Group accuses BSS of perpetuating assassination, kidnapping in the S/East

The SRG maintained that the BSS which is the militant arm of IPOB, is 'infested with all manners of hardened criminals and deviants' aimed at carrying out their devious activities.

The group disclosed it has found out that BSS members are the 'masterminds of kidnappings and abductions for ransom, armed robbery, extortion of hapless people at gunpoint and other sundry acts of lawlessness and crimes against the state in the southeastern Nigeria.'

The group made the claim in an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari on the security threats of IPOB to the South East.

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The letter signed by its National Co-Ordinator, Comrade Charles Mbani, reads in part:

“Your Excellency Sir, the Southeast Revival Group [SRG], seizes this unique opportunity to formally welcome you, Mr. President, back to Nigeria from your medical vacation in London.

As patriotic citizens of this great country, we owe you a religious and moral duty to continue to beseech Almighty God in prayers to ceaselessly grant you good health and long life to continue to pilot the affairs of our long-suffering nation to prosperity.

Your Excellency Sir, we wish to draw your attention to a nagging insecurity problem currently threatening the coherence of the Southeast region, with the potential to continue to dubiously snatch away the economic fortunes of the region, cause socio-political dislocation and spark insecurity crisis of regional and national dimension.

We hasten to confess that the despicable agitations presently mounted by secession groups or separatist movements, domiciled in the Southeast region, in the guise of self-determination have metamorphosed into criminal gangsterism.

Your Excellency Sir, you are aware of the senseless, criminal, unlawful and treasonable operation of a quasi-sovereignty or a state and a government within the sovereignty of Nigeria by IPOB’s informal declaration of a 'Republic of Biafra'.

IPOB did not pause at this point but proceeded to the stage of the gradual formation of the organs of government of the so-called republic, inclusive of the Biafra Secret Service, [BSS].

By its conception, design, and intent, BSS is the militant arm of IPOB, infested with all manner of hardened criminals and deviants. The national security agencies must have intimated you with the other forms of aberrations of IPOB in this direction.

But our investigations into the activities of BSS have sadly revealed the stark reality that the unregistered and illegal security organization is an assemblage of hitherto scattered IPOB’s marksmen in isolated criminal gangs, who are now fused to congregate under a single umbrella.

The organization has been empowered by IPOB to launch the subsisting, pervasive and consistently dreadful and alarming threats to security in the Southeast region as currently experienced.

We are perturbed and indeed overwhelmed by the persistent violent aggressions and coercive exploits of IPOB, through its arms and militant wing, the BSS.

We suspect strongly that since BSS is peopled by outlaws, they are responsible for the spate of assassinations of kinsmen opposed to their fluid and dubious idea of a Biafran state.

Its members are the masterminds of kidnappings/abductions for ransom, armed robbery; extortion of hapless people at gunpoint and other sundry acts of lawlessness and crimes against the state in Southeastern Nigeria.

In the last few months, it has been observed that IPOB has assumed the monopoly of violence and crimes in the Southeast region.

It is also recruiting left-overs of criminal elements in the region into its fold, who are assured about the veiled cover of BSS to hide and audaciously commit heinous crimes against the people, undetected and unpoliced, masked with the garments of secessionists struggles in public appeal.

The heightened crimes and insecurity in the Southeast presently are heavily nourished by these antecedents of IPOB, which may not abate soon, unless the Federal Government of Nigeria takes decisive actions against IPOB and its criminal affiliates to secure lives and property in the region.

Even now, the Southeast region is under siege by these criminal elements, as everything which gives legitimacy to life and existence or dignity is fast crumbling or has already crumbled because of fear of attacks, resulting in death, largely due to the activities of IPOB.

The vibrancy of businesses or economic and civic life in the region is on its historic lull, as evident in the frequent sit-at-home orders issued by IPOB leader, which compliance is enforced by members of BSS through intimidation, coercion, and brute force.

And at such instances, resistance by any person most often leads to his untimely death in the hands of IPOB members, much as looting spree goes on unhindered. These have inflicted enough agony and pains on us and it is getting to intolerable limits of endurance.

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We, therefore, plead with Mr. President never to abandon the Southeast region to these criminal elements who have activated their media infrastructure to blackmail the Nigerian military from carrying out its constitutionally lawful duties as stipulated by the directives of the Presidency.

Although the cost of security operations of this nature is enormous, we appeal for the extension of the exercise of Operation Python Dance II by a month more, to enable the military to embark on a thorough cleansing of the land of criminal gangs."