Facebook has deleted an account belonging to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
The action came after Kanu released a video accusing Fulani herdsmen of destroying farmlands.
Kanu, published a video showing some men said to be members of the Eastern Security Network, a vigilante group he formed in Nigeria, engaged in massive killing of cows in settlements said to belong to herdsmen.
In a statement, Facebook said deleting Nnamdi Kanu’s page is in line with the its regulations of posting feeds that are defamatory in nature.
A member of the Eastern Security Network group said they’d appeal against the banning, maintaining that the ban excludes Radio Biafra and its other social media accounts/platforms.
Kanu’s Facebook page has always been the platform of IPOB members worldwide.
It could be recalled that Nigeria’s government had proscribed the group and declared it a terrorist group in 2017.
Meanwhile IPOB has condemned the blockage of its leader’s account.
IPOB’s Media and Publicity secretary, Emma Powerful, in a statement, the group described Facebook’s action as disgraceful and irrelevant and accused that it’s handiwork of Nigeria’s government whilst describing the Facebook as a collaborator of mass killings.
The statement: “We strongly condemn this attitude of Facebook managers in Lagos and Abuja who collude with corrupt Nigeria government officials to suppress free flow of information via their platform. This unconscionable and reprehensible attitude amounts to partnering with perpetrators of human rights abuses and other criminal activities masterminded by the Nigerian State against innocent citizens.
“The Fulani-controlled Federal Government and its foot soldiers – terrorist herdsmen and bandits – have continued to subjugate indigenous nations in the country, including Biafra, with the intent for conquest. These foot soldiers on daily basis unleash all sorts of mayhem on the innocent and hapless indigenous peoples while the Federal Government mischievously remains docile.
“These vampires masquerading as herdsmen have forcibly seized our forests and converted our farms to grazing fields for their cattle. They have equally turned our ancestral lands to slaughterhouses where they kill with impunity, in most dehumanizing manners, innocent locals going about their legitimate business.”