2023 General Elections: Twist, turns as court frees Nnamdi Kanu
There are indications that all is not well with the secessionist group, Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB.
This is as the highest decision making organ of the group, Directorate of State (DOS) has said that there are no plans to disrupt election in the South-East, but shortly thereafter, another group countered that position.
Videos of a breakaway member of the group, Mr Simon Ekpa, a Nigeria/Finland citizen had insisted that no election would hold in the zone.
Ekpa in a video that went viral on social media had threatened that there will be no election in the South-East in 2023, vowing that IPOB will disrupt the process.
But the media and publicity secretary of the group, Emma Powerful in a press statement last week said there is no truth in any information circulating on plans to disrupt election in Igboland.
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Powerful in the statement said: “The IPOB leadership has for the umpteenth time stated unequivocally that part of our modus operandi in our agitation for freedom has never been, is not and will not be violent agitation. This explains our consistent demand for the UN to organize a Referendum in the Biafran territory for the Biafran people to determine their destiny. To this effect, IPOB is neither contemplating nor will it encouraged or sponsor anyone or group to disrupt the Nigeria shambolic selection process called election.
“IPOB has constantly made it public that we have no interest in and cannot legitimise the aberration they call election in Nigeria. We are a focused, determined and disciplined freedom fighting movement not political thugs and IPOB is devoted to the cause of liberating our people from subjugation and from modern day slavery and Neo-colonialism and will not allow ourselves to be distracted from this very objective. If in the future IPOB Leadership decides to make further statement on the upcoming Nigeria selection process called election, we shall make such statement through our official channels.”
The above had sparked a debate about the unity in the group, as Ekpa has severally made broadcasts, in the name of IPOB, including fundraising, and has severally declared sit-at-home protest in the name of the group, which were honoured by people in the South East.
But Emma Powerful said that all utterances of Ekpa be discarded and ignored as he was neither a member of IPOB, nor had he powers to speak for the group.
Meanwhile, the discharge and acquittal of Nnamdi Kanu by the Court of Appeal on Thursday has raised mixed feelings among many. Many believe that Kanu’s release would help him to come out of detention and take a firm stand on the information he had been passing from prison through third party, he would be able to totally proclaim by himself that there would be no election boycott in the South East.
2023 General Elections: Twist, turns as court frees Nnamdi Kanu
