Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has rescheduled his campaign activities in the Southeast to exclude Mondays, the unofficial sit-at-home day observed in the region in the name of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
A high-level campaign official told that the decision was made for the strategic reason of not putting the lives of supporters at risk.
“We wanted to make a bold statement to non-state actors that they cannot dictate to us, but at the end of the day wise counsel prevailed,” the official said.“We could have gone there with a battalion of soldiers and nothing would happen but are we going to leave the soldiers with our supporters permanently,” the Tinubu campaign official said on the decision to heed the IPOB observance. The official also observed that holding engagements on Mondays could also have affected the turnout as many supporters would be afraid to come out for fear that their lives could be cut short on the road to events.
With this new reality, the zonal stakeholders’ meeting earlier scheduled to hold in Imo State on Monday, November 21, has now been pushed forward to Tuesday.
The rally for Anambra also scheduled for Monday, January 30, has also been moved to Tuesday according to the adjusted presidential campaign timetable, which was released by the campaign council on Friday night
IPOB had in August 2021 declared a sit-at-home order on the Southeast and for every day that the group’s leader is taken to court. However, upon strident calls from stakeholders that the order was killing businesses in the region, IPOB lifted the order, however, there are assertions that criminal groups and other non-state actors have now weighed in to implement the order.