IPOB says President's re-election bid a "welcome development"

On Monday, April 9, Buhari officially announced his intention to seek re-election in 2019. He said he is responding to the "clamour" by Nigerians urging him to seek a second term.

IPOB spokesman, Emma Powerful, however, said the agitation for the Republic of Biafra would happen under Buhari as he described the re-election bid as goodwill for Biafrans.

Powerful said, "we have always maintained that the rebirth of Biafra will happen under Buhari or under whoever is answering to his name.

"This second coming of Buhari portends goodwill for freedom lovers because God Almighty wants to fulfill his divine purpose in the life of Biafrans in 2019 as foretold by our leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu."

He said though IPOB "has lost a lot of people" in its fight for a sovereign state of Biafra, "no amount of tribulation will stop us from emerging victorious as a free people at the end of this process."

"We urge our brethren in the Middle Belt and Western Nigeria not to give up or capitulate in this our collective quest to free our people from the shackles of caliphate domination and creeping Islamisation.

"IPOB will not relent in its pursuit of total liberation. The continued existence of this disastrous APC government is our passport to freedom", the group's spokesman added.

The Declaration

Buhari made his intention to re-run known at the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the ruling All Progressives Congress in Abuja on Monday.

The President has in the past months stated that he had not decided if he would seek a re-election but many Nigerians had speculated that he would seek re-election.

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Following the declaration, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) recorded a negative trend as the market capitalisation lost N150 billion and volume depreciated by over 42 per cent.

However, there is no evidence that the declaration was directly related to the stock market crash.