Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
The Leader of Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu has said that Biafra restoration project is insurmountable.
Kanu in a Radio Biafra broadcast yesterday advised IPOB family members to maintain a high degree of discipline and defiantly get committed to the cause. He said that opposition on the way to freedom was expected but would be surmounted.
According to him, “we must neither mutate nor mortgage our blissful future and that of the upcoming Biafran generation, no matter the attraction of temporal comfort. We have come this far, staking our lives and all for this all-important project. The evolving developments in Nigeria are clear indications that we are close to the finishing line.
“Our quest for freedom started not just in the 60s or 40s but in late 20s and before that in the first decade of the 20th century. After Arochukwu fell to the British in 1904, seven sons from Aro left for Anioma to form the feared and much revered Ekumeku fraternity to continue a guerilla war against the British”.
Kanu noted that “Come Thursday 30th May 2019, Biafra’s both at home and in the diaspora, will yet defy every odd to accord our heroes and heroines both living and dead, well-deserved honour and recognition for their priceless sacrifice in the Biafra restoration struggle. This memorial will be accompanied by a total sit-at-home observance across Biafraland. The slain chose to fall that we may live and nothing less will suffice.
“This is the reason why the British will never trust us. Compare that the British take-over of the North where they were welcomed and worshipped till date. Ironically we that fought the British in the actual war ended up as Christians whereas Fulani controlled North that was subservient to the British retained and even expanded their Islamic identity.
“We are born with freedom in our DNA. We did not wake up one morning to hate Nigeria, they have always hated us. In November 1929 the British killed our mothers in Aba that dared to question their rule and punitive taxation.
“This year is the 100th anniversary of their death and those that claim they are intellectuals in Igboland have all carefully forgotten because they don’t want to offend their Fulani masters. It has fallen on IPOB again to remind the world what the heroics of our mothers mean to us today. In November this year, we shall honour them.”