Pro-Biafra group, the Indigenous People of Biafra, on Monday, commended South-East governors for calling for the release of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu.
Kanu, who is also the director of pirate radio channel, Radio Biafra, has been in detention even after a court ordered his release.
The Federal Government is prosecuting Kanu, alongside some other pro-Biafra activists, over alleged offences that border on treasonable felony
Biafra activists, and other stakeholders in the South-East, have accused the governors of not showing concern over Kanu’s travails, as well as lacking interest in the renewed agitation for Biafra in the zone.
The governors were generally seen as not ‘committed to the interests of their people’.
However, the governors, at a meeting of the South-East Governors Forum, in Enugu on Sunday, resolved to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari to press for Kanu’s release.
The governors equally resolved to engage the Federal Government over the pro-Biafra agitation spearheaded by IPOB and the Movement for Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra.
Reacting to the development, IPOB said the South-East governors have ‘summoned courage at last’.
“The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its leadership worldwide commend the South-East Governors Forum for summoning the courage at last to call for the release of our leader from illegal detention in Abuja,” the group said in a statement signed by its spokesman, Mr. Emma Powerful.
IPOB said it was the first time the governors would align with the interests of the people they govern.
But the secessionists equally noted that things would have been better in the South-East, if the governors had been speaking out for their people in the past.
IPOB urged the governors to speak out against the violent activities of Fulani herdsmen in the region.
“This is the first time in recorded history that South-East governors have stood boldly to align themselves with the interest of the masses, which in this case, is the call for Buhari to end the injustice against the people of Biafra by releasing Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader.
“If they had summoned the courage like Governor Fayose of Ekiti State, and former Anambra State governor, Dr. Ezeife, the South-East wouldn’t have been in such a fine moral mess it is today.
“We hope this new found boldness will extend to them speaking up for the victims of Fulani herdsmen attacks in our rural communities.
“It is our prayer and that of every right thinking person that all those in political positions of South-East and South-South extraction would be resolute and steadfast going forward, as our leader has ably demonstrated over the years, and not allow themselves to slip back to their bad old ways of cowardly compromise with the oppressors of their people.
Source – Punch
