Mar. 25, 2014
Saharareporters, New York
The Director of Radio Biafra in the UK, Nnamdi Kanu says delegates at the ongoing National Conference should negotiate for a secession of Biafra or face the wrath of the Igbo people. He said inasmuch as he respects the freedom of people to converge and speak their minds, the right of the people of south-eastern Nigeria to form their own nation should also be respected.
Speaking in an interview with SaharaTV’s Rudolf Okonkwo over the weekend, Nnamdi Kanu posited that the national conference is a waste of time since the same people who created the problems of Nigeria are the ones converging ostensibly to seek a solution. He slurred the delegates representing the Igbo people and threatened them not to return to Igboland if they fail to negotiate a secession from the Nigerian federation.
“If they fail to give us Biafra, Somalia will look like a paradise compared to what will happen to that zoo. It is a promise, it is a pledge and it is also a threat to them” he portended. “If they do not give us Biafra, there will be nothing living in that very zoo they call Nigeria; nothing will survive there, I can assure you” Mr. Kanu added.
He further alleged that the governors in Igboland are lackeys of ‘Hausa-Fulani godfathers’ appointed by them to do their bidding. He was particularly critical of Imo State governor Rochas Okorocha who he accused of singlehandedly islamizing the state. “Every Igbo governor you have has a Hausa-Fulani godfather”, the broadcaster said.
Mr. Kanu also slammed the idea of a peaceful approach to gaining a Biafran independence saying peace never works in the fight for liberation. “I do not believe in peaceful actualization or whatever rubbish it is called. I have never seen where you become free by peaceful means” he suggested. He said statistics available to him indicates that over 98% of Igbos support a Biafran secession because every Igbo has freedom embedded in their DNA.
He complained that the structures for negotiating an independent Biafra does not exist thus leaving them no choice but to resort to the current approach they are embarking on. He therefore lent support for the attack on the Enugu State Government House recently, which was claimed by the Biafra Zionist Movement. “Anybody that can do anything to disrupt the present orthodoxy of governance by a group of very corrupt cabals is welcome” he said.
Biafra was the name given to the secessionist state in the south-eastern part of Nigeria from May 1967 to January 1970, when natives of the region led by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu opted to break away from the Nigerian federation. After two and a half years of a bitter war which claimed the lives of an estimated 1 million people however, Biafra was reintegrated into the Nigerian federation. The inhabitants of the region are loosely referred to as Igbos, Ibibio-Efiks, Ijaws, Ogojas etc. but anthropologists point to a complex inter-relationship of several other ethnicities all connected by common ancestry.