From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
There has been division in the South-East over the recently announced security outfit for the region by their governors named Ebubeagu.
The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has said that the South East Governors’ security outfit is not in existence anywhere.
But the Igbo National Council (INC) said that it preferred the Eastern Security Network (ESN), floated by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) to be utilised by Ndigbo as its regional security outfit as against the Ebubeagu.
MASSOB leader, Uchenna Madu said that the statement credited to the group within the week, asking South-East and South-South youths to join Ebubeagu, was not from their stable. He linked it to the Biafra Independent Movement (BIM) led by Chief Ralph Uwazuruike.
He said that MASSOB was open to collaboration with Ebubeagu if there was actually something on ground and the people were given 100 per cent control of the outfit. So, its purported support for Ebubeagu was neither here nor there.
Madu said: “MASSOB has never supported Ebubeagu wholeheartedly. The statement that was credited to MASSOB was not made by us. It was from people that tried to hijack the name MASSOB, the Biafra Independent Movement (BIM), of which Uwazuruike is the leader. They always try to attach the name MASSOB to their statement but the whole world knows they are BIM.
“But what we have said is this, MASSOB will support Ebubeagu if only our people will have 100 per cent control of it, not Abuja or Fulani cabals. And before we support Ebubeagu, we must discuss, dialogue and reason together, it’s not on the pages of newspapers.”
The MASSOB leader emphasised that Ebubeagu was a mere pronouncement by the governors as a quick response to series of violent activities in Igboland mainly by Fulani herdsmen and other criminals.
He argued that there was no way a regional security outfit could come to being without involving the stakeholders in the zone.
“Up to now, as far as I am concerned, the stakeholders, the people that matter concerning security matters have not sat to discuss about Ebubeagu. I learnt they are planning to sit, during which all the pro-Biafra groups will be invited.”
Madu described the ESN as a child of necessity that could be likened to self-defence.
“We are not against ESN, so far they have been operating and we are seeing what they are doing. So, we don’t condemn our own. Some people are against ESN because of the way it was formed or because it has no legal backup but when a matter is about life and death, legality or illegality of it is rubbish. You have to secure the lives of our people and their property first before you will be talking if it is legal or illegal.
“ESN is a kind of self-defence; we have been pushed to the wall. And as I am talking to you, there is another security outfit, the mother of all security outfits from Igboland. Igbo native security backed up with Igbo nativity is coming on the way. It is still underground; I will not talk much about it. That security will take care of everything because many things will be involved in it.
“Not only arms, not only armed security, many things concerning Ndigbo will be involved, it shall be called ‘Ekumeku’. The gods will be involved; our ancestors will be involved, because we want to eradicate violence and criminality from our land. Because the way the Fulani are coming, the Fulani are not only operating on their own, we have now found out that the Federal Government is fully and 100 per cent in support of them. They are being sponsored by Federal Government, so we have to apply every source, both spiritual, orthodox and unorthodox, everything to make sure that we secure our land,” he stated.
Meanwhile, National President of INC, Chilos Godsent, has noted that the ESN is a pro-Igbo nation vigilante security outfit while the Ebubeagu, according to hi, is anti-Igbo, allegedly being sponsored by the Fulani elite.
Also, he noted the ESN is guided by principles indigenous to the Igbo nation and self-sponsored.
Commissioner for Internal Security and Border Peace, Stanley Okoro-Emegha, said that governors from the zone have taken steps to make laws backing the outfit; including getting the Federal Government to fund it.
He said: “South East Governors are knowledgeable in law. That is why they have taken measures to back up the outfit with the law. In Ebonyi, we have commenced the process of recruiting young and patriotic Ebonyians into the outfit.”
However, elder statesman and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Mike Ahamba, aligned with Ebubeagu against the ESN, because according to him, the ESN is an illegal body. “They are undercover and nobody knows actually who formed it.”