“Stop sharing food and give them seedlings to return to farm” – IPOB tells Igbo Philanthropists

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) have disclosed ways to prevent the recent stampede that k!ll£d people while sharing food.

IPOB called on Igbo philanthropists to cease providing palliatives to Southeast residents in a speech on Monday.

Instead, IPOB called on donors to encourage people to return to their farmlands by sharing crop seedlings with them.

Igbo leaders were also urged by the group to share food in villages.

Emma Powerful, IPOB’s spokesperson, stated this while responding to last week’s stampede in Anambra State’s Okija area that claimed multiple lives.

Powerful said in a statement he signed that Obi Jackson, the person who organised the food distribution that led to the catastrophe, shouldn’t be blamed for the incident.

The statement read, “The Directorate of State (DOS) of the great family of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), led by Mazi Nnamdi Okwuchukwu Kanu, commiserates with Ndigbo, particularly the people of the Okija community, over the sudden d£aths of our people, mostly the women who went to collect the food items and palliatives distributed by a philanthropist in their community.

The death of over 22 women when a stampede erupted during the collection of free food items organised by an Okija philanthropist, popularly known as Obi Jackson, is noted. It is also noted that the philanthropic action of distributing free food items to women in the Okija community and beyond by Obi Jackson during Christmas has been going on for years.

His good gestures should not be discouraged or demonized. In a sane country, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that poverty is not weaponised.

Nigeria, as a country that has failed her citizens, is the reason people like Obi Jackson stepped in to provide palliatives for the poverty-stricken citizens. Nigerian politicians have w£aponised poverty, which is why more than 80 Nigerians have died so far in December 2024 in Anambra State, Abuja, and Ibadan.

In the future, such free food distribution can be done in villages instead of one central place with an overwhelming crowd, and security must be put in place to ensure the orderly distribution of the food.

Finally, there is a saying that goes like this: ‘Teach a man how to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime, but if you give a man a fish, he will only eat one meal.’ Therefore, we must avoid the repeat of the ugly event of December 21, 2024, by empowering and employing our people to reduce the state of engineered poverty that is ravaging Nigeria.

To address this poverty menace, IPOB is calling on all Igbo philanthropists to stop sharing food items to people. Instead, provide them with seedlings for planting so that they can go back to the farm and produce what they will eat.

Empower our people to go back to the farm by sharing natural seedlings as a means of reducing hunger in the land. Also, we encourage wealthy Igbos to help struggling youths go into useful endeavours and helpful employments to address the issue of poverty.

IPOB commends the efforts of Igbo philanthropists. However, we wish to discourage the sharing of food items. We must not create a culture of dependency like what is obtainable in the northern region of the zoo called Nigeria.

IPOB once again sympathises with everyone who has lost a relative during the rice collection stampede in Okija, Anambra State. We hope such an ugly incident will not happen again. Most importantly, IPOB calls on Ndigbo and Biafrans to activate the Agricultural and Industrial Revolution in order to address the state-sponsored w£aponization of poverty in Nigeria, particularly in Biafra Land. We will not allow this to happen again.”