Lead Counsel to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People Of Biafra IPOB Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor, has accused supporters of Simon Ekpa of using the Monday sit-at-home order in the South East to create fear on the people.
Ejiofor in an interview with journalists in Awka, Anambra State on Tuesday, said the order lacks legitimacy or authority and blamed the supporter of Simon Ekpa of enforcing the order.
Governor Chuwkuma Soludo had on Monday, closed down Onitsha Main Market in Anambra State for one week, to punish the traders for observing the sit-at-home order.
According to Ejiofor, the issue of sit at home has been laid to rest, stating that any person or group of persons trying to enforce the order is merely cashing in on the fear already created to rip off the general public.
“Instead, it was a criminal resurrection of a dead directive, hijacked, grotesquely distorted, and violently enforced by lawless elements led by Simon Ekpa, who thrive not on principle but on fear, extortion, and bloodshed”
“For the avoidance of doubt, and for the benefit of those who persist in convenient amnesia, the sit-at-home was formally, expressly, and unequivocally cancelled by the global peaceful movement, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
“That cancellation was neither implied nor tentative; it was categorical. From that moment, the directive ceased to exist in law, in logic, and in moral persuasion
“What followed thereafter was not civil disobedience, not political protest, and certainly not ideological resistance,” he contended.
Ejiofor insisted that it has been an opportunity for miscreants to unleash, but not under the directives or orders of IPOB.
“It bears repeating: this violence is not a continuation of any IPOB policy. It is a parasitic enterprise, feeding of intimidation, coercion, and the deliberate manufacture of terror among innocent citizens. My position has therefore never wavered.
“I have consistently maintained that the continued enforcement of a directive that no longer exists, kept alive solely through threats , rests on no ideological premise, no legal footing, and certainly no moral authority,” he said.
Ejiofor however, condemned the decision by the Anambra State government to shut down the Onitsha Main Market, arguing that “collective punishment of traders and law-abiding citizens, who are themselves hostages of fear (is) neither strategic nor just.
According to him, “Security governance, if it is to deserve the name, must be precise, intelligence-driven, and squarely targeted at the actual architects and executors of violence.”
He added that to shutdown an entire economic nerve centre in response to criminal threats is to punish productivity while emboldening lawlessness.
He accused the Anambra State government of “legitimising the tactics of violent actors while penalising innocent enterprise.”
