Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabimila, has likened the activities of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the South-East and Yoruba Nation agitators in the South-West to those of the Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorist groups.
Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) advocates the secession of the Igbos in the South-East zone, while Sunday Igboho is leading the agitation for the Yoruba nation in the South-West zone. He stated that the nation will not be “reactionary in our approach” to allow criminal elements to destroy the country.
Gbajabimila, in his welcome remarks during Wednesday’s plenary session of the Green Chamber, said miscreants in Southern Nigeria masquerading as separatists and activists have emerged to wreak havoc.
“Thus far, we have rightly focused our national security concerns on the machinations of extremist insurgents who seek to remake our world in the image of their discredited theocracy and bandits who maraud and terrorise whole regions for profit,” the speaker said.
“We must now add to these concerns an emerging threat that presents the same clear and present danger. In the south of Nigeria, east and west, miscreants and criminals masquerading as separationist activists have emerged to wreak havoc, take lives and commit economic sabotage against fellow Nigerians and against the state.
“These people, in their inclination for devastating violence against fellow citizens, their appetite for the destruction of private property, their disruption of academic activities, commerce, and industry, their propensity for defiling institutions of the state, society and community, their refusal to engage in debate, or to consider the possibility of dissenting opinions and alternative viewpoints, are no different from Boko Haram and ISWAP. Given space and time, they will take our nation down the same path of destruction.
