Ipob warns Igbo youths not to join Ebubeagu saying it was created to sabotage ESN

SECESSIONIST group the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) has urged youths across the southeast geo-political zone not to join the newly created regional security outfit Ebubeagu calling it a huge joke and a waste of time.

Over the weekend, the South East Governors Forum announced plans to launch Ebubeagu, modelled similarly to the Amotekun Corps in southwest Nigeria to provide security in the region. At a security meeting in Owerri, Imo State capital, on Sunday, the five southeast governors announced the establishment of the body, which will have its headquarters in Enugu.

Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State, the current chairman of the South East Governors Forum, said: “The meeting appreciated the formation of a southeast joint security outfit named Ebubeagu, headquartered in Enugu to coordinate our vigilantes in the southeast. Also, the South East Governors Forum requests that the acting inspector-general of police stops the influx of monitoring units and allows police commissioners and state and zonal commands to handle their cases.

"Also, the meeting approves that the acting inspector-general of police and other security chiefs do invite the leadership of Ohaneze Ndigbo and the Christian Association of Nigeria to find out the reasons for increasing insecurity in the southeast. Security formations were targeted in multiple attacks in Imo last week and a Catholic priest was also abducted in the early hours of Sunday, raising security concerns in the state."

However, Ipob, which has its own armed wing called the Eastern Security Network (ESN), enjoined youths and other people in the area to distance themselves from the security outfit. Ipob spokesman Emma Powerful, said that the formation of Ebebuagu was suspicious, alluding to the fact that it may be used to sabotage ESN.

Mr Powerful said: “Anyone who neglects this warning and thinks he can hide under the cloak of Ebubeagu to spy on ESN should be prepared to join his ancestors. It has come to the attention of the Indigenous People of Biafra that southeast governors have shamefully and belatedly announced the formation of an abstract security outfit called Ebubeagu to secure the zone from Fulani terrorist herdsmen they allotted our ancestral lands.

“When Amotekun was formed, it was not abstract as the personnel and their equipment were handy. When our leader floated the gallant Eastern Security Network, the men were on the ground.

“How then did southeast traitors called governors announce a security outfit without any personnel or were they under any pressure to hurriedly make the announcement after years of foot-dragging and deceit? Any other security outfit formed in the southeast will crash because ESN is already on the ground and living up to expectations.

“We, therefore, warn our youths to have nothing to do with the so-called Ebubeagu security outfit, which was ostensibly formed to sabotage Ipob and ESN. Anyone who neglects this warning and thinks he can hide under the cloak of Ebubeagu to spy on ESN should be prepared to join his ancestors.”