The Presidency has declared that the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group has had nothing to do with President Muhammadu Buhari since he arrived Yokohama, Japan, on Monday.
A statement issued by Buhari’s spokesman, Femi Adesina, said that those spreading stories of attack on the President by IPOB were hate mongers who should be ignored.
Adesina stressed that “Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora are urged to disregard concocted stories, backed with spurious visuals, of any protest or harassment of the President and his team.
“It is the stock-in-trade of hate mongers, who do not realize that the rest of Nigerians have left them far behind.
“President Buhari will make his presence at the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7) count for Nigeria, and no scare-mongering or sabre-rattling will detract from the outing.”
The speculation of attack on Buhari by IPOB, whichbl is seeking an independent country out of Nigeria, followed the reported directive given by the group’s leader, Nnamdi Kanu, for its members to attack Nigerian leaders visiting any part of the world.
The directive came on the heels of the group’s manhandling of former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, in Nuremberg, Germany last week when he had gone there for a conference to which he was invited by the Igbo community there.
IPOB had accused Ekweremadu of not doing enough to advance the cause of the group and the deteriorating security situation in the Southeast, a base of the group
