President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to stop the clampdown on members of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), but should concentrate on how to end Boko Haram insurgence in the country.
The traditional ruler of Emede Ibeku Autonomous Community in Umuahia North Local Government Area, Eze Henry Ezekwem, made the call in Umuahia, and described the clampdown on MASSOB as a misplacement of priority by the federal government.
Ezekwem was of the view that the government should concentrate on how to stop the killings, destruction of life and properties of innocent and law-abiding citizens of the country, which is perpetrated by the armed Boko Haram group, instead of beaming its search light on the MASSOB group, which, he said, were agitating peacefully for a cause.
While pointing out that the country was running a democratic system of government, where citizens had the right to express their opinions, the traditional ruler noted that unlike the deadly Boko Haram group, the MASSOB does not pose any threat to human lives as they do not carry arms to agitate their cause.
“In the North there is Arewa, in the South there is Oduduwa, in the Niger Delta, we have the militants while in the South East, there is MASSOB, all crusading for a cause. MASSOB does not pose any threat to human lives.
“The Federal Government should stop the killing of members of this group as they are demonstrating peacefully without weapons and concentrate on ending Boko Haram in Nigeria. If God says he will not approve Biafra, nobody will question Him”.
Meanwhile MASSOB has declared that no amount of intimidation, arrests and killings would deter NdiIgbo from aspiring for their separate homeland in the face marginalisation and a concerted effort to decimate the Igbo people.
Spokesman of the group, Uchenna Madu, said the recent memo dispatched from the office of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to all commissioners of Police in the south-east to the effect that members of MASSOB be apprehended wherever they were found would not hold water, maintaining that all efforts to suppress the group would amount to a waste of time and resources of the government. (Daily Times)
