The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, on Tuesday maintained that its militia arm, Eastern Security Network, ESN, has no relationship with criminals.

IPOB was reacting to reports of the military dislodging an IPOB-ESN camp at Okigwe in Imo State and Isiukwuato in Abia State.

Emma Powerful, the spokesman of IPOB, described the report as false, insisting that ESN has no camps in the areas.

Parts of a statement by Powerful reads: “The great family and movement of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) led by the great and indefatigable leader, Mazi Nnamdi Okwuchukwu Kanu, wishes to debunk the fallacious and fabricated propaganda peddled by the Nigerian Government and her military that they dislodged IPOB-ESN camp at Okigwe in Imo State and Isiukwuato in Abia State.

“IPOB-ESN had severally disassociated ourselves from the so-called camps at Okigwe and Isukwuato, including Orsu, Orlu, and Orsumohu that the Nigerian Army and Nigerian Police always claimed to have dislodged IPOB-ESN operatives from.

“Though the Nigerian Security Forces are much aware that the criminals operating those camps are their sponsored infiltrators claiming to be Liberation Army, yet the Nigerian Army maliciously claim that those people are IPOB/ESN operatives.

“These criminals have no relationship with the IPOB movement nor ESN operatives, but the Nigerian government keeps pushing the same wrong narrative against IPOB.

“In the first place, the objective of recruiting the criminals was to use them to infiltrate and destroy the genuine self-determination agitation championed by IPOB.

“IPOB demands that the Nigerian Government and the Nigerian Army and Police call those they attacked and dislodged by their names and leave IPOB and ESN alone. IPOB foiled the plans by the Nigerian Government recruited criminals to infiltrate IPOB and ESN.”