IPOB Tackles Akpabio over Alleged Threat to Crush Biafra Agitation with Federal Might
. Insists Igbo youths not engaged in armed struggle
Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Enugu
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, has come under attack by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) over his veiled warning that the Biafra self-determination is doomed to fail as the federal government would crush it with force.
Akpabio was quoted in a statement from his media office to have called on elders and leaders in the Southeast to steer the youths away from armed struggle against the federal government in quest for Biafra self-determination.
He reportedly made the appeal last weekend at the funeral of a former Administrative Secretary of the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Area Development Commission(OMPADEC), Sir Albert Nnamani, held in Ikem, Enugu State.
He said: “A situation whereby you try to wrest power and try to assert independence through armed struggle from the federal government will fail. The state power will always overwhelm you.”
But IPOB in a statement issued yesterday by its spokesman, Emma Powerful, faulted the Senate president’s reference to armed struggle, saying that the Biafra, a self-determination movement, has never been fashioned as armed struggle.
According to him, “Let it be stated again, without ambiguity: IPOB is not engaged in armed struggle against Nigeria. IPOB’s position has never changed. IPOB is founded on one simple democratic demand: a referendum. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
IPOB noted that though Akpabio couched his address as peace message, “it was a threat and political blackmail wrapped in funeral rhetoric” hence his direct attack on the Biafra self-determination movement was glaring.
The group said that Akpabio could not pretend to be unaware that no group is involved in armed struggle in the Southeast, adding that the quest is for self-determination through referendum
“A referendum is not war. A referendum is not terrorism. A referendum is not armed struggle. A referendum is the most democratic expression of political will known to any civilised people.
“It is, in fact, more legitimate than Nigeria’s fraudulent four-year electoral cycle built on coercion, rigging, suppression, and elite bargaining masquerading as democracy,” IPOB stated.
The Biafra agitation group said that the Senate president and the ruling political class should accept that self-determination is an internationally recognised right, and stop “dangling the tired political carrot of ‘an additional state’ and recycled promises of inclusion.
“The people of Biafra are not asking Akpabio for permission to exist. They are not asking Abuja for permission to think. They are not asking the Nigerian State for permission to decide their political future. That decision belongs exclusively to the people themselves.”
Quoting Section 14(2)(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), and Article 20(1) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, IPOB insisted that self-determination is not a crime but a legitimate right.
IPOB insisted that self-determination is not a crime as the Constitution states in language too clear to be manipulated that “sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom the government through this constitution derives all its powers and authority.”
The group argued that “where sovereignty belongs to the people, the right to determine political destiny cannot be converted into the private monopoly of a political class living off managed coercion and electoral fraud.
“Only the people of Biafra have the sovereign right to determine how they wish to be governed-whether within Nigeria or outside it. That is the democratic question on the table. It is not for Akpabio to threaten. It is not for Abuja to suppress. It is for the people to decide.”
IPOB slammed Akpabio for “deliberately falsifying the issue” of Biafra self-determination, adding that the Senate President and his ilk “must understand they are dealing with a highly sophisticated and intellect-driven IPOB.”
It pointed out that Akpabio has “framed a referendum movement as ‘armed struggle’ because the Nigerian State cannot defeat the democratic legitimacy of Biafra agitation on its merits.”
IPOB stated that the federal government resorted “to criminalise and distort the Biafra movement, and repackage a lawful political demand as militancy in order to justify repression” after its lies and propaganda failed.
It reiterated that it has “consistently maintained a public, documented, and unambiguous position (that) our demand is self-determination by referendum.
“What IPOB will not do is surrender the inalienable right of our people because frightened political actors in Abuja are uncomfortable with the consequences of democratic choice,” the group said.