We are not planning to invade any court—Madu

By Innocent Anaba,  Anayo Okoli & Ugochukwu Alaribe

ABA—Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign States of Biafra, MASSOB, has faulted President Muhammadu Buhari’s claim that Nigeria won’t tolerate Biafra, stressing that there is no going back on the move by the people of the former Eastern region to actualize an independent state of Biafra.

In an interview with Vanguard in Aba, MASSOB Leader, Chief Solomon Chukwu, who reminded President Buhari that the struggle for Biafra has gone past the stage where any force could abort it, argued that the people of the former Eastern region have tolerated Nigeria for too long, and can no longer bear glaring injustice, but remained determined to actualize an independent state where they would find greater satisfaction.

According to him, “I think President Buhari missed the point when he said Nigeria won’t tolerate Biafra. He needs to be reminded that Biafra had gone past that stage. Between Nigeria and Biafra; it is Biafra who had tolerated injustice for too long. Now we are determined to go; Biafra means freedom, satisfaction, expression and accommodation for the people of the former Eastern region, which they can’t find in Nigeria. The people of the former Eastern region have no future in Nigeria where we are treated as second class citizens.  “So, Mr. President was only pretending on the issue of Biafra. Biafra had tolerated Nigeria for too long. Now, we are determined to go. It is no longer how, but when. Biafra is at hand.”

Chukwu who spoke through MASSOB’s National Director of Information, Sunny Okereafor accused Buhari of double standard through his support for the granting of statehood to Palestine while he continues to frustrate the agitation for Biafra, including the killing and detention of the agitators.

No plan to invade court

Nnamdi Kanu

Meantime, the  Uchenna Madu led faction of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, has denied the allegation by the Department of State Services, DSS, that some Biafra agitators planned to invade the court and forcefully free their leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, saying that MASSOB and IPOB had no such agenda.

MASSOB in a statement issued by the factional leader, Comrade Uchenna Madu described the allegation as “ranting of a confused and drowning people.”

He said: “How can a non-violent and armless organization like IPOB and MASSOB invade a courtroom located on the   3rd floor of the Federal High Court surrounded by heavily armed combined team of Nigeria security agents and modern technological security gadgets.

“MASSOB and IPOB have no such intention, plan or agenda as we know that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and others committed no offence against Nigeria.

“The insistence of the Federal Government to hide the identity of their witnesses against Nnamdi Kanu and others is a sign of cowardice and unsteadiness.

“They have no genuine witnesses now because the contracted ones have been exposed. It remains only the staff of DSS who will appear with Igbo names to create negative impression that Ndigbo are against Nnamdi Kanu.

“FG has shot itself on the leg. For a soft landing, MASSOB advises President Buhari to immediately reach the principal Igbo leaders and release Nnamdi Kanu to them.

“The continued detention of Nnamdi Kanu will bring more devastating diplomatic doom for Nigeria. Biafrans are ready for the trial,” Madu said.

Extra-judicial killings

Also yesterday, Igbo Ekunie Initiative, IEI, comprising individuals in Nigeria and the Diaspora has lodged a case against the Nigerian government at the International Criminal Court, ICC, over the alleged killing of unarmed members of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB in Aba, Abia State by Nigerian troops.

In a statement by the President of the group, Mazi Tochukwu Ezeoke, IEI said though section 14 (2)(b) of the Nigerian constitution expressly states that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government,” the Nigerian government has continued to violate it.

“Whereas chapter 4 section 33 (1) of the Nigerian constitution states that ‘every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, save in the execution of a sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria,’ but the Nigerian government and her agents (army and police) have continued to breach these fundamental dictates of the constitution through the premeditated and unrelenting mass killing of unarmed civilians as happened most recently in Aba, Abia State where scores of unarmed IPOB members were murdered in cold blood by members of the armed forces and police as they held prayers in a school premises and their bodies dumped in a burrow pit in Aba- Port Harcourt  road, Abia State.”

According to him, the frequent and unpunished killing of unarmed civilians by the Buhari administration not only violates  the Nigerian constitution  under whose statutes the state is constituted, but also the United Nations Charter, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and all other conventions to which the Nigerian state is signatory to.