By Valentine Amanze, Online Editor
Facebook has yanked out the Facebook account of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
It explained that the page was removed because the Nigerian separatist leader was violating Facebook’s rules on harm and hate speech.
Kanu had posted a video of a militia group attacking and killing cattle in a herders’ settlement.
He also used the live broadcast to accuse herders of destroying farmlands in eastern Nigeria.
The conflict between herders and other groups is currently one of Nigeria’s hottest political issues.
Kanu leads the IPOB, which campaigns for independence for Nigeria’s South-Eastern region, where the ethnic Igbo people form the majority.
The herders are mostly from the northern Fulani community.
Kanu, who also has British nationality, used his Facebook page as a key platform to communicate with his followers around the world.
The account was blocked on Tuesday.
The militia carrying out the attack in the video he posted are suspected to be from the Eastern Security Network, which Kanu set up, according to BBC report.
A Facebook spokesperson told BBC Igbo: “In line with our rules, we removed Nnamdi Kanu’s page for repeatedly posting content that break those Community Standards, including content that violated our rules on coordinating harm and hate speech.”
Kanu has a huge following in South-Eastern Nigeria.
IPOB said that it would appeal against the ban, describing the action of Facebook “as not only baffling but too petty”.
“We wonder why a global social media giant like Facebook would allow itself to be used by agents of oppression in Nigeria to suppress the truth,” head of media Emma Powerful said.
IPOB is proscribed in Nigeria, which labelled it a terrorist organisation in 2017.
Kanu came to fame in 2009 when he started Radio Biafra and broadcast to Nigeria from London, using the platform to call for Biafran independence and urging his followers to take up arms against the Nigerian state.