The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra and a factional body of Ohanaeze Ndigbo on Monday condemned the pro-Biafra leader, Chief Ralph Uwazurike, for endorsing the Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, for the 2023 presidential election.
Uwazurike, leader of the Biafra Independence Movement, had allegedly disowned the South East Presidency project during a rally in Owerri, the Imo State capital, to draw support for Bello’s presidential aspiration.
But in separate statements, MASSOB and Ohanaeze, described Uwazurike’s action as unfortunate and a smacked betrayal as Ndigbo continued to push for a Nigerian President of ‘Igbo extraction’.
Ohanaeze in a statement issued by the President-General, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council, Mazi Okwu Nnabuike, said Uwazurike’s action was not a surprise as he had in the past jettisoned the Biafra project.
Okwu said the former MASSOB leader is known to be a man “ready to trade off himself for peanuts at every slightest opportunity.”
While he described Uwazurike as “a persona non-grata, a serial betrayer and a man who had completely lost a sense of history,” disclosed that “there were reports flying about that he did this volte-face after collecting N20 million”.
“We find it strange that he could sell his conscience just for a paltry N20m, to such an extent that a supposed pro-Biafra leader now talks so much about one Nigeria.
“However, we pity those who find anything meaningful in Uwazurike, a man who was dethroned as MASSOB leader because of the same reason. We know how he traded off the struggle in the past and was rewarded for betraying the same course he was pursuing,” the statement read.
Ohanaeze, however, cautioned Uwazurike and his likes to retrace their steps from a “destructive journey as the day of reckoning will surely come”, while maintaining that a million Uwazurike cannot stop the 2023 Igbo Presidency project.
Meanwhile, MASSOB, led by Uchenna Madu, has exonerated the group from what it described as the show of shame and reckless insensitivity of Uwazuruike and his hired Igbo youths that paraded themselves as MASSOB members in Owerri conducting a political rally for the support of Bello’s presidential ambition.
The pro-Biafra group in a statement signed by its National Director of Information, Comrade Edeson Samuel, said their members were not in the rally.
The group stated, “MASSOB has never engaged or campaigned or rallied for any politician vying for political occupation in Nigeria. Our primary duty of existence is for Biafra’s actualisation and restoration through non-violence. We can never be agitating for Biafran autonomy and at the same time romancing with the major enemies of the people of Biafra.
“MASSOB warned Ralph Uwazuruike, the leader of Biafra Independent Movement to stop parading himself as MASSOB leader, and also to stop using MASSOB for merchandise.”
Edeson explained that Uwazuruike was expelled from MASSOB in November 2015 because of corruption and betrayal of trust/ confidence.
“Ralph Uwazuruike campaigning for the governor of Kogi state against his Igbo brother is nothing but to fulfil the agreement he signed with the Hausa Fulani cabals in 2013 and also to pay for the money he received from the governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello,” the statement partly read.
