An Igbo- group, Igbos for Nigeria Movement, INM, has alleged that Emmanuel Kanu, the younger brother of IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu as the face behind the recent Monkey Pox vaccine hoax in the South East region of the country.
The group also urged the Federal Government through law enforcement agencies to stop IPOB from continuing to create panic across the country even after it has been proscribed.
INM further demanded a thorough investigation of any financial transactions between Igbos in government and IPOB since this would amount to financing terrorism.
Mazi Ifeanyi Igwe who is the National President of INM, spoke in Abuja on Wednesday, lamenting that the latest round of propaganda by IPOB spokesman, Emma Powerful, has done untold damage to the Igbo cause with his allegation that soldiers were forcefully injecting students with virus as the fear of vaccines created by the hoax could potentially make parents avoid lifesaving vaccinations.
The group called on relevant security agencies to unravel the true identity of whoever is posing as Emma Powerful since no such entity has ever come forward at any of the various fora that had convened to discuss the marginalization of the Igbo nation.
According to Igwe, “The brazen way whoever this character is continues to tell lies that terrorizes the populace, especially Igbos, is because he is using a fake identity. Look at the trauma he put parents through in the southeast with the hoax about the Monkey Pox virus and how soldiers were injecting school children with it, which turned out to be false but the panic spread across the whole place nonetheless. Now in future, parents will be reluctant to vaccinate their children against diseases like measles, polio and other preventable childhood killer diseases; it is Igbo children that will die as a result of this mischief of spreading fake news.
“The source of the fake news has been established as IPOB’s spokesperson, who goes by the alias of Emma Powerful. He signed the statements asking parents to take their children from school alleging that soldiers were forcefully ejecting pupils with killer viruses. It was the same terrorist that has been inciting IPOB members to attack anyone that goes out to vote in Anambra State governorship election in November. A large chunk of IPOB’s hate messages come from this faceless individual.
“The thing that is even more of concern is that it has been said severally that there is nobody like ‘Emma Powerful’ who is merely an alias for Emmanuel Kanu, the junior brother to that fugitive from justice and IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
“It will interest you to note that in the hours and days after IPOB members confronted soldiers on Operation Python Dance II, if one compares the utterances and interviews by Emmanuel Kanu with statements by Emma Powerful the conclusion would be to challenge law enforcement agencies to repeat the same exercise and arrive at their own conclusions.
“I therefore call on the relevant law enforcement agencies to draw on the relevant provisions of the anti-terrorism legislations in the country to unmask the identity of Emma Powerful to end his reign of terror that has caused unnecessary panic in our states,” Igwe demanded.
He pointed out that the federal government, the military and security services owe Nigerians explanations on how it was possible that a group that has been designated a terrorist organization by the court in line with the anti-terrorism law continues to issue statements like a legal entity and further accused governors of the five southeast states of playing to the gallery with their proscription of IPOB since the group continue to freely operate in their jurisdictions after the proscription including issuing the statement that caused panic with a warning that a state of emergency may eventually be declared in the region because of their lukewarm attitude.
Igwe maintained that IPOB will continue to cause problems in the southeast if certain political office holders and top businessmen do not stop funding the group.
He charged law enforcement agents to immediately conduct a thorough investigation of any financial transactions between Igbo people in government and IPOB since this would amount to aiding and abetting terrorism financing.
“The information we are getting about the extent of financing available to IPoB is worrisome because any group with that much money can easily destabilize any geo-political zone of the country. I do not expect that the Federal Government continues to allow this kind of criminal financing to continue since it is those of us from the southeast that will suffer the consequences if these people successfully implement their evil plot,” he said.
Meanwhile, the accused persons are yet to respond to the allegations as efforts to reach them have proved abortive.
