The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a banned Igbo separatist organisation, has refuted claims that some of its members assassinated Sheikh Ibrahim Iyiorji, an Igbo Muslim cleric, in Ebonyi State.
In an article published on Saturday, a national newspaper accused IPOB of killing Sheikh Iyiorji, who had been killed by unidentified assailants the week prior.
However, the group emphasised that none of its members would act in such a way in a statement released on Sunday by its media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful.
Powerful claimed in the statement headed “IPOB does not know Sheikh Iyiorji, let alone who killed him,” that the Biafran agitators do not murder their known adversaries, much less an Igbo guy who poses no threat to them.
“IPOB does not engage in such barbaric killings and cannot be part of such heinous crime against humanity. IPOB does not kill flies, not to talk of human beings and an Igbo man for that matter, irrespective of his religious belief.
“Is the alleged killed Igbo cleric a threat to the Biafra movement? How many of our known enemies have we killed, let alone killing our own, an Igbo man?
“We are aware that some unscrupulous elements and petty thieves are constantly being stage-managed by security agents to lie against IPOB members and ESN operatives.
“We also understood that the government and its compromised security agencies some time in the recent past arranged some condemn and hardened criminals from prisons and tutored them to claim that they were members of IPOB and ESN.
“A young man was also told to claim to be both IPOB, ESN and member of an unknown gunmen gang that killed many security agents and burnt down their police stations in the southeastern region, all in an attempt to lie and demonize IPOB.
“We won’t accept stage managing criminals to tarnish the image of IPOB/ESN, not today and not ever. IPOB and ESN have never killed any army officer, police officer, or DSS operative despite all provocations in the name of unknown gunmen.
“We have never killed anybody since we started the pursuit for Biafra freedom, and we will not change to become killers, we abhor shedding innocent blood,” the group said.
