BREAKING: IPOB Rejects Suspension of Quit Notice; Says Igbo Must Leave North

MASSOB protests in the streets of Awka (Archive)

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has come up with yet another twist in the political saga rocking the country by rejecting the withdrawal of the Igbo quit notice by the Arewa youths.

Relief flooded the country yesterday when the Arewa youths, at a press conference attended by the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, in Abuja on Thursday, announced the withdrawal of their infamous quit notice.

But things took a different turn Friday when IPOB, speaking through its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, challenged the Arewa youths to ‘stick to the quit notice’, if they have any ‘honour’.

Making their stand known, IPOB enjoined Igbos and other Southerners resident in the core North to discountenance the withdrawal of the notice and return home, Punch writes.

“It is inconsequential to IPOB whether the ‘quit notice’ was rescinded or not because it will in no way impact the pace and direction of our effort to restore Biafra.

“Threats don’t have any effect on us, so our advice to the Arewa North is to please stick to the October 1 deadline or else they have no honour.

“We urge all southerners in the core North to return home before October 1 as history will most definitely repeat itself.

“Southerners were massacred in the pogroms of 1966 and 1967 after similar assurances were issued then that people should remain in the North,” the IPOB spokesman said.

The secessionist group called for the arrest of members of the Arewa Youths as their ‘quit notice’, according to them, was an incitement to genocide.

“The presence of a serving governor and senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria during the supposed press briefing confirms what we have always known that the incitement to genocide, which is what the ‘quit notice’ is all about, has the blessing of the Arewa political class,” Powerful said.

“If President Muhammadu Buhari is at all serious about clamping down on hate speech, he should arrest those behind the ‘quit notice’ along with their sponsors,” IPOB said.

The group reiterated its unwavering quest to actualize Biafra, stressing that it was not afraid of the ‘fabled Fulani hegemonic juggernaut’.