The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has warned the presidential candidates seeking to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in May 2023 to desist from using its detained leader Nnamdi Kanu to campaign ahead of next month’s election.
IPOB gave the warning on Wednesday, February 1, 2023, in a statement by its Media and Publicity Secretary, Emma Powerful, while reacting to the promise made by the presidential candidate of the People Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar to grant the unconditional release of Kanu, if elected.
The Director-General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Professor Obiora Okonkwo, yesterday, said Atiku has the plan to restore peace in the South-East and releasing the IPOB leader is one of them.
Okonkwo made this assertion barely 48 hours that Kanu’s international spokesperson and American counsel, Bruce Fein called on Atiku, Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi to promise to free the self-determination leader from the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) if any of them becomes next country’s leader.
Reacting to Okonkwo’s statement, IPOB said PDP should demand that the federal government release their leader and not use it in the campaign.
“IPOB leadership wish to state that its leader should on no account be used as a political bargaining chip for Nigerian election,” the statement said.
It said, “Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been judicially declared an innocent man and that follows that he must be released from his continued illegal detention and torture by this present government of APC. We do not expect anything contrary but that the judgement of the Court of Appeal is implemented.
“Moreover the leadership of IPOB wants to inform the PDP that in as much as we have no issue with their statement, their focus should be to demand that the Nigerian government obey the judgement of their own court.
“Our demand has and will remain consistent irrespective of which person or party is occupying Aso Rock the Nigerian seat of power. Our Self Determination agitation is our inalienable right and that is the reason we have demanded a referendum which is a democratic process to enable Biafrans to determine their fate and decide where they wish to belong whether in Nigeria or in a free and Sovereign Biafran nation.”
‘IPOB kidnapped our female lieutenant’ – Nigerian Army Vows To Rescue Her
Authorities of the Nigerian Army, on Friday, December 30, 2022, said that one of its officers, Lieutenant PP Johnson who was abducted on Monday, December 26, 2022, by suspected IPOB/ESN militants in Imo state while visiting her grandmother, is yet to be released contrary to insinuations to that effect.
This is just as the Army has vowed that it will leave no stone unturned in its effort to rescue the officer and bring the perpetrators to book.
Onyema Nwachukwu, the director of Army Public Relations, who made this known on Friday, December 30, 2022, said, “The Nigerian Army wishes to state that the information making the rounds is unsubstantiated as the officer is yet to be released or rescued from her abductors.
“Likewise, the video footage being circulated and associated with the rescue claim is an old video of the arrest of a suspect earlier effected by troops.
The statement reads further, “The attention of the Nigerian Army (NA) has been drawn to some publications circulating in the social media insinuating the rescue of Lieutenant PP Johnson, a female officer who was abducted on Monday 26 December 2022 while visiting her grandmother in Aku-Okigwe in Imo state, shortly after completion of her Cadet training and subsequent commissioning as a Lieutenant into the Nigerian Army.
“A video footage of her abduction had emerged in the social media where her abductors claimed her abduction was in line with their fight for Biafra against the Nigerian State.
“It is instructive that the officer’s circumstance as a woman and a Nigerian citizen of South Eastern extraction did not dissuade her abductors from dehumanizing her in their mindless attempt to commit atrocities under the guise of fighting for Biafra.
This evidently is another pointer to the myriads of crimes being unleashed by IPOB/ESN on Ndigbo, the very people they claim to be fighting for their emancipation.
“It should therefore be crystal clear to those who are still in doubt of the true status of these groups, that IPOB/ESN are terrorists, masquerading as freedom fighters and do not deserve the support of anyone particularly the good people of South East Nigeria.
“Much as we appreciate the concern and goodwill of the general public for her safe rescue, we also wish to note that the information on the rescue of the officer did not emanate from the NA.
“The Nigerian Army will leave no stone unturned in its effort to rescue the officer and bring the perpetrators to book.
“We appeal to the general public to provide credible and reliable information that could lead to her safe rescue and arrest of the perpetrators.”
Source: Vanguard
