Biafra: IPOB plans live TV broadcast, massive protest

By Chimaobi Nwaiwu. 

Nnewi – The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has said that it will resume protest in it bid to free Nnamdi Kanu, Director of Radio Biafra and that it is putting in place a Television technology that it will use to broadcast live all its activities in Nigeria. IPOB also said its leader and Director of Radio Biafra, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu will no longer accept any food, including those brought by his close family members to avoid poisoning it by the Department of State Security, DSS, alleged to always scrutinize his food before allowing it in. IPOB in a statement jointly signed by its spokesmen Emma Mmezu and Dr Clifford Iroanya, said ‘many people are willing to die for Nnamdi Kanu so Buhari led All Progressives Congress Federal Government should tread carefully with the life of Mr. Kanu because hell will be let loose if anything happens to him, Nigeria will never be the same should anything untoward happens to Kanu”.

 “Our resumption of protest is imminent but for understandable reasons we can’t give you details yet. We are putting in place our TV technology so the whole world will watch it live online and gain firsthand knowledge of the brutality of the Nigerian Army. “We are IPOB and we do things in a unique way, so our next outing will shake the whole earth. The worst mistake this government did is to arrest our leader and now they are beginning to discover how formidable we are. “Death to us is nothing, freedom for Biafra is everything. 

Those governors from southeast state who have decided to bring them selves out as argent of the APC led government in Nigeria will soon know the stuff IPOB is made of at the appropriate time. “In response to what some South East Governors are doing, IPOB does not expect our elders and leaders to support us openly, we know that not all of them are trust worthy. IPOB worldwide decided to be doing and piloting this struggle without them at this point in time, till the appointed time” they said. Also “there is serious plan to kill Mr. Kanu by his persecutors who are confused on what to do about the charges they preferred against him, just as they said they will resume their protests. 

“We have advised our leader to reject every food, including those brought by close family members because the DSS that always scrutinize his food before allowing it in as might poison the food. “He will also not mix with other prisoners because we are aware that Interior Ministry officials working through the Prison Service have planted their agents pretending to be prisoners, in order to spy and report on him to DSS. “We have eyes everywhere so we get regular reports on his health status. Nigeria knows the consequences should anything happen to our leader because in every family in Biafra lands are hardcore IPOB” they said. “The bail refusal is not a problem for us because IPOB wants the trial to go ahead, so we can expose and disgrace a corrupt judicial system hamstrung by the whims of a dictator in the the present government of Nigeria” they said. 

The group alleged that “the trial Judge was hired to do a hatchet job, but he never reckoned that we will be this tenacious. As long as they want to go by the rule in this trial we welcome, it but any silly games will be resisted. “It is obvious that the Nigerian Federal Government has no case against our leader Nnamdi Kanu, hence we continue to call for his release rather than his vindictive detention. Meanwhile, the IPOB through it Media and Publicity Officer Mr. Emma Powerful has denied a local radio and television report in Anambra state that Mr. Nnamdi Kanu is begging President Muhammadu Buhari to release him. 

IPOB described the report precisely from the Anambra State owned radio and television reports as blatant lie that is calculated to destroy the name of Mr. Kanu and to give the impression that he is chicken hearted when he is not and is in high spirit to face his trumped up charges. According to Mr. Powerful to set the records straight, there no time IPOB, Mr Kanu or his lawyers wrote to Buhari, Nigerian Government or representatives of the Nigerian Government anywhere in the world begging for the release of Mr Kanu, rather IPOB through lawyer to Mr Kanu wrote the British High Commission Abuja over the injustice by Nigerian Federal Government against Mr kanu who is also a British citizen. 

In the letter through their lawyer Hon. Ifeanyi Ejiofor, titled “Nnamdi Kanu: A victim of travesty of justice and a call for British Government to be on the watch” IPOB said there is a deliberate design by the Nigerian Government to subvert the course of justice in the criminal trial of Mr. Kanu. “It is repeating the obvious to state that Mr Kanu is a full British citizen, by virtue of which position he is entitled to all rights, privileges and protections guaranteed under the British Laws and convention.

The Case For Biafra Is Stronger Than South Sudan, Kosovo – US Constitutional Lawyer Writes (READ)

Constitutional attorney Bruce Fein | Gage Skidmore

​Biafra, dominated by the great Igbo race, enjoyed sovereignty before Great Britain commenced exploitive colonial rule over Nigeria under the racist banner of Rudyard Kipling’s “the White Man’ burden.” Britain asserted authority over Biafra based on the tyrannical doctrine that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

​The Berlin West Africa Conference, 1884-85, and the Berlin General Act symbolized colonial lawlessness by treating Africa as a carcass to be divided up among European vultures.
​Restoration of Biafra’s sovereignty is justified under international law and practice—especially with the ongoing ethnic-inspired killings and persecutions of Biafans by Nigeria’s elected military dictator from the North touting sharia law, President Muhammdu Buhari.

Biafra’s sovereignty journey will require deft international diplomacy and the marshalling of widespread popular support from Biafrans and their resources. Power is never voluntarily surrendered. Rights ultimately are what you are willing to fight and die for.

​Prior to British colonization in 1906, the great Igbo people to the East of Niger, numbering some 3 million, and their cognate tribes enjoyed decentralized self-government. They were not living in a state of nature. Their self-rule came by force of arms—not voluntarily.

In 1900, the British government assumed responsibility for the Royal Niger Company’s territories, and formed the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, the Niger Coast Protectorate and the Lagos Colony Protectorate territories. 1913 witnessed the amalgamation of Nigeria into three administrative areas: the crown colony of Lagos and the Protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria.
​In 1960, Britain ended its colonization of Nigeria without reference to the Igbo or any other peoples of Nigeria entitled to self-determination. The Nigeria Independence Act established Nigerian territorial boundaries not by popular referendum or other reliable manifestations of self-determination of peoples, but according to the Nigeria’s Orders in Council, 1954 to 1960. They reflected British selfish maneuvers to dominate Nigeria economically.

Britain’s failure to offer Biafrans the right to self-determination violated the United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples adopted on 14 December 1960. Paragraph 5 of the Declaration required that immediate steps be taken by the colonial power “to transfer all powers to the peoples of those [colonized] territories…in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire…in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom.” The 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations emphasized that, “By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right freely to determine without external interference their political status….”

The people of Biafra—recognized as distinct by British colonial authorities—were never provided an opportunity to vote for complete independence and freedom from the rest of Nigeria according to their freely expressed will and desire. They were never consulted on the subject when Nigeria became independent in 1960. Further, the 1960 Constitution of Nigeria was never approved by the people of Biafra in a referendum or otherwise. And neither has any subsequent Nigerian Constitution, including the current version decreed by a military dictator in 1999.

​In sum, the British decolonized Nigeria in violation of international law by failing to transfer power to the peoples of Biafra in accordance with their freely expressed will.

​That violation was not a technicality, but an affront to a fundamental human right. All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Consent is required to legitimate authority and to forestall external subjugation, oppression, persecution, or even genocide fueled by tribal, sectarian, ethnic, or megalomaniacal ambitions or hatreds.

​After independence from Britain, Nigeria soon became a charnel house for Biafrans. Deprived of their right to self-determination, they were left to the tender mercies of the Hausa-Fulani of the North and the Yoruba of the South in a unitary state unsuited for its diverse tribal, ethnic, and religious landscape. The gruesome 1967-1970 Biafran War was emblematic. Ethnic-based massacres of Biafrans and countless starving children who died as little more than skeletons was its grim face. The horrors suffered by Biafrans gave birth to the first modern international relief effort to lessen unspeakable misery.

​At the war’s conclusion, Nigeria’s General Yakuba Gowon’s sloganeered, “No victor, no vanquished.” The words proved a cruel hoax. The Igbo were marginalized, persecuted as traitors, and subjected to a Northern political yolk. Under incumbent Nigerian elected military dictator Buhari, the repression of the Igbo have reached new heights featuring indiscriminate killings, torture, and detentions without trial.
​Last March, for instance, 13 Biafrans were murdered and their corpses burnt to ashes and dumped in a burrow pit located in the area of Aba-Port Harcourt Road in Abia State by suspected Buhari agents. Last February, a team of Buhari’s Army, Navy, and Police and gunned down 22 Biafrans protesting Buhari’s detention of Biafran leader Prince Nnamdi Kanu.

​A complete chronicle of Buhari’s horrors only would numb by repetition.

​The point is that there is no political remedy for Biafra’s suffering—like an abused wife in a forced marriage—short of self-determination to regain its sovereignty that was illegally extinguished by the British and never surrendered after decolonization.

​States born from longstanding repression of peoples by ruling authorities are part of the woof and warp of international law or custom. Think of Bangladesh, Namibia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, East Timor, Eritrea, and Kosovo.

​The case for Biafran sovereignty is as strong or stronger as these precedents.
​But to succeed, Biafrans will need to organize, unify, and make their case to the United Nations Security Council, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the African Union, the European Union, and the United States.

​If they do not all hang together, they might all come to hang separately.

Bruce Fein is an American constitutional lawyer and author. He tweets from @brucefeinesq.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.