•IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu
By Pamela Eboh
AWKA – Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has spoken on his recent interaction with the United Nations, disclosing that he presented issues concerning the agitation for the sovereign state of Biafra during a series of meetings he attended in Geneva, Switzerland, with various United Nations agencies and officials.
A statement made available to journalists on Thursday in Awka, Anambra State capital, by IPOB’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Comrade Emma Powerful, said that Kanu in the course of the meetings asked for urgent action to be taken against the numerous rights abuses inflicted daily upon people of Nigeria’s South East region.
The statement said that Kanu harped on the need for the zone to be supported in its quest for self-determination as enshrined in law, statutes and various UN conventions.
It identified issues presented by the IPOB Leader to include “the incessant killing of Biafrans in their own land by terrorist Fulani herdsmen; extortion and killing of Biafran motorcyclists and commercial drivers by Nigerian army and police over refusal to give N50 bribe; killing of Biafrans in the Northern hemisphere by Islamic extremists, disfranchising Biafrans in the western part of the country as well as in the North.”
Others are alleged “illegal take-over of Biafrans’ property by Lagos State Government; systematic oppression and economic emasculation of the Biafran; forceful Islamisation of the country as currently constituted; illegal detention of unarmed agitators; flagrant contempt of court orders; and incessant abduction and extra judicial killings of IPOB family members.”
Kanu said he stressed that all of aforementioned form the basis for the agitation for a separate state of Biafra.
Kanu also raised the issue of the continued illegal detention of publisher and activist Omoleye Sowore; the relentless persecution of members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria led by detained Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky; alleged ongoing tragic ethnic cleansing in the Middle Belt and plight of Christian minorities in the core North.
The statement reads in part: “Presenting the aforementioned matters to the UN with, presumably offers for a better deal than the failed Nigerian State can strike, Kanu and crew seem to have wrecked the Nigerian boat. Certainly he must have gotten reassuring promises to have told his followers that they will no longer be ignored.
“From every indication there is palpable air of assurance that all the years of neglect of Biafra as a global issue requiring serious attention is now a thing of the past.
“The case of RUGA settlement by stealth was also raised and the august body was not left in doubt that Biafrans will never allow Fulami terror settlements in Biafraland.
“Emerging from the meeting yesterday the 18th of September, our leader met a congregation of Biafrans who, on seeing their leader, began to chant his eulogy.
“Addressing the jubilant crowd, Kanu said that every issue concerning our people is now before the various arms and agencies of the United Nations. Our case will no longer be ignored.” (News Express)
