Security operatives comprising soldiers and policemen have renewed their raid and search for pro-Biafra agitators in the South East geopolitical zone.
The new offensive by the military and police against members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) is linked to President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent declaration in Katsina that he would not allow any part of the country to secede.
The AUTHORITY learnt that men of the Nigeria Police and soldiers, at the weekend launched a massive search for members of IPOB and MASSOB in Onitsha and its environs.
Residents who had encounters with the military and the police personnel claimed that crack teams of the two security agencies combed Onitsha and its environs in search of where the Biafra groups were holding their meetings.
The security agents allegedly stormed some public schools, uncompleted buildings, town halls and warehouses in Onitsha and other places such as Nkpor, Nkwerezunaka, Obosi, Okpoko, and Oba in search of the pro-Biafra agitators.
Other areas visited by the security agents were hotels, pubs and churches suspected to be in support of MASSOB and IPOB.
A secondary school principal in Onitsha told The AUTHORITY that his students reported to him that some armed security agents in three Hilux vans stormed the school’s premises and interrogated some residents in the area on the whereabouts of MASSOB and IPOB members.
A military source said he was not ready to speak on the strategies of security operatives but urged the Biafra agitators “to see the handwriting on the wall that the unity of the Nigerian entity is a no-go area as President Buhari declared last week during his visit to his home-state of Katsina.”
The AUTHORITY, however gathered, that the manhunt for the pro-Biafra groups may not be unconnected with the report on the planned 30th year anniversary celebration of Biafra later this month.
In a reaction to the fresh crackdown on IPOB members, the group’s Director of Media and Publicity, Emma Powerful said that it is wrong for security agents to go after people in their homeland when they have not committed any offence.
Powerful said that the security agents are wasting their time because, according to him, “Onitsha and its environs belong to Biafra and its people have the right to gather to discuss issues that border on their plight under the freedom of association provision in the Nigerian Constitution.”
He said that it is unfortunate that Nigerian security forces are targeting unarmed people of Biafra while the Niger Delta militants and Fulani herdsmen are bombing oil facilities and killing innocent Nigerians in their homes and farms with AK-47 rifles and other dangerous weapons under the watch of police and soldiers.
Similarly, the leader of MASSOB, Comrade Uchenna Madu said the clampdown is a sign of “jitter, frustration and loss of hope so evident in the desperate bid to stop Biafra because of the renewed agitation for the restoration of the Republic.”
He added that patrolling the streets of major cities of Biafraland with armed police/military personnel shows lack of intelligence on the part of the Nigerian government.
Madu said that the upcoming Biafra anniversary celebration on May 30, 2016 will hold, irrespective of the Federal Government’s threat and advised other pro-Biafra groups to maintain their non-violence principle during the period.
There was however, confusion in Onitsha on Sunday, when two MASSOB members were killed and two policemen injured with a shop razed during clashes between the police and the agitators.
The injured policemen were attached to Okpoko Police Division in Onitsha, Anambra State.
The AUTHORITY learnt that trouble started for the MASSOB members when one of them allegedly resisted arrest by the two policemen, following a complaint of assault lodged by a woman against a MASSOB member.
He was said to have called his members numbering about 20 on phone and on arrival at Udeaja/Ibe Street, attacked the policemen who held on to the suspect.
The policemen, in self-defence, allegedly used the suspect as shield when they were being beaten by the MASSOB members until a police team came to their rescue.
At the police station, the suspect allegedly complained of severe pains he sustained when the policemen used him as a shield but died a few minutes later.
Another MASSOB member allegedly died when a rival group beat him to coma along Edeh Road.
It was gathered that trouble started for the deceased when a woman complained to a MASSOB member that a rival member assaulted her and immediately the member mobilised his colleagues who beat him to coma and he died a few minutes after.
In anger and show of solidarity with the deceased, some residents of Okpoko mobilised and razed the shop owned by the woman while she fled the scene.
The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in Okpoko, Mr. Olabanji Kayode, said investigation into the matter had started.
Meanwhile, IPOB has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led Federal Government of helping its cause by deploying security operatives after its members.
The group accused President Buhari of doing harm to the unity of Nigerians than other leaders before him.
IPOB, in a statement signed by its spokespersons, Dr. Clifford Iroanya and Mr. Emma Mmezu, said that without the actions of President Buhari, the crescendo reached today on the revival of the Biafra struggle would not have been possible.
It said: “The APC-led government of Muhammadu Buhari has done more than anybody in the history of Nigeria to divide and dismember the British-created Nigeria. Buhari has significantly catalysed and fast-forwarded the restoration of the nation of Biafra.”