Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indegenous People of Biafra, IPOB and Director of Radio Biafra, has reportedly sponsored the 2016 Kuje Prisons Football Championship, in Abuja, where he is being detained along two others for alleged treasonable charges.
It was learnt that Kanu declared the competition open, he said his main purpose for sponsoring this year's edition was to enable inmates have freedom and relate with one another.
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Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, exploded from his prison custody when he insisted that his decision to restore the nation of Biafra was not his personal choice but a mandate from the Most High God (Chiukwu-okike-abiama).
Comrade Emma Powerful, the Media and Publicity Secretary of IPOB, who disclosed in a press statement, quoted Kanu as telling some sympathizers who visited him in prison custody that the restoration of the nation of Biafra is a priority and a project that must be achieved under the watchful eyes of the IPOB led by himself, an arduous task that must be accomplished in order to lead his people out of the contraption called Nigeria, without fear of death.
According to Kanu, “the reason my mother gave birth to me was to restore and save Biafrans. I also promise that the Biafran race will be a cleaned up nation and all the people of Biafra will come back home, if they are living outside the country of the new nation. Our people will no longer wander on the road again”.
He queried: “How can I encourage the people of Biafra to work towards the upbringing of Nigeria, when we don’t speak the same language, don’t eat the same food and don’t have the same culture. In fact, if we come to their land to practice our culture and religion, we will be beheaded. Their women wear hijab, and Biafran women don’t, and on the point that our women don’t wear hijab and we don’t practice the same religion, they will see us as infidels and then, we will be beheaded. We are 100 per cent Christians. These people are Muslims who see killing as a culture.
“In Biafra where we originated from, it will be hard for our people to kill a human being, because in my language a human being is called MMANDU, which means in English language the beauty of life. Now, you can see it will never work, the only solution is Biafra."
Nnamdi Kanu further said that "there is no regret in his dictionary," adding that "he is ready to spend a thousand years in a prison."
“And also we are not trying to secede from Nigeria. We are older than Nigeria. You can only talk about seceding if Nigeria is the one that colonized Biafra. But we are older than that contraption. So we can’t secede rather we just want to go back the way we were before the British came. It is Biafra or nothing, Nigerians knows that."
IPOB in a statement signed by its spokeman, Dr Clifford Iroanya and Mr. Emma Mmezu, titled “Obong Victor Attah who is Philip Effiong if Biafra is for Igbo alone,” regretted that “some elders in Biafra land have become the most clueless people in the world and it rings more true for people who are supposedly seen as educated like the former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Victor Attah who last week made an objection against the statement made by the President Muhammadu Buhari that Nigeria's unity is not negotiable.
“While we generally applauded Obong Attah on his response to President Buhari that the unity of Nigeria is negotiable, we regrettably read few days later the same man blabbing and saying Biafra is for the Igbo alone. So, we began to ask ourselves critical questions about this statement coming from the man we respected so much.
“We are forced to ask if Obong Victor Attah lack full knowledge and history about the Biafra civil war or does he not know who was called General Philip Effiong, the Biafran second in command to General Odumegwu Ojukwu, who happened to come from the same state with him, Akwa Ibom.
“With due respect , Biafra is not for Igbo alone, rather, Igbo is one of the tribes that makes up Biafra. In case you forget the history, His Royal Highness Chief Frank Opigo Dawai 111, Amananaowei of Angiama, an elder statesman, politician, educationist, philanthropist and graduate in 1953, became the administrator of Yenegoa Province of Biafra and the Commissioner for Rural Development in 1967.
“Chief Opigo in a meeting summoned by late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu suggested the name “BIAFRA. He gave the name Biafra, after the Bight of Biafra now Bonny and the rest of the old Eastern elders in that meeting including General Odimegwu Ojukwu, adopted the name”.
According to IPOB “as a matter of fact Biafra’s historical record would remain incomplete if this great Ijaw son is not mentioned or remembered. Sir you also forgot that as at the time when Ojukwu declared Biafra, he was Governor of Eastern Region that includes Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states, Old Rivers and Old Cross Rivers were already created by Gowon.
“In other words Biafra consists of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, and Rivers states.Sir your statement that Biafra is only for the Igbo tribe is clueless and we wonder if you were not born before the war.
“Sir, you forgot too soon that Phillip Effiong who is from Akangkang of Ibiono Ibom in Akwa Ibom State, a Chief of General Staff and next to the Head of State General Ojukwu, fought in defense of his people to the last second of the war, General Ojukwu handed over power to General Effiong, leaving for Côte d’Ivoire. Effiong thereafter became Biafra’s new Head of State till his death.
“Henceforth we are ever united now, more stronger than before, more determined, we will never give room and will never tolerate anybody who will instigate the divide and rule tactics used on us by our enemies and we will ever remain fearless before anybody who will stand as an enemy to the restoration of our dear country Biafra, and we hope sir that you will not be one of those people we are talking about”.
The indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, in a statement by its spokesperson, Emma Powerful, has accused leaders of the South East over their lacklustre attitude in speaking out against the continuous incarceration of its embattled leader, Nnmadi Kanu and other pro-Biafra leaders.
IPOB said in the statement, “We condemn the insignificant and jamboree meeting called in Owerri Imo state capital by the Imo state governor Chief Owelle Rochas Okorocha, the meeting organised in Owerri was stage managed by their masters in Aso Rock Abuja.
“We IPOB worldwide wondered why the stooge of those in Abuja would come out to be deceiving our people, therefore we know that some of the people who doesn’t know the real agendas of the meeting were there in other to know the outcome of the meeting which will not hold water because those who organised the meeting had secret agendas.”
“We IPOB worldwide under Nnamdi Kanu become worried why those elders and some governors who attended the meeting organised by the man who destroyed the south east governors forum because of his selfish interest would call them to a meeting in Owerri without calling the meeting in Enugu. Whenever the governors of the south east called meeting in Enugu the saboteur, the governor of Imo state Rochas Okorocha will buycult the meeting and disorganize the sitting in Enugu.
“We all know that the present Enugu state is the headquarter of the eastern region not Owerri, why those elders, traditional rulers and some governors who were present in the meeting refused to asked questions, how can somebody who was dragging the position of who will lead the south east governors forum brain washed them to say against their people? He dragged the position of chairman south east governors forum because his masters in Abuja wants to use him to destabilise the eastern region and it is a mandate given to him by his masters Abuja.
“More so, the meeting was organised and designed to put more fear in the minds of our people by those in Abuja through their agents in Imo state, sit of power in Owerri and some of the saboteurs in our midst, otherwise how can those who claimed to be our leaders did not condemn the killing of unarmed civilians during their evangelism in Onitsha Aug. 30th, the prayer inside the high school at Aba Abia state 9th feb.2016 and the massacre of our people in a cold blood inside the church at Nkpor during the remembrance of the fallen heroes and heroines who died during the genocidal civil war against the people of Biafra in 1967 and 1970.
“Our people were blindfolded by the saboteurs in our land not to talk or take a stand for the release of our leader mazi Nnamdi Kanu and the release of all the pro Biafra who were detained since in different prisons and police cells in Nigeria. This are group of people who claims to be our leaders without the clouts to talk for the plight of the people eastern region,” IPOB said.
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