Leader of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign States of Biafra, MASSOB, Solomon Chukwu, has said that the people of the Niger Delta area and the former Eastern region are part of Biafra, and remains committed to actualize an independent state of their own.
The new MASSOB leader added that the people of Biafra cannot find peace in Nigeria until the actualization of an independent state where there will be limitless freedom to develop their land.
Chukwu who spoke through MASSOB’s National Director of Information, Sunny Okereafor, dismissed reports that the people of South South states like Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa and Cross River, are not Biafrans, adding that the former Eastern region has refused to be deceived by what he described as federal government’s divide and rule policy.
According to him,” Anybody who says that Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa and Cross River states are not part of Biafra is deceiving himself. These are Biafran territories. Biafra encompasses all the states of the former Eastern region, including Anioma clan in Delta state. It has been part of the Federal government’s divide and rule policy to tell the World that only Ndigbo want Biafra; but this is false. Do you remember Ojukwu’s second in command, Philip Effiong? Was he not from Akwa Ibom? When he was here, can anybody doubt his commitment to the actualization of Biafra?
“If you see the kind of support from the local people of Ugep, Ikom, Ogoja and adjoining areas when we held our meeting there last week at Ugep, you will be shocked. Over 2,000 people registered as MASSOB members at that meeting. In fact, from what we saw at the meeting, the people of Ogoja, Ugep and Ikom are more Biafra than even Ndigbo.”
He insisted that part of the marginalization of the former Eastern region in Nigeria is the continued detention of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, despite successive court orders, granting him bail and urged the federal government to release him.
“Nnamdi Kanu is from Eastern Nigeria; this is why he is being held despite court order. His detention is part of the larger plot to continue to marginalize our people and frustrate Biafra, but we can never be deterred. Biafra is the answer,” the MASSOB leader said.
Chukwu, who commended MASSOB’s Regional Administration for Ogoja, Rex Egberebi, for the massive mobilization of members in Ogoja, urged them to insist on the group’s non violent approach to the struggle, stressing that Biafra would soon be achieved.
