BEVERLY HILLS, April 28, (THEWILL) – The agitation for a separatist Biafra nation from Nigeria appears to have received support from an unexpected source as some Northern interests have weighed in on the side of agitators.
A coalition of 52 northern groups want the international community to persuade the Nigerian government and the United Nations to facilitate the final actualisation of an independent Biafra Republic.
While describing as empty and of no effect “threats and promises” by President Muhammadu Buhari, the CNG said that “between December 2020 and April 2021, over 970 students were abducted from their schools in the Northern part of Nigeria with a substantial number still in captivity and some violently executed.”
The spokesperson of CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, raised the views in a communiqué after an emergency meeting in Abuja.
According to him, Northern Nigeria has never experienced the present level of exposure to criminals and bandits as was currently happening under the régime of Buhari.
He said, “The CNG hereby resolves to call on our friends and the international community, the UK especially, to understand that our bilateral friendship is guided by the principles of sovereignty, promotion of peace and the standards that guide legitimate interference.
“Hence, their intervention, exclamations and actions should not be drawn to discountenance the effort of the Nigerian state to protect citizens from violence and terror.
“We finally wish to renew our request for the global community’s intervention in persuading Nigerian authorities and the United Nations to facilitate the final actualization of the Biafran dream by the Igbo.
“The world should keep in mind that by far, a destabilised Nigeria will certainly threaten the peace and security of the entire sub-Saharan Africa.
“In the South, gangs of armed IPOB militia, violent secessionists and an assortment of militant groups appear to sense a huge vacuum in the capacity and political will by the Federal Government to challenge them, which they exploit with disastrous consequences on the nation’s security assets and specifically on northern communities and individuals living as minorities in the South while the presidency wallows in deflecting the issue.”
The CNG, however, rebuked the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) over the new dimension of their agitation, saying it is “now taking a more ominous and repulsive form and context with open declaration of violence and anarchy against other parts of Nigeria and the Nigerian State.”
About the Author
