Biafra women protesters in Owerri
IPOB spits fire over arrest of Biafra women protester in Owerri
. Threatens civil uprising if unreleased by 6pm Monday
. Furious over S’East govs, leaders’inaction
By Steve Oko
The Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), has threatened civil uprising if by 6:pm Monday, the Biafran women protesters arrested Friday in Owerri Imo State were not released.
Scores of women demanding a date for Biafra referendum as well as the whereabouts of IPOB Leader, Nnamdi Kanu, were arrested by the police in Owerri, and have remained in detention since then.
IPOB had earlier said four women were killed and over 15 wounded when security operatives shot at the peaceful protesters before arresting and whisking many of them away.
Meanwhile a tersed press statement issued Sunday by IPOB demanded immediate and unconditional release of the women who it claimed are held under inhuman condition in a police facility at Etche Rivers State.
The statement signed by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, also lambasted South East Governors as well as Ohanaeze Ndigbo leadership for their apparent sillece over the “provocative action” of the police.
IPOB wondered why Igbo leaders should keep mum at the humiliation of unarmed Igbo women protesters, saying that women of other tribes cannot be treated like common criminals the way the protesters were treated.
The statement read in part : “We condemn the sacrilegious arrest, illegal detention and barbaric torture of grandmothers arrested and held in military custody by Nigerian soldiers and police under the most appalling conditions.
“It is unheard of anywhere in the world that old women, some of them grandmothers, were arrested by army or police, teargassed, locked-up and tortured for exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to peaceful assembly.
“If there were any doubts before that Ala-Igbo and the rest of Biafraland is a Fulani conquered territory, the abominable treatment of elderly women on a peaceful March, arrested, tortured and interrogated like common criminals, have all but dispelled it.
“That Imo State government gave the go ahead to northern Islamic army and police formations across Imo State 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 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 because if by the close of business on Monday August 20, 2018, 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 Arewa North neither will it be condoned in Yorubaland. It is happening in Biafraland because those that parade themselves as leaders (SE governors and Ohaneze) are cowards, appointed by the caliphate to act as their agents.
“When Fulani terrorist 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 them.
“No Fulani terror herdsmen 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.
“As with other conspiratorial atrocities in Biafraland perpetrated by the Nigerian army, DSS and police, Igbo governors as the chief security officer of their states alongside Ohaneze Ndigbo, must be held responsible. Even in the North they don’t arrest elderly women on a protest march.
“It’s a pity that Nigeria security who cannot afford to stop or curtail 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.
” IPOB will not hesitate to alert the world that Okehi Police Station in Etche Rivers State is where the torture of Biafran women is taking place. “
Meanwhile there has been a growing public outcry and condemnation against the arrest and continued detention of the hapless women protesters.
End
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