of desperadoes who came together just to wrestle power from us. Now, that objective has been achieved, because there were no viable ideology, policies and programmes, that is why they are scattering.

So, there is nothing to mix them together as a party; it is just an association. A kind of alliance by desperate elements from different groups, that is why they cannot hold on as a party, and PDP despite its challenges, remains the biggest political party not only in Nigeria, but also in Africa. Some PDP bigwigs beat their chests that the party is taking over power in 2019; don’t you think that if President Buhari is running, it is going to be an uphill task for your party?

Buhari running will make it very easy for us. What achievement would he use as his campaign message? What would he tell Nigerians is the reason for his coming to do a second term?

In our national life, there has been no improvement, it has been retrogression. Is it in politics, economy, security, and his fight against corruption? There is no record to present to Nigerians. It is going to be an easy finish off for us, and we pray he should be the APC presidential candidate.

We are not bothered about that, short of any rigging of the election, which we are going to be very vigilant and would not allow it to occur, there is no way Buhari will win another election in Nigeria. Even in the north, he lost his popularity, because Northerners ask themselves, if their lives are better today than some few years ago under the PDP? The answer would be an emphatic No.

Whether Buhari or any other person, we are very sure we are going to defeat APC in 2019 presidential elections, because we have records of achievements in 16 years of rule. You can compare our records of 16 years to their two and half years and see where they are taking Nigeria.

In their two and half years, with EFCC and ICPC, they are yet to tackle the issue of corruption, they have not even added any institutional work to what we left on ground. It is the PDP that left the institutions for which they are using to fight corruption, and yet they are not fighting it with genuineness of purpose.

Nigerians can see monumental corruption in a government that says it is fighting graft – the issue of $21 billion contract scandal in NNPC, recall of Maina and promoting and reinstating him, Babachir Lawal, Ayo Oke and other scandals just in two and half years, but we didn’t have this kind of thing in our two and half years.

We have seen two and half years of this government and by 2019, Nigerians shall compare the four years of APC and four years of PDP, and know the party that cares for them. The records speak in favour of PDP.   

APC says that it is saddled with cleaning the mess PDP brought upon the country and that is why it has not done much They forgot that PDP took over from Abacha and the years of military misrule and disaster, but the party never complained any day that because it inherited the military wastages that was the reason it couldn’t perform. That is expected of any leader. When you are asking the people to give you post you didn’t ask that you were going there to play. Otherwise, that is the easiest thing anybody can do to blame the previous government for his problems. Anybody can blame a previous government for non-performance. You told the people that the other party was not doing well and you are coming to improve the situation, but you came in and made the situation worse.

It is very stupid for anybody to continue to blame PDP for his inadequacy, and we will see how this blame game will help them in 2019, whether Nigerians elected you to come and blame anybody or to come and perform. We will see in 2019.

APC also says that the PDP immigrants polluted the party, is this also another excuse?

Those people whom they accused of polluting APC, we are ready to welcome them back into our fold. Let them go, or simply expel them; our doors are wide open for them.

The truth of the matter is that this government doesn’t have anything to offer; it is always blaming, and blaming.    When you have a government that is always blaming and looking for scapegoat for its inactions and failures, then you have seen an unserious government that can never deliver on any of its promises. That is the stock in trade of the ruling party, just to find scapegoat for all its inactions and in adequacies.

APC is fixated on finding scapegoats for its failures. If they said that some people in PDP that came into their party polluted them, why can’t you just tell them to leave your party now, so that we can welcome them back and continue our march in progress towards 2019.

The PDP is said to have cleaned and put its house in order, but don’t you entertain fears that the people who were accused of polluting the APC, on their return to PDP may still pollute the party?

The PDP has a system that naturally cleanses all sorts of contamination. When they come back to PDP, they will meet a party that is well grounded in ideology and philosophy, a party that has policy, plans and programmes already well articulated for Nigerians. The thing that makes APC to fail is that it doesn’t have programmes, no policies that people can easily understand and key into, and that is why they are like rudderless ship, being driven away by the wind. They have no compass that can lead them to the shore.

If you come to PDP you just key into the ideology of the party, so there can’t be any problem for those who would return to our party. There is no confusion in PDP at all.

When you have a big party that is united, and has commonly accepted ideology and philosophy; that has a commonly accepted and articulated programmes and policies, there is no way the entry of any individual or group would contaminate the party. You have to come into the party and key into the programmes of the party.  We are not afraid.

If you are rudderless, and you are not united by ideology, any programme or policy, then people can behave the way they like and that is what is happening in APC, and it won’t happen in PDP.

If they say former PDP members polluted their party, let them release them to us, we are ready and willing to accept them back. We need people like Atiku Abubakar, we need people like Saraki, we need people like Dogara, all the leaders in the National Assembly, and some of them that have been made ministers we need them back, including the APC Deputy National Chairman, Segun Oni.

Is it right to say that PDP has learnt its lesson in a bitter way?

We have learnt our lesion no doubt about that. By the grace of God, we are moving forward; we have a new umbrella, which is clean and larger to accommodate more people.

What should Nigerians expect in 2019?

Nigerians know that things have not been so bad in their lives as they were under APC. The simple question is whether their lives are better four years ago than now.  What we have seen in these two and half years are increment in everything – Customs tariffs, electricity tariffs. Inflation skyrocketing, and income continues to go down. Whereas, they promised to create two million jobs, but Nigerians are losing their jobs and they continue to rake in more and more taxes.

It is not for the PDP to tell Nigerians anything, but for them to ask themselves the simple question about their lives under the APC.

They should use that answer appropriately in the ballot box.  We are very confident that Nigerians will throw away this APC government in 2019.

In 2015, the PDP easily conceded defeat, are you sure that the APC will do the same if PDP wins?

They are not democrats. The first four or five elections conducted by APC were marred by massive irregularities, despite the monumental achievements we left behind in 2015, which have been destroyed by the APC. The elections they conducted were massively rigged and manipulated as we saw in Edo State, where election was postponed giving way for rigging.

In Ondo State, they made sure that we didn’t have candidate two days to the election. I don’t believe that these people will organise credible election, but I believe that the vigilance of Nigerians supported by international community will make sure that APC doesn’t have its way. Whether they like it or not, they would be thrown out of power.

I’m sorry for impregnating another man’s wife, Celestial priest tells court

I’m sorry for impregnating another man’s wife, Celestial priest tells court

— 11th November 2017

A Celestial Church priest, David Adebayo on Friday begged a Customary Court sitting in Mapo area of Ibadan to pardon him for impregnating Omolara Ojeyemi, a legal wife of Abiodun Ojeyemi.
Adebayo, who is a resident of Alakuko area of Alagbado in Lagos State confessed that Omolara was his concubine and that he had been sleeping with her for the past 12 years.
“My lord, anytime Omolara left her husband in Ibadan, she used to come to meet me in Lagos where we usually have fun. Sometimes, she came after her closing hour in her office and returned to Ibadan the following morning.
“Omolara only told me that she and her husband were no more in good terms even though she had already had two children. I swear on the holy bible, I didn’t intend to destroy her relationship with her husband, she is just ,my girlfriend.
“The pregnancy in her tommy belongs to me, I was the one that deflowered her during my NYSC days. I followed her into the court to ensure that her union with Abiodun is dissolved today not that I am daring the court’s power,” Adebayo explained.
Adebayo however, apologized to the court for causing so much disharmony in Abiodun’s family and for having unlawful sexual intercourse with a housewife.
The president of the court, Ademola Odunade dissolved the seven year-old marriage between Omolara and Abiodun Ojeyemi and ordered Abiodun to take custody of their two children. Odunade held that the society was fast undergoing an unprecedented decay in morality especially how adultery was ruining marriages.
“It is so tragic that a man can deliberately impregnate a housewife with children. It has never happened in the history of this court that a concubine will accompany his mistress to the court with the intention of daring us, saying nothing will happen.
“In the interest of peaceful living, the union between Omolara and Abiodun has ceased to be henceforth. Abiodun shall take custody of the two children produced by the union,” the magistrate stated.
Narrating his ordeal, Abiodun who was a staff of Nigeria Brewery said that Omolara, his wife, was an unrepentant fornicator despite his genuine love for her.
“My lord, ever since I got married to Omolara seven years ago, little did I know that she had been occupied with all sorts of escapades in the name of going to church vigil.
“What I know is that she usually tell me that she was going for church vigil and I never had any reason to suspect her because I trusted her.
“However, since around June this year, Omolara started starving me of usual sexual intercourse between husband and wife. Before I eventually knew the truth, Omolara had told me that her concubine was her uncle and I was relating with him well as an in-law.
“One day, I got home and discovered that she had packed all the property away including mine. In fact, I have never failed to perform my responsibility as a husband to her and as a father to our children.
“Omolara’s concubine is a Priest at a Celestial Church, Emmanuel Parish Elewiodo-Ojo, Ibadan,” Abiodun explained.
Testifying in the matter, Omolara’s father confessed that Abiodun was a complete gentle son in-law whom he liked so much.
He added that he usually rendered Abiodun and Omolara monetary assistance anytime they were in need. “I know that Abiodun has a great future ahead of him and I used to tell Omolara, my daughter to keep calm. If there was any problem, Abiodun never hesitated to inform me.
“I never gave any wife to that naughty concubine and I know that he only wants to cause disaster to the happy relationship between my daughter and Abiodun,” Omolara’s father said.
However, Omolara who was the plaintiff in the case had earlier informed the court that she was no longer interested in continuing in the marriage with Abiodun because he was threatening her life with scissor attack and irresponsibility.

Avengers’ Threat: Exodus in Delta coastal communities as military deploys hardware.

Avengers’ Threat: Exodus in Delta coastal communities as military deploys hardware. 

— 11th November 2017
After months of calm and normalcy, tension has returned to Niger Delta communities with residents gripped by palpable fear of impending resumption of hostilities between militants and the Nigerian armed forces.
The people’s anxiety stems from the recent declaration by the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) of its decision to opt out of a year-long ceasefire agreement brokered by Pan Niger Delta Elders Forum (PANDEF) in Abuja on November 1, 2016.
The Avengers’ declaration on November 3, coincided with the annual inspection tour of naval formations across the Niger Delta region by the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas, who likewise responded in strongly-worded statements of the readiness of the military to tackle the threat.
Less than 24 hours after the naval chief’s visit, men and officers of the Nigerian Navy ship, NNS Delta, in conjunction with the Nigerian Army and lightly.ce started massive deployment of military hardware such as fighter- jets, surveillance choppers, gunboats and naval personnel to the coastal areas of Delta State, including Gbaramatu kingdom in Warri South West Local Government Area. The development has triggered panic among indigenes many of whom are yet to fully recover from the tribulations of the invasion of Gbaramatu Kingdom by soldiers in the past and they have started fleeing their communities.
Saturday Sun investigation revealed that many of the indigenes had begun to leave, while many others have their baggage packed and poised to flee at the first sign of trouble.
Reasons for fleeing
Residents of the coastal communities, especially, those in the Gbaramatu axis, were seen leaving their homeland in droves to avoid becoming casualties of military operations.
Grace Dimene, a 38-year-old mother of five, was seen offloading her personal belongings from a canoe she paddled with her children all the way from Kokodiagbene community in Warri South West Local Government area of Delta State. She told Saturday Sun she had to move out with her family, as they could no longer bear the intimidating presence of military personnel in her community.
She said: “We had a very sad experience in our community last year when the military launched ‘Operation Crocodile Smile’. Many of our people, especially women and young ones, were trapped as soldiers took over the entire place with gunboats and surveillance choppers making it difficult for us to go about our daily businesses. We were subjected to starvation during the period as we were almost denied access to marketplaces. At a point, we ran out of foodstuff and many of us had to go begging for food from those who had enough to feed their families. It was a terrible experience for three weeks. No one will pray to go through such again in a lifetime. That is one of the main reasons I moved out before the situation worsened.”
Seventy-six-year-old grandmother Rose Timinimi, an indigene of Gbaramatu Kingdom, had already abandoned her home, because of fear of a repeat of the experience.
Though, not directly oppressed by soldiers during the operation, her children were subjected to harrowing experience, especially, the males who were mistaken for militants by soldiers desperately seeking Avengers’ members, she said.
Her last child, an 18-year-old undergraduate of Mechanical Engineering at the Niger Delta University, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State was wrongfully arrested on his way to school on a Monday morning after spending the weekend with the family in Kurutie
To Andrew Peretuobo, 27 –year-old graduate of Delta State University, staying behind in the community at this critical period “is like committing suicide with your two-eyes open.”
Peretubo, who studied law, said: “What do you expect any right thinking person to do at this point? Stay behind in the community and claim all is well when you see stern-looking soldiers taking over everywhere with sophisticated equipment? Those soldiers are looking for able-bodied youths within the age bracket of 17 to 50. I am within that category. There’s no way I would remain there. Thank God, I have relations in the cities of Warri and Effurum. I will go and hangout with them for a while until the situation improves in the area.”
For Ebi Ekpebide, past experience showed how heavy military presence in the areas often led to dwindling businesses due to relocation by a large percentage of the local populace. “Besides my wellbeing, my business is more paramount to me. I would not allow anybody, not even the Nigerian soldiers, to come between me and my source of livelihood,” said the 29-year-old.
At the Naval Engineering College, Sapele, the Chief of Naval Staff did not mince words in sending a warning signal to the Avengers to expect a very tough military resistance to their latest threat to resume hostilities in the region. He described the threat as an affront, which the armed forces would not take lightly