THE Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has asked those clamouring for restructuring of Nigeria to read Section 9 of the 1999 constitution and find out that such venture is virtually impossible.
In a statement signed by Comrade Emma Powerful, Media and Publicity Secretary of IPOB, in response to the meeting of South Eastern leaders in Enugu, weekend, the group said Section 9 of the 1999 constitution midwifed by General Abdulsalami Abubakar was intended to make slaves of every part of Nigeria except the North.
Part of the statement reads, “Most surprising of all in the communiqué (issued by South Eastern leaders after their meeting) was their display of ignorance of the fact that their plea for restructuring is dead on arrival because of the stringent and pro-North conditions stipulated in Section 9 of the constitution upon which any successful restructuring must be anchored.
“We strongly advise those who are clamouring for restructuring to go and read Section 9 of the constitution and carry out simple computation of two-thirds of the number of state Houses of Assembly, members of Senate, and members of House of Representatives.”
The group said it has resolved to approach the United Nations to mandate and supervise a referendum that would usher in the sovereign nation of Biafra and that it was convinced that “the restoration of the nation of Biafra is a divine project whose time has come and therefore, unstoppable, unquenchable, irreversible and irrevocable.”
As for the position of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and South East governors, IPOB argued that that body could not represent Biafra because Biafra’s geographical jurisdiction exceeded the territory under which both bodies held sway.
The IPOB said, “It is on record that Ohanaeze is purely an ethnic-based voluntary socio-cultural organisation restricted to only the Igbo-speaking people of the old Eastern region of Nigeria.
“Similarly, the lame duck governors of the unconstitutional South East oversee only some Igbo-speaking areas of the old Eastern region.
“On the contrary, the nation of Biafra covers 10 states that were carved out of the old Eastern and Midwestern regions with the addition of Biafra communities in Edo, Benue, and Kogi states.”
For these reasons, IPOB urged Biafrans to ignore the communiqué issued by the leaders on the basis that they are not qualified to speak for Biafra, saying that at the end, it is the people that will decide what they want.
Still carpeting Ohanaeze and the governors of the South East states, IPOB said, “In the said communiqué, Ohanaeze and the lame duck governors affirmed their support for a united Nigeria, a British-created contraption.
“They craved for an egalitarian and a Utopian society within the context of social and ethno-religious equity in Nigeria but they forgot that Nigeria is a ranking member of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), which contradicts section 10 of the Abdulsalami Abubakar-written fraudulent constitution of Nigeria.”
They described the communiqué issued at the end of the Ohanaeze meeting as “shameful, disgraceful and cowardly. “
