IPOB Tackles Akpabio over Alleged Threat to Crush Biafra Agitation with FG’s Might 

*Insists Igbo youths not engaged in armed struggle 

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Enugu 

Senate President, Godswill Akpabio has come under attacksby the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) over his veiled warning that the Biafra self-determination was doomed to fail as the federal government would crush it with force.

Akpabio was quoted in a statement from his media office to have called on elders and leaders in the Southeast to steer the youths away from armed struggle against federal government in quest for Biafra self-determination.

He reportedly made the appeal weekend at the funeral of a former Administrative Secretary of the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Area Development Commission(OMPADEC), Sir Albert Nnamani, held in Ikem, Enugu State.

“A situation whereby you try to wrestle power and try to assert independence through armed struggle from the federal government will fail. The state power will always overwhelm you,” Akpabio said.

But IPOB in a statement yesterday by its spokesman, Emma Powerful, faulted the Senate President’s reference to armed struggle, saying Biafra, a self-determination movement, has never been fashioned as armed struggle.

“Let it be stated again, without ambiguity: IPOB is not engaged in armed struggle against Nigeria. IPOB’s position has never changed. IPOB is founded on one simple democratic demand: a referendum. Nothing more. Nothing less,” the group said.

IPOB noted that though Akpabio couched his address as peace message, “it was a threat and political blackmail wrapped in funeral rhetoric” hence his direct attack on the Biafra self-determination movement was glaring. 

The group said Akpabio could not pretend to be unaware that no group was involved in armed struggle in the Southeast, adding that the quest for self-determination through referendum.

“A referendum is not war. A referendum is not terrorism. A referendum is not armed struggle. A referendum is the most democratic expression of political will known to any civilised people.

“It is, in fact, more legitimate than Nigeria’s fraudulent four-year electoral cycle built on coercion, rigging, suppression, and elite bargaining masquerading as democracy,” IPOB stated.

The Biafra agitation group said the Senate President and the ruling political class should accept that self-determination is an internationally recognised right, and stop “dangling the tired political carrot of ‘an additional state’ and recycled promises of inclusion.
“The people of Biafra are not asking Akpabio for permission to exist. They are not asking Abuja for permission to think. They are not asking the Nigerian State for permission to decide their political future. That decision belongs exclusively to the people themselves.”