Simon Ekpa - Exclusive: I have no hand in Southeast mayhem

Finland-based Biafran separatist leader, Simon Ekpa has absolved his group, the Auto-pilot and the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, of being responsible for the killings and destructions in the southeast and blamed politicians instead.

He said sit-a-home is a civil disobedience but politicians are the ones sponsoring thugs to cause the mayhem in the zone.

Ekpa spoke in an exclusive interview with Vanguard, during a question-and-answer session about his agitation and why he is doing what he is doing.

Your agitation is affecting the people and a lot of people do not understand what your agitations are about.

Simon Ekpa wants the freedom of the Biafra people, he wants to finish what our fathers started, he wants to liberate the people of Biafra and those who believe that Nigeria is not meant for them. The liberation of Biafra is what Simon Ekpa has come to do.

Are you comfortable with the way you are going about it?

I am very comfortable and optimistic that the way I am going about it. It is the only way that Biafra is going to be liberated.

Nigeria is a very complex country with dangerous tenacity, and they have used their policy to subjugate everyone into slavery, making everyone not think about anything else except their stomach. What we do is first, liberate people from their mental sway, which is a deliberate policy imposed on them.

What is happening now started as far back as 1957; they intensified their restructuring of Nigeria into an Islamic state in 1989. The problem here is that many of you in Nigeria do not understand what is going on and it beats our imagination that you people are leaving in hell and many of you do not know you are leaving in hell.

Many people in Nigeria do not know what is going on. It is we in the Diaspora that is telling them what is happening and it is very abnormal and unusual that people within the system do not understand what they are going through, rather it is the people outside that are telling them what they are going through.

And that is because of the system and the policy that was designed to make it difficult for anybody within Nigeria to rise to fight against the system or that policy.

If there is anybody that does not understand agitation for Biafra, it is probably not in Nigeria and probably, the person is not sensible enough.

What is it that they do not understand? Is it that they don’t understand how dangerous it is to be in Nigeria? Is it that they don’t understand that there is an Islamic state in the North? Is it that they do not understand that Boko Haram is fighting for an Islamic State to convert Nigeria into an Islamic State, or is it that they do not understand that Nigeria itself was a scam?

From Nnamdi Azikiwe to Awolowo to Tafawa Balewa and others; they were all having their different views and opinion about Nigeria’s amalgamation. Anybody that is above 18 today that doesn’t understand what I am doing or what Biafra is; it means that the person is not sensible enough.

Nigerian policies were designed and targeted at impoverishing the people and enslaving them, making it difficult for the people to revolt against the government, especially in the agenda of Islamisation. That is what we are trying to liberate the people from, not allowing that particular hardship of Nigeria to be a tool that will make them not fight for a better future. And we are winning that war.

The question has always been whether you are fighting for the people or doing things for your glory.

I am fighting for the Igbo. I am fighting for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. He is in the DSS dungeon and being detained illegally. Negotiation for peace starts with releasing him.

Court has discharged him. But you are in a country where Boko Haram terrorists are being set free, being given amnesty every day. They are not fighting for the nation. They are fighting for the Islamic agenda and they are well-known terrorists all over the world, brutal terrorists who have killed women and children and they are not hiding it.

When they get to court or surrender as they claim, they rehabilitate them and recruit them into the Nigerian Army and send them to the southeast to start killing our people.

As I am talking to you today, every security chief, from the lowest to the highest within the Government House of Enugu is controlled by the Fulani and the Northerners. Are you aware of that?

I am fighting for the people and at the same time, I want to make history to be one of those who liberated the most powerful and most successful nation in Africa. I’m fighting to make history and also liberate the people of Biafra.

That would be the beginning of civilization in Africa because we have what it takes to make Biafra the best country, even to compete with Dubai. We have professionals scattered all over the world, we have the resources, the manpower, and the brain. What we intend to do in Biafra is a brain-based economy.

What I am doing is making history just like Mandela, Gandhi, and every other person who fought to liberate their people from slavery and gain their independence and freedom. I want to make those history and liberate my people.

I don’t care what they call me now. But what they call me in the future would be what matters to me at the end of the day. They can address me however they want now but I know what I am doing and I know what is going to be the end point.

Are you comfortable with your modus operandi?

I am very comfortable with my modus operandi and the only way to disorganise the Islamic agenda in Nigeria and to free my people. What I am doing is the only way, there is no better way to do it.

Or do you know a better way?

Now I am telling you as a media person, but you should be aware as a media person; these are the problems. The chief security officers of the Enugu State Government are all Northerners and many of them are related to the Islamic State, so how can you continue to live in a system like that?

Most of the people condemning what I am doing today can never support Biafra, not because they do not want Biafra but because of the impunity of Nigeria.

They are very comfortable in a corrupt system, they are scared of finding themselves in a sane society where justice, equity, and fairness would be the order of the day; they are not going to be comfortable.

We are not expecting them to support Biafra. We know that the last persons to support Biafra are the political persons who are corrupt leaders and they are very comfortable in Nigeria.But an average person from eastern Nigeria knows that Nigeria is not what they want.

Many people may not have a problem with the agitation, but the violence. The Southeast is a no-go area. They instill fear in the lives of people across the state.

It’s not IPOB that is causing the violence and the fear in the southeast. Sit-at-home is civil disobedience and not a violent measure.

Who are the people doing it?

The same politicians are doing it. Politicians are mopping up arms and sponsoring armed groups. This is among the armed groups they are using to sabotage Biafra’s agitation and realisation of Biafra.

Whenever we call for a sit-at-home, these people will unleash these armed groups to go and start causing problems to tag it Biafra, thinking that when they do that, we are going to run away.

We have been shouting about it for a very long time. So, if you want to look for who are the people responsible for the violence in the South East, look at these armed people sponsored by politicians.

Look at Ugochinyere Ikenga for example, a House of Representative member from Imo State; if you listened to his interview on Arise TV last time, his house was invaded, burnt. Cars were burnt to ashes, properties worth millions were destroyed and people were killed.

The CCTV caught the people that came in and they happened to be the Nigerian security agents. If the CCTV was not there, they would accuse IPOB.

One thing about you people is that you people are very corrupt. Nigeria is a very bad country, all of you are corrupt. You know the truth and you don’t want to say it. I’m done talking to you. I don’t want to have this interview anymore.