By Jude Michael
Secessionist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has alleged that factional leader, Mr Simon Ekpa, is working for the Department of States Services (DSS), to bring down the group.
The Publicity Secretary of the group, Mr Emma Powerful, stated this in a press release, saying that Ekpa was in 2016 trained by the DSS and sent into IPOB as a mole.
Ekpa, a Finland based separatist leader, has since the arrest of IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, in 2021, assumed the leadership of IPOB but later styled himself as the Prime Minister of Biafra Government in Exile.
He has been responsible for the declaration of civil disobedience order, also known as sit-at-home, in the South Eastern Region. He has also threatened many people who disobey his order and is believed to be responsible for the violence that some miscreants unleash on innocent people during sit-at-home days.
IPOB has constantly dissociated itself from his activities, but Ekpa insists that his actions are geared towards ensuring the speedy release of Kanu.
Powerful, in a press release last Monday, said: ‘Ekpa was prior to this period groomed by the Nigerian DSS to usurp the leadership of IPOB in 2016 but that evil plan failed woefully.
‘Simon Ekpa was the same person as the faceless Okwudili that DSS created in 2016 as the new leader of IPOB when our leader was in detention in 2016. Prior to this time, Simon was a hater of Ndigbo, and, particularly, IPOB, in Finland. IPOB members in Finland will attest to this.
‘Simon Ekpa is the exclusive project of the Nigerian DSS to create a situation of unrest and hostilities in the South East which the end product is to destroy the image of IPOB.’
The group said if it was not so, the federal government would have taken certain steps to arrest his activities in the zone.
‘Why is Nigerian government not making any effort to diplomatically engage the Finnish Government about the visible hostilities of Ekpa? Why did Nigeria suppress the legal investigation of Ekpa in Finland and also his court cases in Nigeria?’
The group said if the federal government was serious about ending what he called Ekpa’s rascality in the zone, it would have ordered the DSS to allow Kanu to address his followers through his social media channels.
The group also called on its members to discountenance Ekpa, while also challenging him to attempt to dish orders to IPOB members without using Kanu’s name and see that no one would listen to him.
