The Indigenous People of Biafra have advised all presidents general and traditional leaders in South-East communities not to give in to pressure to cede any land to Fulani herders for any feigned agricultural purposes.
According to the group, the “marauding” Fulani herdsmen were not going to the area for agricultural purposes but rather to occupy it with their cattle and then invite their jihadist relatives from the Sahel to do the same with their ancestral territories.
These were said in a statement released on Wednesday by Emma Powerful, the IPOB’s media and publicity secretary.
Powerful stated in the statement that anyone in the South-East who decides to give any of their ancestral lands to Fulani for any reason will later regret their decision.
The statement read in part, “The global movement of IPOB wishes to remind Biafrans to desist from any plan or pressure to either sell or hand over our ancestral lands to any government or Fulani agents for any purported agricultural purposes or anything else.
“This warning has become very necessary and is mainly for all Igbo traditional rulers, PGs, politicians, real estate agencies and other political jobbers in Biafraland to desist from any attempt to secretly allocate community lands to Fulani herdsmen in the name of agricultural investment or any project.
“The marauding Fulanis are not coming for any agricultural business but rather to occupy the land with their cattle and subsequently invite their terrorist relatives from Sahel to occupy our ancestral lands in their land grabbing agenda.
“If you have any ongoing negotiations on land sell to Fulanis or their cronies, we advise you to cease forthwith with such arrangements.
“We can not hand over our ancestral lands to the invaders whose agenda is land grabbing in disguise and violent takeover in future. If you want to understand what we are preventing, study the history of Hausas in the Northern part of Nigeria.
“Do not sell our future generations to these locust tribes. We have a duty to preserve our generations and not destroy them because of the selfishness and greed of their leaders.
“We don’t want any RUGA or any such other name they call it in any of our territories. Our people must understand that either free or donations, you are going to regret your decision to ceed any of our ancestral lands to Fulani for any purpose.”