By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

The Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) has insisted that banditry and kidnapping will remain a lucrative business in Nigeria for as long as government and self-acclaimed religious clerics keep negotiating with bandits.

IPOB said in a statement issued on Friday by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful: “Anyone advocating amnesty for murderous vampires like Fulani bandits is their grandmaster.

“If Nigeria were to be a normal country where there is sanity and decency, all those people championing for amnesty for the killer-bandits would have been arrested and put on trial.”

IPOB observed that change will come when Nigerians begin to ask the whereabouts of their First Lady and why she will choose to be away for months without explanations.

“There will be change when greedy politicians stop putting their selfish interests above the collective interest of the people. Banditry will stop any day your leaders stop pampering bandits and start treating them as terrorists that they are.

“Banditry will stop any day the real bandits in places of Authority are unmasked! Otherwise, what you see now will be a child’s play to what is to come.

“The so-called shoot on sight order by the President Muhamnadu Buhari double is only a paper tiger. It wasn’t meant for everybody. We know who they have in mind.

“It’s only the daft that will think that such order is meant for Fulani bandits and killer herdsmen carrying out the Fulani agenda.

“If a serving Governor can boldly come out to defend the carrying of guns by Fulani herdsmen, how do you ever think any of them is going to be arrested when their kits and kin are the ones going to enforce the order?”

IPOB insisted that banditry has continued to surge because Nigerians are not asking the right questions, saying that any day Nigerians get up and demand to know why they have a President who rather chooses to talk to them through a press statement by media aides or the Presidency instead of talking to them live, there will be a change.

“Any day Nigerians begin to ask why the authorities have not been courageous enough to declare killer-herdsmen terrorists but quick to proscribe IPOB that is peacefully agitating for freedom, change will come,” IPOB stated.