Omololu Ogunmade in London
The Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) Thursday was at the Buckinham Palace in London where the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is taking place to protest what it described as continuous killings of the Igbo in Nigeria.
Leading the protest, Dr. Justice Ukachi Lois, National Coordinator IPOB in the United Kingdom, said members of the group opted to bring the protest to the venue of CHOGM to draw the attention of the Commonwealth body to the plights of their people under the Nigerian government.
Ukachi, who said they were also staging the protest because they were commonwealth citizens, alleged that the same fate his people suffered 50 years ago was still befalling them today.
He also said the decision to stage the protest at the forum of CHOGM had become compelling because members of the group had not been listening to them.
“Being the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting, we have to make our presence felt because of the way Buhari who is the head of Nigerian government is maltreating our people, the Biafrans.
“Yes, it should. It highlights, telling people around the world that the ongoing genocide which started about 50 years ago is still going on under the same person who was there in the 50s, killing our people. And he seems to be getting away with it and he’s parading as a head of state
“They are least listening. I know they are under the umbrella of British government because of the genesis, where they all came from, being Commonwealth citizens. But it’s ironic that Commonwealth citizens are being massacred by one of the heads of state and no one is saying a word about it,” he claimed.
He also accused world media of turning deaf ears to what he described as Biafran persecution, claiming that “all the things going on do not get a mention in the press.”
He added: “It’s ironic BBC doesn’t talk about it, ABC doesn’t talk about it.â€
He also said it is in the interest of the British government to see Nigeria as one country from which it does not only have political benefits but also economic gains
According to him, the protest was meant to tell everyone that they were fed up with killings of their kinsmen, claiming that they had lost over six million persons so far.
“If the money is actually going to the people who deserve it, that’s a different matter. The land where the oil is coming from is polluted. The gas is flared everyday.
“They haven’t got decent schooling. They can’t farm. They can’t fish and their livelihood is destroyed and yet, they don’t have peace and when you protest, they kill you.
“So, that’s why we come here to protest and to let the world know and finally, to say that POB has been proscribed and labelled terrorists while those killing them are getting away with it,” he alleged.‎
