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‘Nnamdi Kanu lacks capacity to declare Republic of Biafra’

By Lawrence Njoku, Enugu
27 October 2018   |   4:14 am
A coalition of pro-Biafra groups rose from their meeting in Enugu yesterday declaring that leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu...

Nnamdi Kanu / AFP PHOTO / STEFAN HEUNIS

A coalition of pro-Biafra groups rose from their meeting in Enugu yesterday declaring that leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu lacked the capacity to declare republic of Biafra without consultation with Igbo critical stakeholders.

They stated that republic of Biafra was declared in 1967 by late Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu after due consultations and approved by elders and leaders of Biafra land and cannot be declared again.

Kanu had during his live broadcast on Sunday declared that southeast and south-south geo political zones “are now Biafra republic.”

But four Pro-Biafra groups – the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Eastern People’s Congress (EPC), Bille Human Rights Initiative (BHRI) and Movement of Biafrans in Nigeria (MOBIN) after their meeting dismissed Kanu’s posturing as “mischievous over-statement and absolutely senseless.”

They said: “We make bold to say that Biafra had existed as an independent nation for three years. It is important to remind the entire world that the Nigeria- Biafra civil war (1967 — 1970) ended on the note of ‘no victor, no vanquished.’ Nnamdi Kanu has neither the authority of Ndiigbo nor the capacity to declare a new Republic for the Igbo nation. His address is mischievous, an over statement and absolutely senseless.

“No one has the right to declare the restoration of the Republic of Biafra without full consultations with the Igbo critical stakeholders. The Coalition insists that Biafra is the property of the entire Biafra people, which no single person, no matter how highly placed, has the right to unilaterally decide her faith.

The groups recalled that in 2012, the Supreme Council of Elders of the Indigenous People of Biafra mandated BILIE Human Rights Initiatives to sue the Federal Government of Nigeria on behalf of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra.

“That suit is, at present, being heard in one of the Nigeria’s Federal High Courts in Abuja. The Coalition of Pro-Biafra Groups supports only approaches for Biafra emancipation through diplomacy, and, in accordance with the rule of law as declared by the United Nations Organisations’ (UNO) Charter and Principles and those of the African Union (AU) Commission on Human & Peoples rights. The Coalition, therefore, rejects, in its totality, any approach or strategy by any Igbo citizen or group that tends to provoke brutal confrontations against the State with its severe consequences for our people, while not shying away from the monumental commitments to the struggle for the freedom of the Biafran people,” they said.

The Coalition further rejected any attempt capable of igniting hatred and disharmony among the people and condemned “any act of raining indecent abuses on our elders and desecration of our land and its institutions.

“We urge the good people of Biafra, other groups and citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the world to disregard the purported declaration by Kanu. We maintain that even after Biafran Republic is restored, the people of Biafra shall continue to live peacefully with their neighbours in Africa and other peoples of the world in brotherhood and love because Biafra does not, and will not exist in the air but in its geographical location within the West African sub region,” they said.

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