‘We welcome Buhari’s declaration that any Nigerian can leave’
IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu
Ihuoma Chiedozie, Enugu
The Indigenous People of Biafra, on Wednesday, reacted to President Muhammadu Buhari’s declaration that any Nigerian who has another country to relocate to should do so.
Buhari made the statement at a meeting with Niger Delta leaders in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Tuesday.
“We are determined to make life comfortable and affordable to all Nigerians. If anybody has a country to go to, let him go, we will stay here and salvage our country,” the President said.
However, reacting to the development, IPOB said it welcomed Buhari’s statement.
The secessionist group said the statement shows that Buhari was already considering what it described as the ‘inevitable disintegration of Nigeria’.
IPOB spoke in a statement entitled, “IPOB welcomes Muhammadu Buhari’s declaration on the impending disintegration of Nigeria, but says no to conditions”, which was jointly signed by Barrister Emma Mmezu and Dr. Clifford Iroanya.
The pro-Biafra group said, “We the IPOB are delighted with the comments attributed to retired Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, who seems to have bowed to international pressure to consider the inevitable disintegration of Nigeria, though with conditions we find inconsistent with common sense and logic.”
However, the group accused Buhari of attempting to exclude the Niger Delta from Biafra.
The statement added, “We observed that hidden in the statements of Buhari are two evil agendas: First evil agenda is that Buhari made this statement in a meeting he had with Biafrans from the riverine or southern part of Biafra which the Hausa-Fulani oligarchy nicknamed South-South or Niger-Delta.
“The underlying objective in Buhari’s statement is to create the impression that the South-South is not part of Biafraland, hence the upland areas of Biafra, Igbo, can leave Nigeria while the riverine areas Ibibio, Efik, Izon, Itshekiri, Urhobo, Isoko will remain part of Nigeria.”
IPOB stressed that the struggle for Biafra has nothing to do with the oil in the Niger Delta area.
The group stressed there is oil extraction activities in parts of Imo, Anambra and Abia states.
“Successive governments of Nigeria have continued to deceive the gullible public that the reason we, IPOB, are agitating for Biafra is because of oil in the Niger Delta region, without making obvious the fact that oil was first found in commercial quantity in Imo State before Oloibiri in Bayelsa State.
“Sadly many people are still ignorant of the fact that active oil and gas extraction is happening today in Anambra, Imo, Abia and Igbo parts of Rivers State,” the statement added.
IPOB further accused the Federal Government of giving a ‘false’ impression that the people of the Niger Delta believed in the concept of ‘one Nigeria’.
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