The Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) said today, Sunday, August 8, 2021 that it suspended the planned sit-at-home ordered scheduled to commence tomorrow (Monday, August 9, 2021) due to the just begun National Examination Council (NECO) Examinations for junior secondary schools.
It said however that a new date for the commencement of the sit-at-home order would be announced later.
The pro Biafra group had penultimate week, in solidarity with its detained leader, Nnamdi Kanu, ordered for a sit-at-home protest that would have been observed every Monday throughout Igbo land until the duration of Kanu’s trial at the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The sit-at-home order would have commenced from Monday August 9, and held every Monday until when his trial would end, but was suspended to NECO students to continue their examinations unhindered.
Emmanuel Kanu, younger brother of the IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu told our Reporter in an interview that the group arrived at the decision, after listening to pleas from well meaning individuals and groups within and outside Biafra land that the order be suspended to allow students from Igbo land to participate in the NECO Exams.
“Mazi Nnamdi Kanu directed that the order should no longer hold. He does not want our young ones to suffer so that those that don’t mean well for Biafrans would cash in on that and inflict harm on them”, younger Kanu maintained.
However, a statement released in Umuahia Sunday afternoon, the group said, “IPOB has listened to pleas from well-meaning individuals and groups within and outside Biafra land that we consider the fate of our children who will be involved in the NECO Exam and based on that, we decided to shift grounds over the sit-at-home order”.
The group added that IPOB on its part, having realized the academic deprivation the already marginalized Biafra students who entered for this year’s NECO would suffer, decided to suspend the sit-at-home order to a later date, to allow the students take their exams.
Younger Kanu further informed that allowing the sit-at-home to go ahead as earlier announced, in the face of the NECO Exam would amount to assisting enemies of Biafra to inflict more injuries on her children.
“As a group fighting for the liberation of her people from oppression from her enemies, we realized that it would amount to assisting the said enemies to inflict more harm on our children if we do not suspend the sit-at-home order to allow Biafra students take their exams”.
According to him, the sit-at-home order has not been cancelled, but only suspended for the sake of Biafra students taking this year’s NECO Exam, the statement said, even as it called on all IPOB global family members and Biafrans at large to await further directives in this regard.
Uche Nwosu is a two time Shell Petroleum PLC award winner in the year 2000;
He won the Shell Award on Investigative Journalism and Environmental Cleanliness.
