An unnamed child, who has pledged allegiance to the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), said that he took up arms to defend Eastern Nigeria region against Fulani herdsmen, who he accused of killing locals.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that the video of a child made the rounds last week as an operative of IPOB’s armed wing, Eastern Security Network (ESN).
Although IPOB distanced itself from the video, separatists like Uche Mefor, confirmed the video was recorded at one of the camps of the ESN.
In a fresh video, the boy in question was interrogated by an older ESN operative, and in his native language, he gave reasons for carrying weapons.
Reacting to the new video, Mefor further slammed IPOB.
“Propaganda, deceiving themselves and trying to riggle out of the mess. Before, they denied that it was not ESN and now that they cannot deny anymore, they resort to indoctrinating the child on what to say in order to justify the conscription,” Mefor wrote on his known Facebook page on Thursday.
“It would be of interest to identify the school this child is or was attending, when fulani herdsmen attacked actually attacked (no doubt fulani herdsmen harm and kill our people but it is a good and ethical to attribute their criminal activities to them and not to concoct lies against them) and killed his fellow pupils. How did he get involved with ESN. Does it mean that after the attack(assuming that what the event the child is making reference to happened), that this child now suddenly got the idea and surreptitiously resolved to carry arm without indoctrination? How did he finally find himself where he is today? These are some of the pertinent questions.
“Seeing it for what it is, intervewing this child cannot do the magic. Crime is crime. Conscripting a child and forcibly indoctrinating him, exposing him to violence is criminal. It automatically robs the child of his valuable future, stopping him from going to school and damages his world view of life physically, psychologically, emotionally and otherwise.
“This laughable interview is consistent with the media group of IPOB stage-managing of events for the purposes of propaganda to whoop up sentiment from the gullible public. They will occassionally tell you that something will happen, that you should write it down on a piece of paper; and they will actually make every effort to organise a mock event mimicking that thing, or publishing it on paper or indoctrinating somebody to say that thing or even write something and attribute to or present it as coming from another person. When these are done, they will come back to tell you that it is “prophesy” prophesied by the relevant person in question or group.”
