Kanu’s release: Ohanaeze to work with IPOB, MASSOB

• ‘No room for negotiation’

From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Awka, Magnus Eze, Abuja

The new leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, yesterday, said it will harmonise activities of pro-Biafra groups to ensure their  agitations  are not violent.

 The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation also said it will throw its weight behind detained Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader,  Nnamdi Kanu to facilitate his unconditional release.

Anambra State president of Ohanaeze, Chief Damian Okeke-Ogene, who made this known while addressing newsmen in Awka, noted that the struggle for the realisation of Biafran objective should now be a matter of using the brain and not violence.

 “Ohanaeze will strive to bridge the gap between the Indigenous People of Biafra and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) because we are not prepared to lose any life.

“Biafra is for equity, justice and fairness. The struggle for the realisation of Biafran objective, this time around, is a matter of the brain and not violence.”

Ogene further said the organisation would establish a link between it and similar bodies in other geo-cultural organisations, including churches and market leaders for all to be involved in restoring the dignity of the Igbo in Anambra State.

He said the organisation would, “among other things, reach out to law enforcement agencies and minimise conflicts between them and the people, especially with regards to extortion at checkpoints.’

“We also intend to empanel a legal team of volunteers to take care of injustices against any Igbo man and will also assemble medical experts to take care of emergency situations.”

 Meanwhile, IPOB, yesterday, said it would not enter into any form of negotiation with the Federal Government unless its leader and director of Radio Biafra, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu was released from detention.

A close confidant of the IPOB leader and co-founder of Radio Biafra, Dr. Chukwuma Ejemba, in an exclusive interview with Daily Sun after a solidarity visit to Kanu at Kuje prison, argued that there would not be negotiation when the latter was still being held by government.

He said Kanu’s position in the struggle for self-determination for Biafrans had not changed, stressing that “You can’t negotiate when somebody is under lock and key. We can only negotiate effectively, productively and constructively if he is out and when he is out.

“As a free person and leader of IPOB, he can then stand firmly without being under prison influence or confinement and be able to negotiate freely for and on behalf of the Biafran people towards actualisation of Biafra.”

The United Kingdom-based Biafra agitator also disclosed that the perceived misunderstanding between IPOB and the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) was being resolved for the two groups to work in harmony with other groups towards the realisation of independent state of Biafra.

Ejemba, who said that he did not have the opportunity to visit Kanu since he was arrested in October 2015, revealed that they discussed a lot of things, “about how he is feeling, his freedom, IPOB and the future of the Biafra restoration efforts,”

He described the discontinuation of the secret trial of Kanu and other Biafra agitators by a Federal High Court in Abuja presided over by Justice Binta Nyako as victory for IPOB.

On the recent election of Chief Nnia Nwodo as President General of the apex Igbo organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, he said that IPOB received the news with cautious happiness, revealing that Kanu had in their discussion admonished them to wait and see how the incoming leadership will operate before they will know how to relate with it.

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