Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
Eze Ndigbo in Ajao Estate, Lagos, Chief Frederick Nwajagu, has been quizzed by the operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) for allegedly threatening to invite members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) to help secure shops and other business interests of Ndigbo in Lagos State.
Chief Nwajagu who was arrested in the early hours of Saturday in a joint operation by the DSS and the police, had in a viral video, expressed rage over the incessant burning of Igbo dominated markets in Lagos since after the 2023 polls, a threatened to invite IPOB members to help arrest the situation.
He said that since the conventional security agencies had failed to protect the interests of Ndigbo who had been targets of the barbaric and unprovoked attacks, the people would look for alternative means of protection.
Ikengaonline gathered that the joint team, it was gathered, had traced Nwajagu to his palace before his eventual arrest.
He was said to have been tracked to a hotel in Ejigbo, where he was eventually picked up.
In the viral video, the Eze Igbo said: “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.”
Meanwhile, 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,” Hundeyin tweeted in his verified Twitter handle.
At least three markets dominated by Igbo have been gutted by mystery fire since after the elections.
Before the polls, Ndigbo had been threatened by some political actors against voting against the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in Lagos.
Nobody has been arrested by the authorities for the unprovoked attacks against Igbo interests in Lagos so far.
