By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has issued a direct challenge to former Abia State Governor, Sen Orji Kalu to provide evidence of claims that IPOB killed over 30,000 people in the East or apologise for his utterance within 48hours.

It also asked him to equally provide names, villages, dates and circles behind each alleged death.

Orji Uzor Kalu had in a recent interview on national television said that IPOB and Mazi Nnamdi Kanu are responsible for “30,000 deaths” in the South-East.

But, IPOB in a statement by its media and publicity secretary, Emma Powerful described the statement as a lie so reckless, so malicious, and so easily disproved that it qualifies as pure political propaganda.

The group reeled out the people for the apology to include, its leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB, and the entire Igbo nation.

It accused Kalu of pretending not to know the facts about the violence in the South-East, saying that it began as a large-scale phenomenon after Mazi Nnamdi Kanu had already spent more than a year in detention, isolated in underground solitary confinement, cut off from the world.

The group wondered how a man who was held in DSS darkness, without access to the public, be responsible for insecurity engineered by political mercenaries and external actors?

While elaborating on the subheading; ORJI UZOR IHEANACHO (KALU) KNOWS THE TRUTH — BUT CHOOSES TO LIE, IPOB added, “He knows that: Mazi Nnamdi Kanu NEVER authorised sit-at-home.

“When criminals hijacked the idea, our leader wrote a handwritten directive cancelling sit-at-home completely.

“IPOB publicly enforced that cancellation.

The few who continued were criminals and state-sponsored elements. But Orji Uzor Iheanacho (Kalu) suppresses these facts because chaos benefits his political agenda.

“What about operation Python Dance, Does he also pretend not to know that: It was the Nigerian Army, not IPOB, that brought militarised terror into Igboland. It was Operation Python Dance I & II that unleashed mayhem across the region.

“On September 14, 2017, 28 unarmed civilians were killed at the Isiama Afaraukwu home of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

That military invasion led directly to the death of Nnamdi Kanu’s parents. Where was Orji Uzor Iheanacho (Kalu) when this atrocity happened?

“What did he say?

What did he do?

Did he condemn the killings?

Did he demand justice? He did nothing.

Because the suffering of Igbo people has always been an opportunity for him, not a burden.

“Only a special breed of shameless, unconscionable political vagabonds would blame a man locked in solitary confinement for insecurity manufactured by those who envy his influence, fear his popularity, and resent the loyalty of the Igbo people to their true leader.

“History will not forget the names of those who helped turn our homeland into a political battlefield.

The era of falsehood is over. A man who cannot keep his father’s name who amputates his own identity for political convenience cannot rewrite the history of IPOB or the truth of the Biafra struggle.

“IPOB is not the source of violence in the South-East. We are the primary victims of that violence. Therefore, we repeat: PROVIDE proof or apologise within 48 hours. The world is watching.”