The family of leader of proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu has faulted claims by the police of recovering lethal weapons during a raid on its compound at Afara Ukwu on October 8.
Abia State Commissioner of Police Anthony Ogbizi claimed at a press briefing in Umuahia last Thursday that lethal weapons including petrol bombs and one double-barrel gun were recovered during the raid carried out with soldiers from 14 Brigade, Ohafia.
But the spokesman of the IPOB’s leader’s family, Prince Emmanuel Kanu, in a telephone chat with journalists denied the family had any gun in the house.
He said if the police found any gun, it was planted by them during the first raid.
The family said: “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.”
Kanu added: “A house that does not have 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.”
He accused the police of fabricating the story to justify what he described as illegal raiding of the compound.
The younger Kanu said what the police came to do in the home was to remove the CCTV which he claimed had been recording what the military and police had been doing in the premises.
“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 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.”
He rejected the terrorist tag on IPOB, stating ”Nobody can tag IPOB a terrorist organisation. 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.”
