Anxiety as Buhari visits Imo today amid IPOB sit-at-home protest

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President Muhammadu Buhari will on Thursday (today) visit Imo State to commission some state projects.

It will be his first visit to Imo since political rallies ahead of the 2019 general election.

The president’s visit comes as the Indigenous People of Biafra issued a sit-at-home order in Imo and four other south-eastern states.

The group said Buhari is not welcome in south-east.

IPOB also warned leaders and every Igbo to stay away from any ceremony organised by Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, to welcome Buhari.

The pro-Biafra group’s director of state, Chika Edoziem, who announced the sit-at-home protest in a Radio Biafra broadcast, threatened there would be consequences for those who attend it.

But the police have heightened security in the state and will “deal ruthlessly with anybody who disturbs the peace of the state,” according to Imo police spokesperson, Mike Abattam

The state government through the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Declan Emelumba, had yesterday, warned that no person should dare the resolve of the government to give the president a befitting reception.

He said, “I have not heard of any sit-at-home by any group. I think the one I heard is the one that said they want their leader released and will be protesting any day he appears in court.”

“However, we are talking of a presidential visit. The president is visiting Imo and we will do everything thing to give a befitting reception. We have made every security arrangement in this regard and I assure you that Imo people are enthusiastic about the visit.”

Emelumba described the president’s visit as unique as this is the first time he’s visiting the state officially.

Meanwhile, former governor, Rochas Okorocha, has denied insinuations that President Buhari haven’t been to the state since 2007.

Okorocha, in a statement released through his media Adviser, Sam Onwuemeodo, stated that: “Imo was one of the first states President Buhari visited a few months after the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC). That was in 2014. The President came again after the March 28, 2015 Presidential election, to thank the Imo people for their effort and support for his election.That was on April 7, 2015.

“The President had also visited the state in 2018. And each of the referenced visits had seen a mammoth crowd of Imo people receiving Mr. President. The President had also, in the course of the visits then, Commissioned or inspected some of the landmark projects of Okorocha, including the International Cargo Airport, the Ultra-Modern Police Headquarters and Prison Headquarters, respectively.”

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