The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has said the Nigerian government should conduct a ‘Biafra referendum’ as soon as possible.
The separatist group said the country will implode if Nigeria fails to organise a referendum for southeasterners to decide if they want to leave Nigeria.
The group gave the warning in a statement by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, while reacting to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement in Anambra State that Biafra is dead and that it was buried on January 13, 1970.
Obasanjo, while speaking as a special guest at Governor Charles Soludo’s one-year-in-office celebration in Awka, Anambra State capital in March, said that he believed that Biafra died and was buried on January 13, 1970, when the civil war ended.
IPOB said Biafra is not dead and was never buried but much alive.
The secessionist group noted that the surrendering officer, General Philip Effiong, warned Nigeria to treat the descendants of Biafra well or they would rise up to continue the demand for a separate country.
“Can Chief Obasanjo be sincere to himself that his government and subsequent ones treated Biafrans as equals in this country?
“We want to ask Chief Obasanjo, has there been any ethnic group in Nigeria that has been subjugated, maltreated, deprived, discriminated against, profiled, hated, militarized, and their youths murdered by the Nigeria State like Biafrans?” IPOB stated.
IPOB said, “The hatred against Ndigbo in Nigeria is visible even to the blind.
“We should not have responded to Chief Obasanjo, but we want him to bear in mind that Biafra is coming and very soon. We wish that God Almighty will keep him, Gowan, and other Biafra genocidists alive to witness and celebrate Biafrans whose mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and ancestors they butchered in cold blood because of ethnic profiling and hatred from 1967-1970.
“The hatred we are witnessing today from other Nigerians, if the country does not conduct Biafra referendum in peace, will soon cause it to implode in a more devastating way. This time, every part of Nigeria will feel the heat.”
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It continued, “Chief Obasanjo, who wondered why there is “Igbophobia” in Nigeria, was the same president who oversaw an evil policy to close all seaports in Biafra territory in his show of hatred. He ensured that Lagos became the only operational seaport in Nigeria, thereby putting Biafran territory at an economic disadvantage over his Yoruba territory.
“We want Chief Obasanjo to know that Biafra is not dead and definitely not buried. No amount of propaganda and blackmail against the IPOB movement will make us change our resolve to restore Biafra. We either restore Biafra or we die restoring Biafra. That’s why we say Biafra or Biafra or Biafra.”
