Any resolution in sight after a year of staying in?

Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) ordered a sit-at-home day one year ago, and it is still followed every Monday throughout the country’s whole South-eastern region. In this article, EMMA ELEKWA delves deeply into the subject and considers the immeasurable harm the area has endured in terms of fatalities and financial losses over the course of the past year of “Ghost Mondays.”

It is now beyond dispute that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOBcommand )’s to stay home on Mondays has had a negative impact on the socioeconomic situation in the region’s south-east. Aside from the trillions of Naira that were lost, the terrible scenario brought on by the limitation on human and vehicular activity has wasted lives and property.

The secessionist group had no idea how much of an influence its idea would have on the region and its people when it first came up with it a year ago. Undoubtedly, the re-arrest and confinement of the dream republic’s spearhead and leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has had an impact on the movement’s new direction.

Kanu, who was reportedly returned from Kenya and arrested by the Department of State Security (DSS) in Abuja, was previously on trial in an Abuja High Court before he left the country in questionable circumstances after being attacked by some military personnel at his Afaraukwu, Umuahia, country home in Abia State.

His first court appearance for the new trial was attended by a sizable crowd of Biafran supporters, which security personnel found difficult to manage. Later, the matter was postponed, and Kanu was kept in DSS custody. On the postponed date, IPOB members and attorneys crowded the court grounds once more with the sole purpose of seeing Kanu. However, their leader was not taken before a court, thus that was not to be. Once more, the subject was postponed.

By way of its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, IPOB members announced that, going forward, every Monday in the South-east would be a sit-at-home day (also known as a “Ghost Monday”) until Kanu is released from custody. Exact date of the first Monday stay-at-home was August 9, 2021.

The group’s propaganda apparatus was at its most effective before that date, with constant threats that anyone who dared to leave their home that day would be responsible for their own actions. Residents of the zone, even security personnel, were left in a state of anxiety and dread because nobody knew what would happen to them. The group reportedly sent out members of its security team, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), to enforce the instruction over the entire region by cracking down on defaulters in order to achieve complete compliance. As soon as everyone in the South-east fully complied with the edict, the area quickly became a ghost town. Even government officials dared not venture outside of their homes. Commercial activity was completely stopped, costing the already fragile economy billions of naira in damages.

Worse still, every Monday the order was in effect, there were several reports of violence, including killings and the destruction of property. Candidates for the NECO exam who were scheduled to write Mathematics on a Monday were among the primary victims. Since they were unable to attend school that day across the region, the majority of them missed the exam. One of the exam sites is still counting the costs after several of its structures and the invigilators’ and teachers’ motorcycles were destroyed.

Several attempts by certain state governors in the area to thwart the directive, including warning workers and traders they risk losing their jobs and shops if they don’t show up to work or markets on any Monday, have been greeted with resistance because the warnings were taken lightly. Some government employees were willing to choose between losing their lives and their jobs. One of them remarked, “I chose to remain at home as instructed by IPOB because it would be a living person receiving money. Will someone else fill my post if I die while still adamantly occupying my office?

Following the initial achievements in getting people to follow the Monday sit-at-home order, IPOB supporters made fun of the Southeast governors, saying that while people in the zone disobeyed their orders, the entire Igbo country followed Nnamdi Kanu’s orders even while he was in custody. A member of IPOB in Anambra said, “We are glad our people are starting to grasp where we are going.”

If the federal government fails to bring its commander in court on October 21 to complete his trial, the same group has threatened a one-month total lockdown in the Southeast. It claimed that the government had prepared plans to keep Kanu imprisoned forever without a hearing in order to put an end to the Biafra movement. But although Kanu eventually showed up in court, this specific threat was not carried out.

After multiple petitions and interventions from prominent Igbo people, including leaders of Ohaneze Ndigbo, the pro-Biafra faction ultimately agreed to stop the Ghost Mondays a few months later in light of the order’s detrimental consequences on the area. The group declared through its media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful, that Mazi Kanu’s public court appearance would be the sole day the sit-at-home order would be observed in the area. He stated, “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the movement’s founder, gave the IPOB Head of Directorate the order to suspend the sit-at-home protest. As instructed by our leader, we will continue to observe our sit-at-home policy on the days when our leader has court appearances.

“The Indigenous People of Biafra’s leadership is aware of the concern being voiced by the IPOB family worldwide regarding the suspension of the weekly sit-at-home day that was previously declared by the IPOB Head of Directorate of State. We am aware that this civil action was enthusiastically accepted by our people without any coercion. The Biafran leadership deeply appreciates the people of Biafra’s intrinsic desire to sacrifice their time, money, and effort to see that our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is unconditionally released from the illegal custody of the Nigerian State, which took him from Kenya to Nigeria illegally.

There is no disputing the fact that command and control is one of IPOB’s main core guiding concepts. This simply means that the Directorate of State of the Indigenous People of Biafra will obey and carry out all orders given by the supreme leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra. The leadership wants to encourage Biafrans to concentrate on the most urgent problem currently affecting this great family, which is ensuring the safety of our leader while he is still in the illegal custody of the DSS and securing his unconditional release from detention. This is because this principle has allowed this movement to surpass even the expectations of both Biafrans and non-Biafrans alike.

“We view the restoration of Biafra as a sacred call to duty above everything else. Any additional information about “sit-at-home in Biafra land” that does not come from IPOB or one of our primary information channels should be ignored. The Nigerian administration ought to

Pay attention to the voices of reason that are now being heard both inside and outside of Nigeria to release Mazi Nnamdi Kanu without conditions and to set a date for the referendum or plebiscite in Biafra so that our people can decide where they belong before it’s too late.

But there was certainly room for improvement in how closely the locals had followed the suspension order. While some IPOB supporters accused Powerful of betraying them, others claimed they had gone too far and couldn’t turn back. Despite claims that Mazi Kanu “directly ordered” the suspension, a faction of IPOB rebelled and insisted that the weekly sit-at-home order should continue.

The restoration of Biafra, according to IPOB member Mr. Clement Okorie, is no longer just a family matter and should not be treated as such. He declared, “We cannot permit the Kanu family to impede the imminent restoration of Biafra. Many people have lost their lives in this conflict, but the agitation has continued to gain strength. Even though it was Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, our leader, who put an end to the weekly sit-in, I regret that we are forced to disobey him since Biafra is not for one family.

The pro-Biafran group is claimed to be divided, according to one school of thinking, while others claim that other elements, such as the purported unidentified gunmen who continue to refute IPOB’s claims, have infiltrated and taken control of the group. Although these charges have not been officially confirmed, many people are inclined to believe them because the entire Southeast has continued to be under total lockdown despite many official IPOB cancellations of the sit-at-home movement.

The secessionist group also issued a warning, claiming that anyone or any organization enforcing the order was posing as a representative of the Directorate of State Services (DSS) or another Nigerian security agency, and should be handled as such if arrested. It instructed those in charge of the local communities, marketplaces, churches, and other institutions of authority to apprehend any thugs attempting to carry out the directive and turn them over to the gang.

Although there doesn’t seem to have been any molestation of any kind of motorists who choose to go via the Southeast to any area of the country, there are tangible anxieties and apprehensions among locals of a potential attack if they ventured leaving their homes. Even after market leaders opened a number of market gates for trade, commercial activity has remained muted across the zone.

Chukwuma Soludo, the governor of Anambra State and a professor of economics and a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), recently disclosed that his state loses a staggering N19.6 billion every Monday as a result of the sit-at-home policy. The underprivileged masses lose an estimated N19.6 billion in Anambra alone every day because of “sit at home” days. Businesses are moving outside of Igboland as a result of the ongoing breakdown of law and order, which is also contributing to rising unemployment and the departure of traders who used to frequent Onitsha, Aba, and other shopping destinations. Who is the loser? We undermine our future by making our children—future—stay Igboland’s at home rather than attend school, while even the most seriously ill (including pregnant women) cannot travel to the hospital, he complained.

Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, who also spoke, claimed that every time the South-East area follows IPOB’s directive to stay at home, significant financial losses occur. “We’re wrecking our economy,’ Southwest and the North are not participating in the sit-at-home trend. We lose nearly N10 billion in our economy every time we stay at home, said Umahi.

In a discussion with certain interested parties, Soludo declared the sit-at-home to be cancelled. According to the unanimous decision of all of our leaders and the body of Christ, he added, “I am happy to notify our people that Monday, April 4, 2022, will officially see the end of the ‘Monday sit-at-home’ in Anambra State.

The state’s residents’ hopes were quickly disappointed by the statement, as markets, businesses, banks, schools, and gas stations remained closed the next Monday. And things have stayed the same. One of the Onitsha dealers said to The Nation that they were merely attempting to proceed cautiously in order to avoid regretting it later. They have requested us to open, he replied. Will they be there to protect us, though? You might decide to start your store that day, and you might even be successful. What if, after we have all left, they arrive and set the market on fire? These folks can change at any time.

One million dollar question on the minds of locals and tourists who are both directly and indirectly impacted by the crisis is how long this sit-at-home order would last in the Southeast.