Violence in  south-east externally motivated — it won’t affect elections, says Abaribe

Enyinnaya Abaribe, senator representing Abia south, says rampant violence in the south-east will not affect the conduct of elections in the zone.

Several reports have shown that the sit-at-home orders by IPOB have led to violent attacks on residents and public infrastructure like offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and the police.

A report by TheCable in 2021 revealed how security in the region degenerated, leading to 636 deaths between December 13, 2020, and December 12, 2021.

Reacting to this on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Wednesday, Abaribe said violence in the zone was externally motivated and “sometimes supported internally”.

“These things that are happening are externally induced and sometimes supported by people internally just to make sure that people don’t exercise their franchise freely and fairly,” he said.

“I have condemned the violence and even at one time, I visited Nnamdi Kanu and he said there is nothing like sit-at-home or something like that. Some merchants of violence and destruction have taken over to commit crimes and when they do that, they say it is this group or that group. 

“Our people are not violent in nature. All this violence you are seeing is not an Igbo thing, it is something that was imported to Igbo land.  IPOB said they are for election and not part of sit-at-home, and people still say they are saying they are the ones doing it.

“All we can say is that let the security agencies do more intelligence gathering. Let them work with security apparatus in the south-east.  But, I tell you, this will not affect the elections in Igbo land, you will see that the elections in the south-east will be free and fair, and with BVAS, the result will show who the people trust or not.”