IGBO separatist group the Supreme Council of Elders of Indigenous People of Biafra (Scipob) has distanced itself from the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) and its ongoing violent campaign to bring the nation to its needs.
Since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed power last May, agitation against marginalisation has grown in southern Nigeria. In the Niger delta, groups like the NDA have taken up arms blowing up oil installation, while across Igboland, organisations like the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) have been calling for secession from Nigeria.
Ipob wants to recreate the defunct republic if Biafra that briefly existed between July 1967 and January 1970 and its members have been seeking an alliance with groups like NDA. However Scipob said that it will have nothing to do with violent agitation as it leads to war, which is a horrible experience.
Dr Dozie Ikedife, a former Ohanaeze Ndigbo president and Scipob's deputy chairman, said there was no such thing as an alliance of Ipob with any group. He added that as a man who saw the Biafra war from the beginning to the end and witnessed how millions of people were slaughtered and property worth billions destroyed because of the struggle for self- determination, he would never support any violence.
According to Dr Ikedife, nobody in his right senses would talk about a repeat of the 30-months genocidal war that inflicted pains and sorrows on almost every family in Biafra land. He dismissed the notion of forming a united front to confront the government militarily, adding that it would end in tears.
Comments
Post a Comment