VIDEO: We’ll bring IPOB to Lagos to protect us – Igbo leader blows hot

The Eze Igbo, Ajao Estate, Lagos, Fredrick Nwajagu, on Thursday threatened to invite members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to Lagos to secure properties of Igbo people in the state.

Nwajagu issued the threat in a 49-second video shared on Twitter on Friday.

He said the move became imperative in light of the attacks on some Igbo people in the state.

The Igbo leader said he stood by his words, insisting that his people must have a stand in Lagos.

“IPOB, we will invite them. They have no job. All of the IPOB will protect all of our shops. And we have to pay them. We have to mobilise for that. We have to do that. We must have our own security so that they will stop attacking us in the midnight, in the morning, in the afternoon.

“When they discover that we have our own security, before they will come, they will know that we have our own men there. I am not saying a single word to be hidden. I am not hiding my words, let my words go viral. Igbo must get their right and get stand in Lagos State,” he said in the video.

Replying to the post, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, said the command would resist IPOB presence in the state.

“To start with, the ever-ready @LagosPoliceNG will never fold its arms and allow such within the state,” he wrote.

The relationships between Igbo and Yoruba ethnic groups in the state have hit a rock following attacks and intimidation of voters of eastern extraction in the buildup to the 2023 general elections.

The situation aggravated after the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, defeated his counterpart, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the state in the presidential poll.

Igbo voters in the state complained of being intimidated during the March 18 governorship election and that many of them were prevented from exercising their franchise.