The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), yesterday, said that it has no hideouts, camps or terror cells anywhere, stressing that its members don’t live in bushes.
 
The group also gave the Nigerian Army seven days to produce, in court, the 13 suspects linked to the organisation’s activities arrested in Delta State recently or face legal action.
 
The clarification by IPOB came on the heels of claims by the Nigerian Army that it raided the group’s hideouts in Delta State and arrested 13 suspects.
 
Reacting to the claim, the spokesperson/Media and Publicity Secretary of the IPOB, Emma Powerful, dismissed it as “routine propaganda warfare.”
Powerful added that IPOB, under the leadership of Nnamdi Kanu, is a peaceful organisation made up of enlightened people.
 
He said: “Let us state unequivocally and for the record: IPOB has no hideouts, camps or terror cells anywhere in Biafra land, let alone in the bushes of Delta State. We are a peaceful movement of enlightened, urban-based, family-rooted indigenous people, not the nomadic bandits the Nigerian security forces are more familiar with. We do not live in bushes; we own homes, build communities, and uphold values.
 
“This latest lie, sponsored and syndicated by the Nigerian military establishment, is nothing but a desperate and tired smear campaign aimed at demonising IPOB before the international community and distracting from Nigeria’s fast-collapsing security situation.”
 
The separatist group noted that while Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), Fulani herdsmen, and bandits continue to ravage the North and Middle Belt unchecked, the Nigerian Army is busy raiding imaginary IPOB camps in the South.
 
He added: “We challenge the Fulani Commandant of the said military operation to produce the 13 IPOB suspects in a court of competent jurisdiction within seven days”.

If, after seven days, these suspects are not presented in open court with credible evidence linking them to IPOB activities, we shall initiate a lawsuit compelling this military commander to appear before a judge to defend his reckless lies under oath. We are not playing politics; we are demanding accountability.”