The proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has rejected the IEP Global Terrorism Index Report of 2022, which ranked it as the world’s 10th deadliest, describing the ranking as a conspiracy by the Federal Government and some other foreign agencies to blackmail and demonise the group.
IPOB’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, said in a statement, on Thursday, it was disappointed in IEP for descending so low to publish “fictional and inaccurate accounts in their 2022 terrorism index report”.
Powerful insisted that IPOB remained peaceful but resolute in the pursuit of Biafra liberation through a UN-supervised referendum and would not be distracted by sponsored blackmail and propaganda.
“In the IEP’s Terrorism Index Report of 2022, the current Federal Government was cleverly portrayed as having improved in counter-terrorism while in reality the terrorists have become more emboldened during the period,” the statement read in part.
“According to the report, the total dead due to terrorism in Nigeria for 2022 is 448, which in the lowest level since 2011. This is concocted falsehood. In one state such as Benue alone the Fulani sponsored terrorists have killed more than 400 civilians. The report, as it relates to Nigeria, showed a full script from Nigeria Government handed over to the institute for publication.
“In the same report, IPOB was mentioned as the third most violent group that has caused civilian deaths. We challenge IEP to present irrefutable evidence where IPOB killed any person in Nigeria. On the contrary, there are many verifiable evidences, both in print and social media, on the massacre and extrajudicial killings of many IPOB members by Nigeria security agencies since 2017.
“We are here to tell our own stories to the world with facts and figures. We advise the US government to stand as a global human rights defenders to defend the right of every world citizen and not join the oppressors to abuse the rights and privileges of ordinary citizens.”
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“Irrespective of all these illegal arrest, detention, torture, extrajudicial killings including extraordinary rendition of our leader, IPOB have remained peaceful in the face of all these high levels of provocation. Nigeria Government is pushing the narrative that IPOB is the aggressors but in the reality we are the victims of oppressive government.
“As evil and wicked as the Federal Government of Nigeria and in their desperation to blackmail peaceful IPOB struggle, they have sponsored armed groups claiming to be IPOB who were paid to commit all manner of crimes in the Eastern Region so as to shop evidences to blackmail IPOB.
“We have in several press releases distance ourselves from those criminals being led by agent provocateur in Finland. Their actions and inactions has nothing to do with IPOB nor Mazi Nnamdi KANU. Some gullible IPOB’s members who joined them were dismissed from the movement.”