ESN is a monster

For anyone following the activities of the Eastern Security Network, ESN, the military wing of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, will not be surprised on how the movement is gradually transforming to its true colours. It is now unleashing violence and terror on the very people it claims to protect from the atrocities of Fulani herdsmen and presumably fight for their freedom to actualise the restoration of Biafra. The ESN is taking advantage of the emotional connection to the majority or large number of Igbo masses.

They have succeeded in winning the support of the marginalised locals through propaganda and fake news, exploiting the inability of government to provide basic amenities and opportunities for their teeming youth. The group makes their supporters to believe that milk and honey will flow in abundance in the imaginary land they are fighting for. This was the same way Boko Haram took advantage of the administrative gaps, poverty and religious ignorance of the locals in their initial stage to penetrate and carry out their terrorism, while hiding between the communities who believed they were only fighting the government which has not provided anything reasonable to them as a people, and those who believed they were fighting to uplift their religion.


I wrote an article which was published in Neptune Prime in April this year, in which I said, “The people of the Southeast will be counting the consequences of their indecision for years to come like our people of the Northeast if they fail to act accordingly to the rapid terrorism that is gradually getting out of hand”. I didn’t know its was this close then, but I had a series of heated conversations with some of my Igbo friends in the east, who refuted my opinion that IPOB members, who are now celebrated by locals, posing as heroes, killing and burning police stations will sooner than later start killing the same people celebrating them and turn the whole Igbo land into a war zone where no one will be safe and commercial activities will be grounded. And, of course, war zones are the places where heinous crimes like rape, robbery, stray bullets and the whole collateral damage issue are very common.

Regrettably, just like our people in the Northeast, they never saw it coming this way and the few ones who understood the language were silent to save their lives and family, others who were bold enough to speak up were labelled as traitors, unpatriotic, Fulani slaves and non-original Igbo.

They first started shifting from killing and attacking security facilities and personnel to government officials who are non-other than their own people. I remember watching a video in the social media stream of a special adviser to one of the governors in the east who was captured and treated in a horrible way. They stripped him, cut off his manhood and videoed him sitting in chains like a dog. They orchestrated the killing of a former high court judge and a director of the Scientific Equipment Development Institute in Enugu. They killed Gulak, the former presidential adviser for being Fulani who they detest. These prominent people are from the same land they claim to fight for.
The excessive use of brutal force and clampdown on anyone who disagrees with their agenda and type of Biafra during the compulsory sit at home order to mark Biafra day using gun and all sorts of ways remind me of how the Boko Haram sect initially flogged men who wore trousers that exceeded the ankle and a number lashes for women who came out without hijab, before eventually targeting all people who disagreed with their ideology.

I do not agree with most of Reno Omokiri’s submissions. But reading his article on Nnamdi Kanu’s type of Biafra where tyranny, total control, inequality for minority groups in which dictatorship and brutality for people who especially disagree with him will reign is inevitable. It is no longer a prediction under emerging realities if actualised, taken into account, the compulsory sit at home directive by the IPOB till Kanu is released. Innocent people were killed and commercial and government activities in the region were grounded.

But for some mysterious reasons, the locals were still convinced that the people being killed are either traitors or were killed by Fulani herdsmen. This reminds me of a Turkish proverb that “the forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe because he convinced them that he is one of them as his handle is made of wood”. The truth remains that they are villains posing as heroes.

Musa Gambo,
JCI Nigeria Ambassador,
Maiduguri, Borno state
[email protected]