IPOB Kicks against Pro-Buhari Rally, Warns of Dire Consequences
Emmanuel Ugwu
The planned solidarity rally for President Muhammadu Buhari billed for Awka, Anambra State has continued to cause controversy with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) yesterday urging Governor Willie Obiano and members of the Anambra APC to scrap it.
IPOB expressed its disgust at the rally in a statement issued by the head media and publicity, Emma Powerful, warning that there would be “incalculable consequences” if the organizers of the rally went ahead with it as people were bound to react.
“It smacks of crass insensitivity that certain Igbo speaking people in desperate need of money to feed their children at these austere times, would go as far as planning to shamelessly hold a rally in support of this Buhari administration that has killed and abducted over 1,000 Biafran men and women,” IPOB said.
In a related development, the President General of the Ndigbo apex organisation, the Ohanaeze, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, picked holes in the Chief of Army Staff, Lt General TY. Buratai’s inquiry into the alleged killing of members of IPOB and the MASSOB by troops of the Nigeria Army.
The group said that given the human rights abuses committed by the Buhari administration which were confirmed by reports by Amnesty International, INTERSOCIETY, Human Rights Watch, and Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), anybody organising a solidarity rally for Buhari is looking for trouble.
IPOBfurthercitedthe“militarisation of Igbo speaking parts of Biafraland (and) the illegal detention of Nnamdi Kanu the leader of IPOB as enough reasons why nobody should contemplate a solidarity rally for the president in the South-east zone.
“We would like to warn those behind this show of shame to retrace their steps or face the consequences of their greedy actions,” the statement said, adding that “it was in the same Anambra State that Buhari ordered his Nigerian Army led by Brigadier General Tukur Buratai to massacre hundreds of defenceless IPOB rally goers at Nkpor and Onitsha Head-bridge with scores missing, presumed dead.”
The Biafra restoration group noted that a solidarity rally for Buhari was at variance with the mood in the South-east zone that has remained marginalised and deprived under the present administration.
“Whoever came up with this idea of holding a rally in Anambra State in support of Buhari who has not hidden his hatred and genocidal intent towards Biafrans in general and Igbos in particular, must have his brain examined.
“That a few persons, perhaps out of financial desperation considering the extreme hunger in the land, dreamt of rallying to support an unrepentant mass murderer like Buhari, shows the level of moral decay at the heart of leadership in Anambra State and Igboland in general,” IPOB said.
IPOB sternly warned that “any person or group of persons stupid enough to come out to rally for Buhari on the 10th of March 2017, should be prepared “to take whatever they see”, adding, “we have discovered the shocking fact that certain immoral Buhari agents in Anambra State supposedly announced the availability of the sum of 300,000,000.00) to be shared amongst those foolish enough to attend the proposed rally.