By Nwabueze Okonkwo
ONITSHA—Leader of the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, yesterday, gave what he termed as genuine reasons the United Nations should allow Biafra to be separated from Nigeria.
One of the reasons, he stated, was that the population of the former Eastern state, now South East and part of South South that make up Biafra land can currently boast of over 10 million people, adding that the Biafran people naturally do not share similar culture and tradition with Hausa-Fulani of the North and Yoruba of the South West as to continue to remain together under one country called Nigeria.
According to Uwazuruike, another reason was that MASSOB, as a separatist group, had all it takes to run a sovereign state of Biafra, having had enough instruments, structures, flag, currency, coat of arms and defence to assume a status of an existing government.
Uwazuruike, who spoke to newsmen, yesterday in Onitsha, Anambra State, through MASSOB’s Deputy National Director of Information, Mazi Chris Mocha, ahead of the on-going UN General Assembly, renewed his call on the world body to accord a recognition to Biafra as a sovereign state, just as it did to South Sudan which had been accorded a sovereign status since July 9, 2011.
He recalled that US had classified Nigeria, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan as failed states which needed to be divided between 2011 and 2015, adding that it was only from Sudan that South Sudan was carved out on July 9, 2011, remaining Nigeria, Ethiopia and Somalia.
He cited examples of carving out of East-Timor with only a population of about 821,000 from Indonesia on May 22, 2002; carving out of Serbia with a population of about 10 million from Montenegro on July 2006; carving out of South Ossertia from Georgia and carving out of Kosovo from Serbia on February 17, 2008.
He, therefore, urged UN to grant the sovereignty of Biafra to save the people from further annihilation in Nigeria since there was no basis whatsoever for Biafra people’s continued stay with Nigeria, adding, “Nigeria cannot make any appreciable economic progress until Biafra is allowed to go, particularly now that Lord Fredrick Luggard’s amalgamation of 1914 has since January 1, 2014, expired after 100 years of the amalgamation.”
He wondered why the UN had not been proactive in tackling the knotty problems of the oppressed in Nigeria and asked rhetorically: “is UN waiting till things degenerate into full blown war again or to continue as genocide before they will act?”
