Police Arrest Onitsha Printers Working for IPOB Attempting to Scuttle Anambra Poll
China has commended Nigeria for its effort at creating a business friendly environment for investors in the country, noting that the effort has paid off with its recent upgrade by the World Bank in its latest report.
The China Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Zhou Pingjian, who made the commendation yesterday in Abuja at a seminar on Nigeria-China relations and the prospects to realise industrial and production capacity cooperation, said the promotion is an attestation that Nigeria’s business environment policy is taking shape.
He commended the Centre for Chinese Studies (CCS), organisers of the seminar, for bringing relevant stakeholders together and exploiting to the fullest the already flourishing relations between the two countries.
“This seminar could not come at a more opportune time. The 2017 Africa Industrialisation Day on November 20 is fast approaching. Nigeria has moved up 24 places to 145th in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business report published the day before yesterday.
“The World Bank also lists Nigeria as one of the top ten reforming economies in the world in 2017. And, as the significance of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and its global implications are being assessed in earnest world-wide, a discussion on the impact of the congress on China’s commitment to the industrialisation of Africa is apt and helpful,” he said.
Pingjian reiterated China’s commitment to support Nigeria’s industrialisation and economic diversification effort of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. David-Chyddy Eleke Anambra State police command has arrested two printers in Onitsha who were printing fliers for members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB to sensitise the people to boycott the Anambra governorship election.
State police commissioner, Mr. Garba Umar, who briefed journalists said with the proscription of IPOB, it would not tolerate its members meeting in Anambra or even displaying their insignia publicly.
He added that :”After a discreet procedure in collating intelligence information on miscreants and members of the proscribed IPOB, the Onitsha area command raided a printing press where thousands of posters and handbills were being printed.”
The handbills which were displayed before journalists read, “Call for a referendum is not call for war, no election in Anambra State, Biafrans declare sit at home.”
The flyers also came with a strong warning, calling on the electorate in Anambra to stay away from participating in the election, but to sit at home.
It warned that anyone who insisted on participating in the Anambra election would be doing so at his or her own risk.
Recall that the IPOB had declared sit-at-home on November 18, which coincides with the Anambra governorship election, and is viewed to be a calculated attempt to scuttle the election after it had announced a boycott of the election.
CP Garba warned that he would not spare any group or individual that tries to disrupt the peace that has been achieved in Anambra State, while also calling on the residents of the state to ensure they report any attempt to cause a breach of peace in the state.
Though the arrested printers were not paraded before journalists, Garba said they would help the police in tracking down the IPOB members who brought the job to their printing press for publishing.