IPOB: THE NIGERIAN STATE IS RUNNING FROM THE TRUTH — NOT FROM ESN

The global family of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), under the supreme leadership of Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has observed the latest manufactured media frenzy over an alleged raid on an ESN camp and wishes to expose the desperation behind it.

There are two immediate developments that Nigerians and the international community must place side by side with this latest propaganda.

First, the recent discussion of Biafra on Israel’s Channel 14, including the call for Israel to pay attention to the Biafran question and the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, has once again pushed the Biafran struggle onto an international platform. Rather than confront the substance of that international discussion, the Nigerian propaganda machinery has apparently chosen its familiar diversion: invent another ESN-camp story and flood the media with photographs and sensational claims.

Second, the Nigerian establishment is acutely uncomfortable with the explosive legal issues raised by Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu in his letter to the President of the Court of Appeal. That letter raises issues that cannot be wished away with propaganda. Instead of confronting those issues openly and allowing the judicial process to take its course, the authorities appear determined to manufacture another security narrative capable of dominating the news cycle.

This is not the first time Nigerians have witnessed this script.

Whenever the Nigerian state and its collaborators in the South-East find their narrative collapsing, suddenly an alleged ESN camp is “discovered.” Motorbikes, generators, telephones and other ordinary objects are photographed, arranged dramatically and presented to the public as evidence of some sinister operation.

IPOB rejects this propaganda.

If the Nigerian military has genuinely discovered an ESN camp, let it provide independently verifiable evidence, identify the occupants, produce arrested suspects, establish ownership of the location and demonstrate the evidential connection between the alleged camp and IPOB or Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

The Nigerian state cannot continually substitute press conferences for evidence.

There is also a question the Nigerian military must answer: How does a military that repeatedly claims to locate ESN camps with remarkable precision struggle to locate the armed criminals terrorising rural communities and kidnapping innocent citizens?

The people of the South-East have repeatedly complained about insecurity, including attacks on farmers and rural communities. Yet the military’s spectacular successes against alleged ESN camps somehow receive immediate publicity, while Nigerians continue demanding answers about other armed groups operating across the country.

This selective obsession exposes the political character of the propaganda.

IPOB has never claimed that criminality should be tolerated. Every criminal organisation should be confronted, irrespective of its ethnic identity or political affiliation. But the Nigerian security establishment must stop using the legitimate security concerns of our people as a convenient instrument for demonising IPOB and distracting the world from the fundamental issues surrounding the Biafran question.

The Nigerian government should also understand one simple fact:

Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu does not need an ESN camp to make his case before the world. His legal arguments, his record and the grievances of the Biafran people speak for themselves.

If the authorities believe that the issues contained in his letter to the President of the Court of Appeal are empty, they should confront them through the courts.

If they believe the international discussion about Biafra is baseless, they should address the substance rather than manufacture distractions.

And if they believe their allegations against IPOB and ESN are genuine, let them prove them before competent institutions rather than through carefully choreographed media spectacles.

IPOB therefore calls on international journalists, diplomats, human-rights organisations and foreign governments not to accept Nigerian military press releases as established facts. Investigate. Verify. Ask questions. Demand evidence.

The Nigerian propaganda machinery has deployed this tactic repeatedly because it fears the issues it is trying to bury.

But this time, the world is watching.

You cannot bury Biafra with propaganda. You cannot silence Onyendu Mazi Nnamdi Kanu with manufactured headlines. And you cannot run forever from the truth by repeatedly shouting “ESN camp.”

COMRADE EMMA POWERFUL SPOKESPERSON/MEDIA AND PUBLICITY SECRETARY FOR THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF BIAFRA (IPOB)