A group of Igbo professionals under the aegis of Coalition of South East Professionals Network in Nigeria and Diaspora (CSEPNND) has accused ‘desperate’ politicians of sponsoring the leader of the proscribed separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, to scuttle the chances of the zone to produce the next President in 2023.
Condemning the activities of IPOB and its leader, the Igbo professionals, urged the Southeast governors, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and we’ll meaning Igbo sons and daughters to rise against the proscribed group by denouncing it publicly.
It insisted that “the region must be vigilant and not succumb to Kanu’s antics of speaking or carrying out his actions for the South East interest”.
In a statement, signed by its National President, Prof. Madumere Chika and National Secretary, Mazi Anayo Uchemba, Friday, the group alleged that a certain Nigerian politician from the South is bankrolling Kanu to scuttle Igbo’s quest for presidency in 2023.
It claimed that it has been vindicated of its earlier position that certain forces were behind the IPOB leader and his inglorious activities following current happenings around him.
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“We wish to authoritatively say that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is not working for the interest of Ndigbo, rather he is being bankrolled by a certain Nigerian politician who is contesting the 2023 presidential elections from the South against the Igbos,” it alleged.
“We are vindicated by the findings and happenings around Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the fugitive leader of IPOB, and we call on all Ndigbo around the World to distance themselves from this Kanu and his terrorist group,” it added.
According to the Igbo group, “this politician is doing this through some of his key aides to cause disaffection in Nigeria between the Igbos and other regions of our country.”
“The politician, having realized that the general mood in the country now is the high sympathy Nigerians have for Igbo people in 2023 general elections, decided to employ this method to set Ndigbo up against Nigeria and we must not allow this,” it further said.
It alleged that “Nnamdi Kanu held several meetings with these people in the month of December in France and another meeting on the 10th and 11th of January 2021.”
“This is why we have always warned people on the character of Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB, that they are on self- serving mission and not an Igbo agenda.
“Kanu is working with some fifth columnists that are out to rob Ndigbo of the presidency come 2023. We must not allow this fugitive to succeed.
“We are aware that apart from the little dues IPOB extorts from members and sympathizers, his major funding come from these desperate politicians.
“Their aim is to portray the Igbos as enemies of Nigeria who don’t deserve the presidency. The simple logic is that you can’t be fighting for the presidency of a country you do not believe in. This is the evil agenda these politicians are trying to sell to Nigerians using our own very son. We must never allow this evil plot to succeed. Kanu cannot trade the destinies of Igbos for his own personal comfort. It must be clear that Kanu does not love Ndigbo like he claims. Rather, he is our enemy,” the group said.
“As Igbo processionals, we wish to inform all that Kanu is alone in his cessation project and has no reasonable person behind him,” it reiterated.
It argued that the South East region had not had its fair share in the one Nigeria project, the Igbo group said the pursuit of an inclusive government must be channelled through appropriate lawful means.
“Though our people are highly marginalized and deserve the right for agitation, but that must be done legally and by the appropriate people not a deviant young man like Nnamdi Kanu who is out for his selfish interest,” it said.
“Kanu has always lamented the treatment of people from the South East zone by the Nigerian government and by other Nigerians. This formed the reason for his agitation for a country of his own.
“However, while Kanu has a right to legally clamour for whatever he believes in, he should also know that the Igbo Nation has recognized spokespersons in the forms of the governors, legislators and Ohaneze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural group. Any serious statements are supposed to come from these people after extensive consultations”, the statement noted.
According to the group, “Igbo people deserve the Presidency this time around. They have all it takes to produce the next president of Nigeria and that is what we should be pushing for now with one strong voice in unity and sincerity of purpose. ”
It noted further that, “we cannot be demanding for president of Nigeria on one hand and on the other hand, supporting IPOB which is being fraudulently financed by Kanu and his agents to destabilize a united Nigeria through cessation and a parallel security organization.”
“We are therefore calling on all Ndigbo worldwide to rise up against Kanu and everything he stands for.
“We also call on all South East governors to initiate mass community advocacy against Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB.
“We finally call on all Nigerians to ignore the activities of Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB as they do not represent what we are in the South East and can never be. A fugitive like Kanu cannot speak for us,” it stressed.
Nnamdi Kanu: Referendum permanent solution to Nigeria’s Multi-dimensional woes
The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has said that only a referendum can solve the multi-dimensional woes of Nigeria.
Kanu in a statement issued on his behalf by the Publicity Secretary of the group, Comrade Emma Powerful said that it is ironic that Nigeria is still remembering the genocidal war of 1967- 1970; a war the group claimed was planned to annihilate the people of the Old Eastern region.
Kanu in the statement claimed that one of the major reasons the memories of that war cannot be easily erased from the minds of Biafrans is “that today the oppressors have continued to repeat the same actions they visited on us with more impunity.
“Instead of treating Biafrans as equal stakeholders in the affairs of the country they have continued to subjugate and hunt down our people with the help collaborators in government houses in the east and Igbo professional traitors based in Abuja & Lagos.
“IPOB family members and other Biafran agitators have remained daily targets of the oppressor and their security agencies who see the South as a conquered territory and its indigenous inhabitants ripe for elimination at all cost.
“The question every rational being must as is this; why is Nigeria living in self-denial? Despite repeated warnings, sometimes from those who previously worked against Biafra, that Nigeria is fast traveling on the same highway that led to the war in 1967, those at the helm of leadership in the Zoo that laughably refer to themselves as the ‘elites’ have chosen to play the ostrich.
“Instead of playing to the gallery with warm words and empty promises, the time has come for these mischievous political hoodlums masquerading as elites in Nigeria to courageously do the needful and permanently address the root cause of the ever growing agitations across the Luggardian contraption.
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“There is only one universally acknowledged solution to the problems bedeviling One Nigeria, it is called Referendum.
“This will enable and more importantly give the various ethnic nationalities forcibly clamped together into the undesirable British engineered colonial cage, the choice to decide whether or not they wish to continue their miserable coexistence or not.
“I understand the fear and apprehension of ethnic groups in Arewa core North living under Fulani hegemonic bondage. We would like to reassure them that Biafra won’t abandon them.
“The Biafra project is designed to set every oppressed group within Nigeria free, not just the long suffering people of the East.
“A referendum or plebiscite remains the best tool to determine the fate of the masses not the dictates of half-educated semi-literate corrupt nonentities in Abuja.
“This is 51 years after Harold Wilson’s failed attempt to wipe out the entire Igbo Biafran race from the face of the earth.
“The Fulani agents of neo-colonialism he used have now perfected the same art of using compromised individuals in the East to frustrate our march towards freedom for all.
“They cannot succeed because the people they have been deceiving over the years are now smarter.
“We agree with most of the germane issues raised at the webinar conference organized yesterday by Nzuko Umunna which further exposed some of the atrocities committed against Biafrans in the genocidal war 51 years ago. This was purely to let them know that we have not forgotten what they did to our fathers and mothers between 1966 and 1970.
“From the sensible contributions of eminent Nigerians in that gathering, it’s now obvious to the Fulani ruling cabal running the country that no one is happy with what is happening.
“Those frank observations emanated from the few prominent and respected Nigerians including politicians and religious leaders. This is a reminder to those thinking that they have pocketed Nigeria to stop living in self-delusion.
“The youths of Nigeria are rising to rescue the country from those who have taken it hostage. Biafra will soon bid farewell to the contraption and no force can stop this divine movement.
“IPOB is perfecting arrangement to ensure that Biafra is restored without another war but if our oppressors refuse to heed our calls for referendum, then they will later realize that IPOB is determined to pay whatever sacrifice to free our people from this bondage.”
