IPOB PRESS RELEASE

19TH MARCH 2024.

The global family and movement of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) ably led by the great liberator Mazi Nnamdi Okwuchukwu Kanu condemn the Nigerian Military invasion and genocide against the peaceful riverine community of Okuama of Urhobo in Ughelli south LGA of Delta State. 

According to the reports, Nigerian soldiers went to Okuama Community for a supposed peacetalk in a minor but prolonged dispute between them and the Okoloba, an Ijaw community in Bomadi LGA Bayelsa State. When the military arrived at Okuama, the villagers welcomed and entertained them. The supposed peacetalk took a dramatic turn when the soldiers said they will take some of the community leaders for further questioning and the refusal of the community to allow the abduction of their leaders. The refusal of the community to let military men take the leaders away infuriated the soldiers who started shooting live bullets on the persons at community Town hall killing scores of men, women and children at the spot. Later in the day, more reinforced soldiers entered the community with gun boats and killed more people. Again, on 15th March the irate soldiers went back to Okuama Community and razed down the entire community. The entire Community has been displaced with no one to bury the murdered people.

For record purposes, those Nigerian Army personnel they claimed were killed in Delta State, were NOT killed by Okuama youths. NO Nigerian Soldier was murdered by the Okuama Community.
There were reports that suggest that the Soldiers were murdered by Sea pirates and their bodies were recovered along Forcados River. If this is the case, why then did Soldiers invade peaceful and defenseless communities to mass murder people and raze down their houses? Why not go after the militants that killed their personnel? The Nigerian military derive so much joy in falsehood and propaganda when it comes to the Biafran Nation’s matters?
The Nigerian government must constitute a panel of inquiries to unravel the truth behind the military genocide against the Okuama Community in Ughelli South LGA of Delta State.

Information reaching IPOB from Bayelsa has it that Nigerian soldiers have left Okuama Delta State to Bayelsa State. Since yesterday evening, they have been in Egbematoru and Bomadi ín Southern Ijaw. There they have murdered over twenty (20) innocent youths. When they kill them, they throw their bodies into the Atlantic Ocean. Nigerian soldiers are committing genocide in these Ijaw communities as children and women are not spared in an ongoing genocide. The soldiers are killing pregnant women, cutting them open and bringing out their unborn babies. The barbaric genocide going on at the Coastal lands of Biafra is being happening with media blockage. Same Nigeria Military genocide against Biafrans during genocidal war of (1967-1970) is being quietly repeated against the Coastal Biafrans.

The questions that demand for answers are:

1. Who drafted soldiers to Okuama Community to settle a minor dispute between two neighboring communities instead of police?
2. Why were the  soldiers insisted on taking away the community leaders after the so called peacetalk?
3. Why would soldiers shut and kill unarmed innocent villagers unprovoked at the so-called peacetalk?
4. Why will soldiers commit genocide against the villagers instead of going after the assailants?
5. How many genocides have the Nigeria Army committed against Northern Nigeria where terrorists have killed soldiers in thousands for decades?

The unwarranted and continuous killing of Biafrans by the Nigeria Security Forces at any slight provocation will no longer be tolerated. You can’t keep killing innocent civilians without people rising up to defend themselves one day soon. There should be an end to massacring of villagers and burning down of communities in Biafra by the Nigeria Security Forces at the slightest provocation. We have not seen soldiers massacre the terrorists and bandits or the people in the Northern communities because of terrorists activities in the North or misunderstandings or community disputes. But when they come here to Biafraland, they kill our people like cows. The right of self-defense is an inalienable right, and Biafrans have the right to defend themselves against this State sponsored genocide.

Our people must understand that the Nigeria government and its security agencies will not declare a conventional war against Biafrans.  But they have declared a covert war on Biafrans. That is why the Nigerian soldiers see it as a duty to invade any community of their choice in Biafraland, kill, burn down, and displace the indigenous people. Nigeria is, therefore, put on notice that we know their plans. 

COMRADE EMMA POWERFUL, MEDIA, AND PUBLICITY SECRETARY FOR IPOB.