Group decries IPOB report, Iwuanyanwu’s comments on Yoruba

A Pan-Yoruba group, All Yoruba Democratic Movement (AYDM), yesterday, said widespread reports that the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) plans to attack Lagos and also a statement by Champion Newspapers Publisher, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, that Yoruba are ‘rascals,’ were calls for genocide against peace-loving Yoruba people.

The AYDM, therefore, called on Lagos State government and all South-West governments to set up an extensive intelligence unit to fish out IPOB terrorists and their collaborators.

The group said the IPOB hate project had been extended abroad where Yoruba professionals like Dr. Adeniran Ariyo, a world renowned cardiologist, has been singled out for attack by IPOB members and sponsors.

In a statement signed by its Secretary General, Popoola Ajayi, the AYDM, a coalition of 121 community-based groups in Yorubaland, including Kogi, Edo and Itsekiti-speaking areas of Delta State, said Iwuanyanwu had given intellectual and political content to the plot to attack Yoruba people.

It noted that this might be similar to the position of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Igbo apex group, since Iwuanyanwu is a member of the organisation.

The statement reads in part: “We draw the attention of local and international community to the genocide plot by IPOB and its supporters, including Iwuanyanwu. While we recognise that there are moderate Igbo who do not share the genocidal plot of IPOB, we are mindful of the fact that IPOB is a dominant organisation in the South-East.”

“It makes sense to be alert when such organisation makes such a threat.

“Ariyo has suffered ceaseless persecution and hate-speeches which are only eye blink away from physical attacks on him.

“His only offence is his refusal to support the Nazist political agenda of those who are bent on throwing Nigeria into turmoil having lost the last presidential election.

“There is no difference between Iwuanyanwu and IPOB. Both are expressing extremist views capable of fuelling genocide against the Yoruba people on their fatherland.”

The group, therefore, said that the positions of Iwuanyanwu and IPOB are the same and have shown clearly that Yoruba people who innocently drum support for alliance with the South-East are doing so in vain.