IPOB PRESS RELEASE,
04/10/2023.

The Leadership, the Directorate of State (DOS) of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have watched with dismay the brazen distortion of Igbo culture, tradition, mores, folklore, and essentially our unity by content creators and skit producers on the social media. This press release is to caution all the Igbo skit creators to be circumspect of their activities on the social media creating skits in regards to the culture, mores, folklore, and on the comprehensive unity of Ndigbo and Biafrans in general.

IPOB commend the vibrancy and the ingenuity of Igbo youths in creating job opportunities for themselves using social media’s new media. We are aware that Nigeria has no interest in creating job opportunities for Biafrans. Hence, there is no physical presence of the federal government of Nigeria infrastructure such as international airports, seaports, or factories in the Southeast region. The only federal government infrastructure in the Southeast is military and Police baracks and prisons, which are found in all the states in the southeast.

We understand that the lack of these productive infrastructures is among the economic exclusionary policies of the Nigeria government against Biafra to force Igbo youths to migrate to other regions, thereby leaving the Southeast region deserted. The current spread of insecurity is another federal government sponsored project to stop our people from returning and investing at home.

Irrespective of all these government emasculation gimmicks against Ndigbo, some of our people have remained resilient in providing and creating job opportunities for themselves and others in the southeast. Among the self-propelled job opportunities is skit making. Skit making or content creating industry is fast becoming another Nollywood. However, we do not want and will not tolerate the use of social media content creating to disparage our culture, folklore, mores, or traditions, and thereby adversely affecting our unity like the Nollywood industry did. Lately, we realized that some of the playscripts in the Nollywood movies were sponsored by Nigeria DSS and some enemies of Ndigbo to create a bad impression of Ndigbo and our culture. For instance, Nollywood movies created the impression that riches are from voodoo and cultism instead of hard work and dedication that Ndigbo is known for. The same movies created the impression that Ndigbo kingsmen are always envious of other successful men. They made non-Igbos believe that Ndigbo love and worship money more than anything else. Again that Ndigbo are not united and do not help one another. But on the contrary, there is no other tribe in the world that unites and assists one another like Ndigbo do. No doubt Nollywood movies made Ndigbo and our culture famous but not without those bad impressions. Such unfortunate impressions is what we don’t want to repeat itself in the current content creation and skit making industry from Ndigbo and others.

To this end, we call on all Ndigbo skit makers to vet their skit recordings before posting it to the social media. Ensure that your skit post has no content that brings distrust, shame, and disunity among Ndigbo from different Provences or regions. The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi KANU has repeatedly said that Ndigbo in Rivers, Bayelsa, Edo, Benue, Kogi, Cross Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, Abia, Imo, Delta, Enugu and Anambra are one people. In IPOB, we see us as one people. No Igbo State is better than the other. Secondly, no skit recordings and posts should insult and redicle our culture and traditions as a collective people. All skit makers should join the effort to unite our people not to scatter them.

IPOB does not and will never support social media censorship. We believe in complete and total freedom of speech, but we wouldn’t tolerate tearing down the walls of unity among Biafrans that we are fighting and dying for. We can’t be fighting other tribes for disrespecting us while our youths are busy dragging us through the mud in the name of social media skit making. That will not be tolerated any longer.

Therefore, going forward, any skit maker that creates intra-ethnic confusion among Ndigbo will have IPOB to contend with. Similarly, any skit maker that denigrate the culture and traditions of other Igbo Provence or State will hear from us. All Igbo skits producers should take this as advice and as a warning, also.

COMRADE EMMA POWERFUL, MEDIA, AND PUBLICITY SECRETARY FOR IPOB