The leader
of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, on Monday, said Igbo must not
vacate the North, or any other part of the country, as a condition for the
actualisation
of the agitation for Biafra.
The IPOB
leader spoke in an interview with some journalists in Enugu, where he received
awards from a number of pan-Igbo groups, including the Igbo Women Assembly, the
Eastern Consultative Assembly and the Igbo Students Union.
Reacting to
the ‘quit notice’ issued to Igbo in the North by a coalition of Arewa youths,
Kanu noted that secession from Nigeria did not imply that Igbo must leave the
North, or other part of the country as suggested by the ultimatum issued by the
northern youths.
He said,
“You are aware that Scotland is seeking to leave the United Kingdom? Are you
remotely implying that every person from Scotland, who lives in England, should
now return to Scotland?
“Britain
just left the EU. Are you now implying that every British citizen in the EU
should come back to Britain in order to finalise that process of extraction of
Britain from the EU?”
Kanu noted
that what he described as “poor education” was responsible for the impression
that Igbo must leave other parts of Nigeria in the event of the actualisation
of Biafra.
The Biafran
agitator added that he would not take issue with the Arewa youths, who he
described as “inconsequential.”
Kanu,
nonetheless, warned that Igbo, who resided in the North, were doing so at their
own peril.
According to
him, Igbo resident in the North are “sacrificial lambs” who could be killed at
any moment.
Asked if
Igbo in the North should ignore the notice to quit, the IPOB leader stated, “It
is up to them. They have been in the North, and they (northerners) have been
killing us (Igbo) since 1945.
“If you
choose to live in the North, you choose to be a sacrificial lamb because one
day, they will kill you. It is a choice they have made and they will have to
live with it.”
Kanu
insisted that the governorship poll in Anambra State, scheduled to hold on
November 18, 2017, would not hold unless the Federal Government acceded to
pro-Biafran agitators’ demand for a referendum.
Asked if he
was not bothered that Ohanaeze Ndigbo had overruled his call for the boycott of
the poll, Kanu said he was in charge of the people “100 per cent.”
He added,
“No, I’m not (bothered) because the people are with us. We control the people
100 per cent and come Anambra, on the 18th of November, 2017, the whole world
will be amazed.”
Although he
said he was certain that the people of Anambra would boycott the election, Kanu
said IPOB did not intend to stop anybody who decided to vote.
“We are
entirely peaceful. We are not stopping anyone from voting. If you want to vote,
you can go and vote. We are democrats,” he said.
Kanu added
that the planned referendum would, once and for all, settle the debate between
Biafra and restructuring.
The IPOB
leader said, “We are calling for a referendum so that the people can actually
decide, once and for all, what they want, for themselves; not anybody deciding
for them.
“I have not
argued Biafra from the standpoint of absolutism. I am not saying you must vote
for Biafra. I am asking the powers that be in Nigeria to allow the people to
determine for themselves.”
Reacting to
his bail conditions, the IPOB leader said the court, which barred him from
granting interviews, could not stop him from speaking.
He said, “I
am not giving an interview, I am responding to the question you asked me. The
judge is a very learned fellow. She cannot stop me from speaking.”
Earlier,
Kanu had assured a delegation of the Igbo Women Assembly, led by Mrs. Maria
Okwor, that the menace posed by Fulani herdsmen in parts of the South-East
“would come to an end before the end of the year.”
He equally
told members of the Igbo Students Union, who honoured him with the title of
‘Light of the People’, to join IPOB and propagate the struggle for Biafra on
the social media.
Meanwhile,
IPOB, on Monday, alleged that some top politicians were plotting to kill Kanu,
its leader, and other principal officers of the group.
It said huge
amount of money and political patronages had been offered to certain people to
execute the plot.
In a
statement by the group’s Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, IPOB
said any attack on Kanu would radicalise the Biafra struggle in a manner nobody
could stop.
The group
named certain governors, an elder statesman, a socio-cultural organisation, a
security chief and a religious head as some of those masterminding the plot.
The
statement added, “But we promise them that any attack on Nnamdi Kanu or
assassination attempt will radicalise the struggle for Biafran independence to
the point which no one can contain.
“We are
reminding those evil plotters that if anything happens to our leader, Nnamdi
Kanu, who has been using non-violent methods for Biafran liberation since the
inception of IPOB, that they will experience what they have not seen before
since the creation of the contraption called Nigeria by the British.”
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