Enugu youths protest IPOB sit-at-home, say ‘it’s engineered by misguided Nigerian in Finland’

Enugu state youths have protested against the sit-at-home order being enforced by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

The development is coming barely 24 hours after Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB leader, ordered an end to the weekly sit-at-home in the south-east.

Kanu in a letter on Friday, had told Simon Ekpa, his self-acclaimed disciple, to desist from calling for further sit-at-homes.

He asked Ekpa to make a public announcement to the effect that Monday sit-at-homes are now cancelled.

However, in a Twitter post, Ekpa tagged the letter as “fake”.

He said Kanu cannot write such a letter, adding that “it is not only a joke but an insult taken too far”.

Reacting to the development, youths in Enugu took to the streets in support of Kanu’s letter. 

The youths called on the federal government to review relations with the government of Finland over the country’s unwillingness to rein in Ekpa.

Speaking during the protest, Maduabuchi Edeani, leader, Enugu Innovative Youths, said that people pushing illegal sit-at-homes under any guise should stop it.

Edeani said that the sit-at-home has led to untold hardship and poverty in Enugu and the entire south-east.

“The illegal sit-at-home is causing so much havoc and making our education, health and economic institutions not to function optimally and our people are counting their losses both as individuals, groups and corporate entities,” he said. 

“We as youths in the state are supporting Kanu in his stance to stop and totally cancel the illegal sit-at-home being engineered by a misguided Nigerian in Finland.

“We are here to let the world know that anybody supporting the illegal sit-at-home is against the south-east, good people of the state and the future of youths in the state and south-east in general.

“I call on all youths in Enugu and south-east to desist from supporting the anti-progressive, evil and illegal sit-at-home.

“It remains a wrong path and it will not do anybody any good. Rather, it will truncate our future and prospects in life as youths.”

On his part, Ebube Nebo, a youth leader in Enugu, said the youths in the state are tired of the sit-at-home.

He described the directive as a “cankerworm gradually snowballing into a big monster of human and economic waste”.

“In all sincerity, we are suffering. It is not just about what the state governor is saying to end it, we are indeed suffering and feeling the pains of our deprivation and loss the illegal sit-at-home is causing us,” he said.

“As youths, it is affecting our education, employment, and entrepreneurial prospects, while our fathers and mothers, especially those in the villages and suburbs, are living in untold hardship.”