Anambra Election: Panic as police recover two bombs -Joshak Habila.

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TENSION was heightened on Friday in Anambra State ahead of today’s governorship election with the discovery of two high-calibre Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) near a police station in Onitsha, the commercial city of the state. The incident increased the fears of residents of the state, the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) having been championing a boycott of the election to choose the governor to direct the affairs of the state for the next four years. Saturday Tribune, however, gathered that what could have been a major disaster and effectively blighted the election was averted by men of the Nigerian Police Anti-Bomb Squad who defused the bombs and removed them under the supervision of a Deputy Inspector General of Police, Joshak Habila. The two explosives were said to have been discovered around 12.30 p.m., near Onitsha North Police Station, causing a distress call to be made to the anti-bomb squad which responded quickly and cordoned off the area. All efforts to get the police to speak on the suspected bombs did not succeed as of press time. But in what seemed like a twist, in two statements, on Friday, IPOB raised the alarm over an alleged plan by the security operatives to plant explosive devices in strategic areas in Anambra State and insisted that the electorate must boycott today’s governorship election.

The banned pro-Biafra group, in one of the statements, signed by its spokesperson, Emma Powerful, said it remained a non-violent and peaceful freedom fighting organisation, irrespective of alleged continued attack by the Federal Government. “It is unfortunate that the Nigerian government and her security operatives have not stopped lying and deceiving themselves with infantile schemes designed to portray our peaceful movement in a bad light. We gather that Nigerian military would be planting explosive devices in all strategic places in Anambra State to justify their evil plan against the people of Biafra. “The Nigerian government and her security operatives, especially the Nigerian Army and Police, including the DSS, have lost the bid to label IPOB a terrorist organisation among the civilised nations so they have resorted to crude evidence planting as they did with their so-called imported double barrel hunting guns at Apapa Wharf. Buratai and his lying military hierarchy are desperately using every and any available strategy to justify their actions against IPOB family members in Biafraland, particularly in Anambra State because of our boycott threat. “We are warning every indigenous person of Biafra to be wary of tomorrow’s [today’s] election in Anambra State. Every man, woman and child should remain indoors because Nigerian security operatives have planted military grade explosives key locations in Anambra State to kill and maim as many people as possible. Stay in your homes with your doors locked because tomorrow will be very bloody for anyone that ventures outside,” the statement read. IPOB, in the other statement, went on to describe elections conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as “fraudulent” and emphasised the need for the South East to ignore elections until the Federal Government fixes a date for a referendum.

The group stressed that it could not participate in an “electoral process where Aso Rock, through INEC, simply compile their own figures and declare whoever they like as the winner.” IPOB said that it would allow voting across the South East only when a referendum is called. The statement reads: “The worldwide family of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its leadership under the supreme command of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu consider it imperative to restate the reasons why Biafrans have decided to lock down Anambra State on the 18th of November, 2017 and never to participate in any fraudulent elections organised by INEC until a date for referendum on Biafra is set. “IPOB family worldwide under the command and leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu wish to remind the general public that we are not disrupting any election but instead directing every Biafran living in Anambra State to boycott the election on Saturday 18 November, 2017. “It is patently clear to all that since the return to what can best be described as the Arewa-dominated militocracy in 1999, we Biafrans have been voting with nothing to show for it till date. In fact, the whole electoral exercise in Nigeria is as fraudulent as Nigeria itself. “Nigerian government through the instrumentality of INEC and security operatives, especially the Nigerian Army and Police, are doing everything possible to undermine the people’s wish in Anambra State election.

“People can campaign and electioneer all they like, Aso Rock decides who gets appointed into political office. Our votes don’t count and will never count. Those participating in elections in Nigeria under the crazy militaristic Northern constitution drawn up by a Northern Islamic military head of state Abdulsalami Abubakar for the benefit of the Muslim North are either ignorant of what democracy entails or they are guilty of engaging in wilful hypocrisy. “Nigeria runs a very corrupt quasi military feudalism modelled on the subservient ethos of the Hausa Fulani traditional emirate system of governance. That we call rulers of states in Nigeria governors or the fact that they belong to political parties with stipulated tenure in office doesn’t remove the fact that they are in effect glorified Emirs answering to the new Sultanate Aso Rock instead of Sokoto. What obtains in Nigeria is not democracy, electioneering or voting, what we have is a carefully choreographed display of primitively nauseating politics of the jungle. “No reasonable person can point to a singular benefit of the much trumpeted dividend of democracy till date. Even the emergence of Buhari at the ballot box was characterised by such brazen rigging by 4-year-olds in the North that Western election observers were repulsed to the point of concluding that it would be better and less shameful for their not to mention what happened in Arewa North. This is the same electoral climate you expect IPOB, the children of light, to participate in.

“IPOB cannot participate in an electoral process where Aso Rock, through INEC, simply compile their own figures and declare whoever they like as the winner. Such political banditry will end in Nigeria tomorrow [today]. It is therefore in the interest of democracy, good governance and accountability that all right-thinking and courageous people must join IPOB to cleanse the political landscape by boycotting elections in Anambra State come tomorrow.