Ifeanyi Ubah, the Senator representing Anambra South at the National Assembly, has drawn the battleline with the proscribed terrorist group, IPOB, over the latter’s violently-enforced sit-at-home exercises in the eastern region of the country.
As a way to protest the arrest and incarceration of its disgraced leader, Nnamdi Kanu, members of IPOB routinely bar movement and trade on select days, typically Monday which is regarded as the most productive of the week, in states across the East.
Although the illegal action was meant to call attention to the plight of their leader who continues to face legal problems over his acts of terror, it has had little to no effect nationally except to paralyze business and other affairs in the east.
Senator Ubah, a longtime critic of IPOB, has rued the action as an act of economic sabotage responsible for the dramatic rise of poverty and economic underdevelopment in the region, including his home constituency.
He blamed IPOB for causing his constituents to forfeit prime business days and hours behind closed doors, terrified of the group’s wanton violence and destruction. Describing the situation as unsustainable and inimical to growth, he announced his plan to bring an end to it in his constituency.
Speaking to newsmen recently, Senator Ubah said he will be partnering with security agencies to rid his constituency of IPOB agents and guarantee freedom of movement, trade and other liberties to his constituents on Mondays and other days of their choosing. No longer will IPOB enjoy their reign of terror, he stressed.
His confrontation of the group, widely praised as courageous, has drawn comparisons with the continuous silence of other political actors such as Peter Obi who, despite his soaring popularity in the region, has shied away from putting his political weight behind efforts to bring an end to the criminality and violence of IPOB.
Perhaps fearing a political backlash from those who remain wedded to IPOB’s separatist ideology in the region and are sympathetic to its cause, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election had adopted the approach of wilful ignorance which sees him look the other way each time the nation is rocked by gruesome reports of the group’s killings in the region.
Only on rare occasions has Obi directly addressed the subject of IPOB. Even then, he expresses tacit support for the criminal group, particularly in a controversial call for negotiations with the leaders of the group, despite their various acts of terror and declared ambition to undo Nigeria’s unity and set the country on the dangerous path of another civil war, similar to the disaster recorded between 1967 – 1970.
IPOB recently attacked a US diplomatic team in Obi’s home state of Anambra, hours after reports of a friendly phone conversation between the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, and President Bola Tinubu became public.
The proscribed group also formally adopted Obi as its official candidate in the 2023 election, prompting allegations of secret ties between the former Anambra governor and the criminal separatists.