Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has planned a sit-at-home event, which the organization described as first of its kind in its history to commemorate the 41st anniversary of the declaration of the sovereign State of Biafra.

The event, slated for May 30 and 31, according to Onitsha Regional Administration (equivalence of a Governor, they said), Mrs Virginia Ubazuonu, will force business activities, markets, schools and offices to close within the Eastern region and beyond to observe the anniversary.


Mrs Ubazuonu assured that the event will be non-violent as directed by Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, the national leader of the MASSOB.

She said the anniversary is also to persuade the Federal Government to release all MASSOB activists still in detention “as they are agitating for their right”.
A press statement issued by MASSOB at a press briefing read in part: “The state organized killing of Ndigbo started in Northern part of Nigeria in 1953, during the agitation for Nigeria’s independence. The massacre continued in January and July of 1966, in most parts of the North and indeed Western Nigeria. That also resulted in the Biafra/Nigeria civil war of 1967-1970.”

MASSOB said that since the end of the civil war, there has been no end to the genocide against Ndigbo arising from religious crisis, especially in the North.
“Irrespective of the non-violent approach of MASSOB, the Nigerian government has continued its genocide against our people. From May 22, 2000 to April 22, 2008, more than 2000 registered members of MASSOB in various cities in Nigeria were killed by Nigerian security personnel. It is believed that unrecorded causalities may be higher than that,” the organization said.

The movement added that more than one thousand members of MASSOB were languishing at various prisons in Nigeria for quite a long time now. It appeals to international community and other Nigerians to persuade Nigerian government to respect the inalienable right of MASSOB members to agitate for their freedom through non-violent means.

“We believe that no amount of hardship and danger will deny us this right,” MASSOB concluded.
According to Mrs Ubazuonu all the five states in the Eastern zone, South South and Igbo in Diaspora are involved in the anniversary, which she said nobody can stop.