The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has refused to accept the withdrawal of the threatening quit notice issued by a coalition of northern youths warning Igbos living in the northern region of the country to leave before October 1.
The coalition, which includes Arewa Citizens Action for Change, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Arewa Youth Development Foundation, Arewa Students Forum and Northern Emancipation Network, promised to execute measures to carry out their directive.
After popular criticism and months of key meetings both by the Federal Government and the governors on the country’s 19 northern states, the coalition withdrew the quit notice on Thursday, August 24, at a press briefing at the Transcorp Hotel in Abuja.
IPOB has issued its own response, as it refused the withdrawal, insisting that Igbos in the northern region should return to the South East before the October deadline.
In its response, the group’s spokesman, Comrade Emma Powerful, said the northern group should stick to its word, branding the withdrawal as ‘inconsequential’.
“It is inconsequential to IPOB whether the ‘quit notice’ was rescinded or not because it will in no way impact the pace and direction of our effort to restore Biafra.
“Threats don’t have any effect on us, so our advice to the Arewa North is to please stick to the October 1 deadline or else they have no honour.
“We urge all southerners in the core North to return home before October 1 as history will most definitely repeat itself.
“Southerners were massacred in the pogroms of 1966 and 1967 after similar assurances were issued then that people should remain in the North.
“The presence of a serving governor and senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria during the supposed press briefing confirms what we have always known that the incitement to genocide, which is what the ‘quit notice’ is all about, has the blessing of the Arewa political class.
“It betrays the mindset of those clamouring for One Nigeria as irredeemable blood thirsty psychopaths hiding behind ethnic bigotry to unleash what will amount to the mass murder of non indigenes resident in core Arewa North.”
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