Eze Igbo of Ajao Estate in Lagos, Fredrick Nwajagu, has threatened to invite members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to provide security for Igbo people in Lagos State.
According to Nwajagu, the move has become necessary due to recent attacks on properties and lives of people of South-East extraction during the general elections in the state.
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Pulse reports that IPOB has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the Federal Government since 2017, while its military wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN), has been accused severally of carrying out killings, kidnappings and other atrocities in the region.
Recently, there have been ethnic tensions between some Igbo and Yoruba residents in the state. The frosty relationship between the two major ethnic groups is part of the fallouts of the presidential election which saw the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi defeat the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in the state.
The situation degenerated after some Igbo voters complained of being manhandled, intimidated, and prevented from accessing their polling units during the March 18, 2023, governorship and state assembly elections in Lagos.
Meanwhile, in a 49-second video that surfaced online on Friday, March 31, 2023, Nwajagu was captured saying Igbos must be allowed to provide security for themselves in Lagos to stop being attacked.
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The clip shared on the timeline of a Twitter user, @DeeOneAyekooto, also showed the Igbo leader insisting that his people have legitimately earned their right to stay in Lagos State.
Nwajagu said
IPOB, we will invite them. They have no job. All of the IPOB will protect all of our shops. And we have to pay them. We have to mobilise for that. We have to do that. We must have our own security so that they will stop attacking us in the midnight, in the morning, in the afternoon.
When they discover that we have our own security, before they will come, they will know that we have our own men there. I am not saying a single word to be hidden. I am not hiding my words, let my words go viral. Igbo must get their right and get stand in Lagos State.
In his reaction to the post, the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, said the command would resist any attempt to import IPOB activities to the state.
Hundeyin wrote:
To start with, the ever-ready @LagosPoliceNG will never fold its arms and allow such within the state.
