Residents in states across Nigeria’s Igbo-dominated eastern region are lamenting trade and movement restrictions expected to continue today, Monday, as secessionist group IPOB resumes its violently-enforced sit-at-home exercise.
IPOB is a proscribed terror group protesting the arrest of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu. Currently under the leadership of Finland-based Simon Ekpa, the group has declared weeks-long sit-at-home in the region.
It is enforcing the economically-damaging restriction through violent raids and patrols, including the invasion of schools and markets where they whip and shoot at women and children.
Residents who initially sympathized with the group’s secessionist agenda, and have been faulted for aiding its growth, have voiced their discontent with the restrictions and violent campaign of the terror group and its armed militia.
They said Mondays, previously regarded as an important day of commerce, now inspire dread and fear over IPOB’s sit-at-home. Many have also expressed their disappointment at prominent political figures, particularly Peter Obi, for ignoring the problem, despite the support they were given to champion issues important to them.
Obi, who prosecuted the 2023 presidential election as an Igbo-Christian candidate according to some critics, has refused to condemn IPOB even in the face of renewed killings across the eastern region.
He let down many who looked to him for comment last week when IPOB claimed many lives in states across the region as it battled security agencies in a bid to enforce its illegal sit-at-home.
Instead of addressing the challenge as he did similar events in other parts of the country, especially the northern region, Obi opted to issue a condolence message to the family of Prophet Michael Olowere who died in Ibadan at the age of 99.
His silence has been criticized as both cowardly and evidence of alleged complicity in IPOB’s criminal operations in the region, having enjoyed the backing of the group in the last presidential contest.
Obiageli Ezekwesili, also a loud critic of happenings elsewhere, has continued her silence on the matter,