Family of leader of proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has faulted claims by Abia State Commissioner of Police, Anthony Michael Ogbizi that police recovered lethal weapons when they raided their compound at Afara Ukwu on October 8 together with soldiers from 14Brigade, Ohafia.
Abia new commissioner of police had claimed during a press briefing in Umuahia on Thursday that lethal weapons including petrol bombs and one double-barrel gun were recovered during the raid.
Kanu’s family spokesman Prince Emmanuel Kanu in a telephone chat with journalists however denied that the family had any gun in the house, adding that if actually there was any gun the police found, it was planted by them during the first raid.
“This new CP was the same man who came to our house two days after the September 14 invasion with two Hilux vans and his Prado SUV and pulled down the car porch and destroyed the vehicles parked outside.
“This same CP hurriedly after the invasion on the October 8, issued a press release telling the whole world that they discovered bombs in my house. The army on the other hand, denied that there was no invasion and that they never went to my house, what a contradiction.
“A house that there has not been any person inside except our guard who we asked to look after the house, all of a sudden they invaded the house and came back to say they found a den gun, double barrel gun and petrol bomb. Who manufactured them? Who kept them there? That is the question to ask.”
While denying that there was anything incriminating found in their home, the family accused Mr. Ogbizi of fabricating the story to justify what he described as illegal raiding of their compound and also to appear as if he was working in order to please his masters.
The younger Kanu said what the police came to do in the home was to remove the CCTV which he said had been recording what the military and police had been doing in their house.
“The policemen came to our house and ransacked the entire compound including my mum and my father’s rooms, removing my mum’s boxes, our TV and generator sets, bags of rice and many personal belongings without knowing that we had a CCTV recording their activities in the house. But when they got clue about the CCTV and in order to concoct whatever that they would present to the public to label our family bad, they came back and removed the CCTV from where they were hung.
“I am telling the international community to prevail on this people. What the Police and other security agencies are doing in my house, my community, in my state and the entire Biafran Land is evil. It is clear that out of desperation, they are trying to cover their tracks and they have failed.
“Nobody can tag IPOB a terrorist organization. We don’t carry arms and arms never solved any dispute. They should engage IPOB leadership genuinely. We are not violent. We don’t give life and we can’t take one. They have rubbished the name of the country called Nigeria, that’s why we are called Biafrans.
“They invaded the house and took away the CCTV now they said that they discovered petrol bomb and the rest of it, when we had only one person in the house. How possible is that? Who planted them?”
He said if there was any bomb in their house, it was planted by the police the day they came on the October 8, adding that the police did not arrest any technician involved in bomb making, but their guard called Chukwu.
Kanu further stated, “If Ogbizi was serving in his Cross River State, he wouldn’t have raided the palace of the Obong of Calabar under any guise the way hew raid my father’s palace and boasted he would raid it again, this can only happen in Igbo land.
“And let me tell you something, the reason they removed the former CP (Adeleye Oyebade) was that he knew that IPOB has been non-violent in their activities and he stood on the side of truth, he refused to be compromised that was why they removed him and brought this one from Cross River State who is on a mission he will never accomplish.”