IPOB draws first blood, Chase Anambra State Governor out of Church

Members of the In­digenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) have drawn the battle line between them and Anambra State Governor Wil­lie Obiano – as a prelude to the 2017 gubernatorial election in the state.

IPOB members, who have vowed to stop the 2017 gover­norship election in the state, attacked Governor Obiano on Sunday and literally chased him out of St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Ekwulobia, in Agua­ta Local Government area of the state.

The IPOB confrontation with Obiano came barely 48 hours after they also attacked the burial ceremony of the fa­ther-in-law of the governor­ship candidate of the Progres­sive People’s Assembly (PPA) at Ihiala.

Governor Obiano, accord­ing to eye witnesses, attended a church service at Ekwulobia with the intention to garner ac­ceptance. But Obiano had hard­

ly settled down before scores of youths and women adorned in Biafra insignias, thronged the church shouting “No election! No election!”

The IPOB members contin­ued chanting Biafra songs and ran over the entrance gate shouting, “No election in Anambra State; “we want referendum “, “No refer­endum, no election”.

Sensing danger, the gover­nor’s security men barricaded the church entrance gate and locked it up.

A witness said: “As their (IPOB’) confrontation with the police continued, the IPOB num­bers continued to enlarge. I think they were reinforcing from Onit­sha. As their number continued to increase, the governor’s securi­ty had to smuggle him out of the church.”

But a member of the gover­nor’s press crew who pleaded an­onymity said the governor left af­ter addressing the church at the end of the service.

“The governor was not smug­gled out of the church. The issue was that the security men had to stop the agitators at the gate of the church when they started shout­ing ‘no election, no election’.

“The governor even ad­dressed the issue while speaking to the congregation. He assured that there would be election in the state.”

“He said nobody can stop election in Anambra State; the governor said most of the anti- election protesters are not from Anambra State.”

When contacted on the tele­phone, the Anambra Police Com­missioner of Police, Mr Garba Umar, confirmed the incident.

The commissioner warned that the police would no longer tolerate such impunity.

He said the intension of the protesters was to attack the gov­ernor.

“You, press people should re­port this. We will no longer toler­ate this impunity from anybody.”

“Why should they protest to the church? The church is a place of worship; and not a place of pro­test. It is obvious that they had criminal intention to attack the governor.”

“The police had to stop them at the gate. If they had dared my men, it would have been a differ­ent story. We can’t watch anybody breach public peace in this state. They should be warned to desist from this impunity” the CP stated.

About two weeks ago, a group of youths suspected to be mem­bers of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra had reportedly disrupt­ed a church function attended by the governorship candidate of the Progressives Peoples Alliance, Mr. Godwin Ezeemo.

The conflict happened at Odoekpe, Ogbaru Local Gov­ernment Area of the state.

IPOB had severally main­tained that it would not allow the November 18 poll in the state, un­less the Federal Government al­lowed a referendum to determine a sovereign state for Biafra.