According to constitutional lawyer Mike Ozekhome (SAN), the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) are not a violent group as the Federal Government portrays them.
On Wednesday, he stated this while delivering a lecture at the 11th Zik’s lecturer series at Nnamdi Azikwe University in Awka, Anambra State.
Ozekhome claimed that security agents attacked and killed many IPOB members in Afara Ukwu, Umuahia, the home country of the group’s leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
He claimed Kanu is not a separatist but a self-determination agitator, emphasizing that he is opposing a globally recognized self-determination course.
As a result, the lawyer pleaded with President Muhammadu Buhari to release Kanu, claiming that his continued detention would exacerbate the insecurity in the South East.
He said:
Nnamdi Kanu is not a separatist, he is fighting a self-determination course that is globally recognised. IPOB didn’t start violent, it was peaceful until September 14 when the army invaded Kanu’s home.
Let me seize this opportunity to beg Mr. President, on bended knees, without prejudice, to release Nnamdi Kanu. We’re not saying he should subvert justice. What will bring peace to the region is not his continued detention.
IPOB is not a violent group, it is the Federal Government and security agents who went and attacked them and killed many on Afara Ukwu, Umuahia where Kanu escaped by whiskers.
Claims that Nigeria is indivisible, according to Ozekhome, are laughable, and those who make such claims should learn from the breakaway Republic of Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asia, among others.
He regretted that successive leader had taken the nation’s unity, indivisibility, and indissolubility for granted, emphasizing the importance of nurturing the indices that ensure unity.
He said:
I heartily guffaw at times when I hear Nigerian leaders mouth moral platitudes and ineffective liberal disquisitions about the indivisibility and indissolubility of Nigeria.
I roar with laughter, because, old Russia made the same historical mistake. It was forced to dissolve on December 26, 1991, by declaration No. 142 – H of the Soviet the Republic of the Supreme Soviet.
We must be careful to think that Nigerian is indivisible. We must nurture those indices that guarantee unity. No right-thinking Nigerian can fault Chinua Achebe ascertain that the problem of Nigeria is leadership.
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